Lavabit returning in 19 days
lavabit.com
lavabit.com
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but I don't understand how anyone could trust Lavabit to either stick around or actually be private and/or secure.
Maybe a heterogenous bunch if them so you'd have to crack all of them to get all messages.
You could periodically reset them in case they still get infected.
You could add a transparant proxy that specifically looks for odd, repeated requests, to detect re-infectations.
You'd set up alerts for attempts at communication/scanning from those servers, to detect virusses trying to move laterally between the different instances, and/or isolate them from eachother on the network layer.
You could have a separare hardware device that scans the memory of these servers to detect tampering.
It could also try to detect "plaintextness" and abort as soon as it detects that, so you only have the beginning of the message in memory.
This doesn't help when the ISP is recording (and it probably is), but it makes it very hard to retrieve the data from inside the email datacenter.
Just have them rebuild themselves from ROM after each processed mail :)
There's no way to stop a user's contacts sending plaintext emails for all the ISP's/intelligence agencies to see, but you can make sure you touch them as little as possible when they do arrive (see GP) and discourage those contacts from doing it again by not delivering/returning error codes.
Unless you drop SMTP altogether. I think Riot with E2E is looking pretty good, but it's not been hardened at all.
Then don't put your users at risk by using SMTP.
>The techniques I mentioned are to reduce the risk of these (partial) plaintexts being captured, but should be paired with a refusal to deliver.
Techniques you mentioned are nothing more than pointless showmanship, which you'll cease as soon as the government asks you to.
>There's no way to stop a user's contacts sending plaintext emails for all the ISP's/intelligence agencies to see
Which is why you shouldn't put them in a situation where they will inevitably do so.
>Unless you drop SMTP altogether.
If you're going to launch a service that advertises secure communications, you have to. Otherwise you're just endangering your users, just like lavabit did.
We're not talking hypotheticals here. Lavabit already fucked over their users trying to pull silliness like this.
Yeah, well, who is your adversary?
I assume NSA and GCHQ by default just log all SMTP traffic. Especially the ones to services like these.
If your adversary is someone sniffing your unencrypted WiFi connection, they'll have your unencrypted e-mail like this one as well.
If your adversary is network and sysadmins who run your SMTP server then all bets are off. I think the danger lies, just like within Tor, that there's a mole in such a team who does harm while being undetected.
If you're protecting against the local authorities ensuring to get a remote, secure connection with a country who isn't playing along with your local authorities is key. Which is why Putin wants Russians to use local services.
You can't rely on your ability to block them either, or you'll end up just like lavabit did.
They could also setup a P2P delivery & backup system so that it's not guaranteed they have the data. If all the data is encrypted, it's not really an issue to distribute everything (but then again we'd be talking AES512 or better for something crazy like that).
Also, if you have a way to break AES512 I know some people who'd pay a killing to get that information. No litterally there's people who'd kill for that.
They could encrypt with two(or more) 256bits keys, but I think just 256bits key is enough for at least next 5years.
I think also everyone is pretty sure quantum computing won't break AES, but maybe there's some weakness in the S/P boxes that quantum computers can exploit, who knows. That's the fun in crypto, you can't prove that anything other than OTP is unbreakable.
This proof is present in Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" if someone wants source.
Well, depending on the theory the universe isn't even supposed to have any net sum, but regardless: even at the Landauer limit (at room temperature; it scales linearly to absolute temp) it would take an awful lot of energy to do the computation non-reversibly, about:
2**256 * 256 * 2.5 zJ
~ 8e+58 J
And any computer built so far is still far, far away from the Landauer limit.
There is also Bremermann's limit which is an intrinsic limit on the processing speed per mass. Eg. a machine that traverses a 256 bit key space in 15 years with one one bit operation per traversed key must weight at least ~1.8e+21 grams, which would be quite a chunk of machinery.
This just goes to show that brute-forcing 256 bits is simply not going to happen with any civilization that isn't able to harness the power of at least one star.
