Two Providers of Secure E-Mail Shut Down

[jacquesm]

" Mike Janke, Silent Circle’s chief executive, said in a telephone interview late Thursday that his company had destroyed its server. “Gone. Can’t get it back. Nobody can,” he said. “We thought it was better to take flak from customers than be forced to turn it over.”

That guy has brass balls. It may very well be that this will be interpreted as obstruction of justice, there is a specific element in there about destroying evidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice

[nikcub]

The reason why he destroyed it now is so that he doesn't face obstruction of justice charges later. He realized they were coming, one way or another.

A lot of lawyers advise that the only and best time to destroy evidence is before it becomes evidence.

[binarymax]

I wonder if they destroyed it before it was part of an investigation? It may have been preemptive to avoid that scenario when the Feds eventually did come knocking on the door.

Edit - yes that looks to be the case. From their blog: We see the writing the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail now. We have not received subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else by any government, and this is why we are acting now.

[filipmaertens]

What he did was equally an act of heroism (in face of Internet history) and stupidity (in face of his own life). Perhaps, he should just have wiped and destroyed the disks, and have it "seemed like a system crash at a bad timing" caused it :)

[mtgx]

Why would it be if there was no on going investigation that they were made aware of (officially)? I think they are smarter than that. This seems like a pre-emptive move.

[return0]

But they weren't being prosecuted, how is that obstruction? How would they prove that it was "evidence"?

[guard-of-terra]

This is officially Iran level of government-busdiness interaction guys.

US seems to have state religion now, that is State Security. Sin and get destroyed. Reminds me of USSR in that regard.

[shiven]

"State Security" as defined by a handful of war-mongers living in the past and bent upon visiting its ghosts on the present, and sadly, the future generation.

[tootie]

So long as they are doing this to target legitimate national security threats, it isn't. There is no filter on free speech nor any hint that one might be coming. Right now it's just overzealous prosecution that is nipping at the 4th amendment. The 1st amendment is secure for now.

[eliasmacpherson]

A slashdot commenter put this up a few weeks ago, it's worthwhile viewing for an hour - you can get an idea of what the providers are going through. There's a good interview with an archive.org employee around who also received one, and tried to resist in his capacity as a librarian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C25EkdWLU1k

[mtgx]

I remember that guy. I think he was the first to fight an NSL, and to make it so you can tell your lawyer about NSL's.

He also tried to crowdfund a very privacy-oriented ISP a while ago, but he could only do it on IndieGoGo, and it was very new at the time, and I don't think he completed the goal.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57412225-281/this-internet...

[philip1209]

In response to these email shutdowns, I propose a PGP key signing party in SOMA tomorrow.

[sker]

Reminds me of when they took Megaupload down. There was a domino effect where a lot of torrent and file sharing sites decided to pack their things and go home.

First the file sharers, then the secure emails. I wonder who's going to be next? The reddits? The HNs?

[philip1209]

I think it's just going to lead to decentralization. More, smaller fish.

[bredren]

How did Silent Circle become a "major secure email service provider?" Lavabit launched in 2004. Silent Circle launched "Silent Mail" four months ago.

I don't see how SC's action belongs in the same sentence as what Lavabit was forced to do.

[SODaniel]

Lavabit was a much more "under the radar" provider. Silent circle has gained huge traction since they started and provide secure Phone, SMS and mail services. They may not be "equal" but silent circle is certainly more of a high profile target.

[shocks]

This is why I setup my own email server...

Here is a great guide for anyone interested: https://www.exratione.com/2012/05/a-mailserver-on-ubuntu-120...

I set mine up on CentOS 5 using this guide. I would recommend you also look at DKIM signing and SPF records to improve deliverability! :)

[rgbrenner]

email is not encrypted... they'll just have your hosting provider or ISP copy your email when it's received/sent

[tghw]

It seems like there's an opportunity for a PGP mail forwarder, a service that encrypts all incoming mail and then forwards it without saving anything in the process. I'd pay bitcoins for that.

[__alexs]

This sounds totally useless as a 3rd party service due to how obvious a target it would be but a simple encrypting proxy or MTA config would be pretty useful for self hosted setups.

[mknits]

It's a victory of NSA-US govt. over the efforts of EFF and similar organizations. We must continue this fight to safeguard our future.

Here are two free and secure email providers who keep themselves up only by donations:

1. https://openmailbox.org

2. https://autistici.org

[gphilip]

Previous discussion on OpenMailbox: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6174603

[gregd]

There's also: https://www.cotse.net/

[chadillac83]

SSL errors on the 2nd... seems... worrisome.

[Spearchucker]

Obama is willing to deprive his constituents of their bread and butter to enforce surveillance. Un. Fucking. Believable.

This is in no way Schadenfreude, but it does provide an opportunity for countries with more transparency, or less appetite for strong-arming their people.

[raverbashing]

The question is, why is this "secure email" safer? Apparently, not as safe as some people assumed.

Focus on security on the ends, not on the middle.

[camino020]

Interesting to see talk about what is legal and what is not. Think about this: Everything Hitler did in the Nazi Germany was legal.

How about a law that classifies tracking or stalking on the internet is the same as in person, therefore illegal?

[jonahx]

> Taken together, the closures signal that e-mails, even if they are encrypted, can be accessed by government authorities and that the only way to prevent turning over the data is to obliterate the servers that the data sits on.

Can someone explain to me how this is possible? Or is this inaccurate?

[Zigurd]

That's probably inaccurate. It is likely that the problem Lavabit faced was being required to transmit malware to their customers.

[bhitov]

I think it is inaccurate. The concerns of lavabit and silent circle seemed to be about unencrypted email.

[kayoone]

Hm, i wonder why Silent Circle just went ahead and shutdown their relativly young and unknown mailservice without any clear reason other than to use the opportunity to do get some publicity for their other secure services.

Lavabit was alot bigger than Silent Circle and this announcement seems a bit suspicious to me. I might me totally wrong, but going ahead and shutting down the service on the same day a popular competitor does without any clear reason while at the same time embracing their other still running services seems a bit strange to me.

[eliasmacpherson]

I don't think 'any news is good news' applies to secure services providers. It will not make other offerings more appealing. Why bother with a provider that has to resort to this kind of behaviour to protect its customers?

[zem]

as someone who (wisely or unwisely) depends on my email account as an online datastore, the prospect of it just shutting down overnight and my losing everything is terrifying. which probably means it's time to start some sort of active backup mechanism, but more to the point i do wonder if any of lavabit's or silent circle's clients ran into the same predicament.

[serf]

snowden used lavabit?

it shouldn't, but it makes me more confident in my choice of lavabit.

good thing I didnt use webmail.