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CryptoSeal Shuts Down Consumer VPN Service To Avoid Fighting NSA
sl4shd0rk writes "CryptoSeal Privacy, a VPN provider, has closed down its consumer VPN service. The company says it has zeroed its crypto keys, adding, 'Essentially, the service was created and operated under a certain understanding of current U.S. law, and that understanding may not currently be valid. As we are a US company and comply fully with U.S. law, but wish to protect the privacy of our users, it is impossible for us to continue offering the CryptoSeal Privacy consumer VPN product.' The announcement ends with a warning: 'For anyone operating a VPN, mail, or other communications provider in the U.S., we believe it would be prudent to evaluate whether a pen register order could be used to compel you to divulge SSL keys protecting message contents, and if so, to take appropriate action.' Sounds like another victim of FISA-endorsed NSA activity."
You are not going to have much advanced IT business left over there soon if this goes on.
I hope that when american corporations start seeing their customers scared away by this 1984 crap they'll turn their lobbying powers to reverse the trend.
Isn't this how politics work in the US, the country that legalized bribery?
We've got technology businesses shutting down their services because they are now afraid of (i.e.: terrorized by) their own government?
Did the terrorists actually win this war on terror?
The effect of this is to remove secure competitors from the market and force users onto overseas services.
Fixed that for you.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
For anyone operating a VPN mail or other communications in any country you should consider that your government can compel you to produce information.
This intellectual exercise has been done a long time ago by those who looked a little deeper than you. It's why there were crazy ideas such as offshore data havens.
In the end, you can't really do anything about it. The government your company is under (at the very least, maybe other entities too) can compel you. So now it's just a matter of which government you're least worried about.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
You ain't going to do anything. Just shut the fuck up and go back to dreaming about doing something in the face of tyranny.
The end result seems to be in line with general terrorism. Cause enough fear and confusion in your enemy until they change or give up.
As a side to this.. at least it tells us something...
they can't break the crypto.
This, though maybe not in SeaLand.
The first country that offers verifiably secure email and VPN services to the world will enjoy an economic boom and the love of billions. And if it's a country like Iceland, it could go a long way toward making them wealthy. And if the US decides to invade Iceland, then at least the gloves can come off and the world can declare the United States a rogue state. But I don't see that happening, because at some point, if the rest of the world really starts to turn sour on the US, you'll start to see things change over here. But as long as we have to cover of the EU and Asia as our allies, the US spymasters can pretend that all is well. But with every week there's a new revelation about a president of a free country having their email hacked by the NSA, maybe we're closer to a worldwide shunning than we think.
I'd gladly pay for secure email that I knew was beyond the reach of the upskirting creeps in the NSA. And I would love to be able to pay a place like Iceland, Finland, etc for that privilege.
No one who values freedom, economic, social or just the freedom to not be watched, should be quiet about this. Me, I've become a one-issue voter thanks to the revelations about what the NSA is up to. Any legislator who voted against reining in those bastards is now on my list to support any opponent who will vote to put a stop to ubiquitous surveillance in the US.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Old spies were Sean Connery. New spies are Daniel Craig.
What the hell? Why would I trust ANY country, or for that matter ANY third party with my encryption codes? I generate them myself, keep them to myself and never disclose them to the government or to any business.
The first country that offers verifiably secure email and VPN services to the world will enjoy an economic boom and the love of hundreds, maybe thousands.
FTFY, because billions of people just don't really care that much to do anything about it.
If you're going to move yourself and your contacts to a system incompatible with plain old email, why not just start using GPG (or even S/MIME)? Why choose a "solution" where you have no choice but to trust a third party (who you've never even met, in a foreign country, with opaque practices and facilities)?
With GPG, nobody but you and your contact can decrypt the messages. If you add in a third party, they can now decrypt the messages too. You're adding points of failure this way, not making fewer of them! Why on earth would you even trust the provider? Why would you choose a system where you have to?
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
http://xkcd.com/538/
Only works if you actually know the password.
Don't remember the password, use a token like a USB flash key. If they take the laptop without the key then it's useless, if you smash the key then it's also useless.
No, this won't stop them from torturing you anyway, but on the other hand, they might pick up the wrong person who didn't actually own the laptop and torture them instead. This is the great thing about torture: it's only useful to confirm what you already know, not to extract anything new; there's no way to tell if someone is lying because you haven't broken them yet or lying because they don't know anything but really want the pain to stop.
"This is just cheating, pure and simple."
It is illegal, pure and simple.
Since several crypto companies have in fact closed down, affecting thousands (at least) of people, we can come to some basic conclusions.
First, we have proof that the NSA spying has had the effect of chilling otherwise legal, free speech.
Second: we now have thousands of people who have provable legal standing to sue the government over it.
#1 prison population in the world; and with a moderate population density too!
#1 military, #1 spy system (by size) and both are actively used.
Secret tapping of citizens phones,etc with a massive cover up (seriously, does anybody believe them after all that they did when they say "it's only meta data?") Almost more surveillance than a classic police state (it's just missing your neighbors turning against you.)
Uncivilized prison system (many but not all; but the society is taught to believe and accept the known conditions. The system keeps the public from knowing about the horrible things... such as 12 year olds in adult prison with their rapist's name carved into their skin, for example.)
Self exempted from most international laws. Pre-emptive wars, bribing, blackmailing corrupting foreign governments...(wikileaks put that stuff on paper) Killing or arresting or persecuting anybody on earth without respect for laws / jurisdictions (doesn't matter what you do, if you go to a safe nation the idea was you were safe when sovereignty was respected... not that it was all that highly regarded; but it's just openly dismissed today.)
Police in most schools; more coming. Children arrested and processed as criminals for being children --in school; handcuffs on 8 year olds. Teens executed as adults. Adults executed... just like in China and Iran do. Teens tweeting being prosecuted for bullying outside of school...
People generally afraid to express a wide range of "controversial" opinions not on the unofficial acceptability list. Obama a Muslim? that is ok. Telling on the bankers? nothing, if you harm them, jail time (but perhaps a big IRS reward...for afterwards...)
Every police state has two systems-- one to go soft on the elite and one for everybody else. We have that situation too.
Right to Peaceable Assemble? Result? Beat downs, false incrimination and nobody really cares; you'd think nobody ever reads past "free press" and that the other one "bear arms"... whatever, pass me a beer.
Free speech and free press? Allowed but rendered nearly ineffectual which is why those are allowed.
In Italy we call that "mafia". That is, paying criminals against your will, to protect you from themselves and other bad guys.
No internet based company should be headquartered in the US.
Fighting against your own government/leaders who are enemies of your country, is not the same as fighting against your country. It's still fighting for your country.
To me it is more patriotic than killing people in some other country.
If more people around the world did that sort of thing there would be much less need to kill people of other countries.
That said I'm not a big fan of patriotism. Seems to cause more harm than good.