That doesn't say anything about cryptanalysis, though. I think with an algorithm like AES, which has been analysed a great many times, that it's becoming less likely that there is a cryptanalytic breakthrough. It might be the case that AES will remain secure throughout the information age.
"We can't implement "AES 512 key size" because AES is defined for key sizes k∈{128,192,256} bits only; much like we can't make a bicycle with 3 wheels."
[0] http://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/20253/why-we-cant-...
Otherwise you're just trusting that you've not been served backdoored JS by order of an NSL.
There's no need for this (anymore). You're already allowed to disclose (coarsely) the number of NSL you've received[1].
[1]: https://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/366201412716018407...
> You can't force someone to say something in the US can you?
Unclear. The EFF believes you can't be compelled to lie, however you should consult an attorney with details of the specifics.
Here is how I am parsing it:
The Office of the Attorney General proposes two options:
1. Separate category reports for NSL, FISA content, and FISA non-content requests and customers affected.
2. A single report for all NSL and FISA requests, and a report for customers affected.
If you want to distinguish between the different kind of request (category 1) then you can report in blocks of 1,000, while if you don't, you can report in blocks of 250.
This always sounded fishy to me. When a NSL is served, they order you to keep silent about it, so you can't tell e.g. your own CISO. But if the CISO comes and asks, you're not ordered to lie and say you haven't received one? So if the CISO just asks you every morning, the NSL's order of keeping silent is defeated? I can't believe the courts and the executive that support NSLs in the first place would allow such a loophole.
The point being made upthread is that there is no black and white guidance, there is no secret NSL Guide Book for attornies.
The FBI does in fact has some guidance that your attorney will be able to locate[1]
[1]: https://vault.fbi.gov/National%20Security%20Letters%20%28NSL...
Secondly, the FBI can serve an NSL to the CEO, a separate one to the CISO, and so on down the chain to the tech people whose job would be to fulfill the order. They can choose to serve one or some or all of these orders, and they can order some served people to cooperate and others to keep silent or lie to one another. It's not feasible to expect all of these people, some of whom are not officers of the company, to consult lawyers.
Something important to understand is that non-disclosure is not an automatic feature of the NSL, but that disclosure binds the parties to the terms in the NSL.
[1]: https://vault.fbi.gov/National%20Security%20Letters%20%28NSL...
> Secondly, the FBI can serve an NSL to the CEO, a separate one to the CISO, and so on down the chain to the tech people whose job would be to fulfill the order
Yes, they can, however that's not what happens. The general council may advise the CEO to disclose certain requirements or aspects of the NSL to the CISO or to other parties for the purposes of complying with the NSL. They will almost certainly not recommend disclosing or distributing the NSL "down the chain to the tech people".
I meant they might target the tech people directly from the start - or someone who isn't a C-level executive, anyway - if they think the CxOs would go to a lawyer and the lower level people would just comply.
Lavabit LLC - Dallas TX and Colo4, LLC - St Louis MO.
(Insert your own joke here about Americans not caring about mass surveillance...)
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Over 200+ free scripts here!
Modified by Robert M. Kuhnhenn, D.O.
on 5/30/2006 to count down to a specific date AND time,
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https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/two-factor-aut...
Second, how well does that master passphrase plus local local key work for you when you are not on your laptop or when possibly using an untrusted computer?
Are you just trolling? Two factor authentication is not buzzword.
They say they do not store keys.
> They can only handover encrypted data.
Nonsense. They could using additional installed software[1] or even their upstream ISPs could netflow/tcpdump the SMTP traffic. If the data is unencrypted coming in the door, you should assume it is always unencrypted.
I would not advise anyone to use these kinds of solutions -- they cannot offer any actual security guarantees and it is akin to walking around with a bullseye on your chest.
[1]: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-nsa-exclusive-idUSKC...
From memory, netflow is only the connection info (eg source/dest/byte count), and doesn't include any of the transferred data itself. Unless you were meaning straight tcpdump which could grab payload data.
Email is commonly sent over TLS too, which I think (though it's been a while) can be configured as mandatory on servers. eg not accepting unencrypted email
That doesn't mean this is what's happening here, I'm just pointing out it can be done. :)
However the thing that decrypts the TLS jacket isn't the user's key.
Might as well not be there for some threat models.
protonmail is one of the worst in that regard with only 5 aliases on a regular subscription.
I get that it's a legitimate POV that PGP has been proven to be unworkable (although I still don't see why a well-designed client integration wouldn't work). But e-mail is a wonderful, open ecosystem and it's already fighting against the onslaught of proprietary services like FB messenger, slack, iMessage etc. – all of which restrict access to it to approved clients if they allow them at all.
Email is a great and open system though. Horrible in many ways, but also wonderful.
And yes, email has all sorts of problems, although I'd argue that since the spam problem has essentially been solved none of those actually impact the end user anymore. I'd only wish that it were easier/possible to securely run your own mail server.
On the web side of things, it also appears as if we've gotten to a point where it's easy for the vendors (Google/Apple/MS) to innovate without threatening openness. I'd wish we'd be in the same situation for messaging/mail.
Tell that to the Indian recruiters who flood my mailbox.
Yes, but beware, does not support local (encrypted) backups. If their servers disappear for whatever reason (DDOS, legal issues, hardware problems,...) you end up with 0 e-mails. Nothing.
If they now added whatever the state-of-the-art is for a service such as this, wouldn't that create quite a compelling service?
i agree with that...
Although it seems 'incompetence' instead of 'evilness', he still provided a service which was not safe by design: https://moxie.org/blog/lavabit-critique/
Right, but that wouldn't be e-mail, and this seems to be e-mail. He made the decision to shut down e-mail accounts (including mine!) to prevent data leakage and that is not a decision that anyone should be forced to make; it is a deficiency of the system.
I am looking forward to trying darkmail, or whatever they're branding it as now.
We'll see what he puts up.
Understanding the threat model is fundamental: If you don't know what this protects against, it might as well protect against nothing at all; My ISP received my emails in plaintext, so I have to assume that they've got a plaintext backup of those emails.
>How can I trust you?
>You can't. Cock.li doesn't parse your E-mail to provide you with targeted ads, nor do I read E-mail contents unless it's for a legal court order. However, it is 100% possible for me to read E-mail, and IMAP/SMTP doesn't provide user-side/client-side encryption, so you're just going to have to take my word for it. Any encryption implementation would still technically allow me to read E-mail, too. This was true for Lavabit as well -- while your E-mail was stored encrypted (only if you were a paid member, which most people forget), E-mail could still technically be intercepted while being received / sent (SMTP), or while being read by your mail client (IMAP). For privacy, I would recommend encrypting your E-mails using PGP using a mail client add-on like Enigmail.
This was originally followed by a quote from /g/, which has been redacted for obvious reasons (if you want it, you know where to find it), save this line:
>Now that I think about it, administering a mail host is exactly like being a nurse, only people die slightly less often.
And no, courts aren't owned by parties. FISA judges are appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. That's been a conservative for the last, ugh..., well longer than FISA exists, anyway.
Also, even if I subscribed to the current dystopian view of politics, I'd argue it's never the parties that excerpt control of a court, but always the administration. There is, in theory as well as in practice, a difference between the two.
Secondly, PGP is not nearly widespread enough to be considered secure and additionally provides no anonymity properties which in this day and age should be the focus of any secure e-mail provider.
Additionally, running your own email server also reduces the anonymity to basically null and leaves you with a weak pseudonymity at best.
edit: I would like to thank all the misogynists in this thread voting this down. Thanks for keeping tech a welcoming place for women and victims of assault!
OTOH, the guy does genuinely go to great lengths to protect the security of his site (and of the mail of his users), and seems to know what he's doing. So I'm not to down on him for the unprofessionalism.
It's not a sustainable atmosphere to maintain
By the same logic there should be no dark humor involving murder since it makes things hostile for everyone (everyone can be murdered).
Infact, there should be no text talking about violence since that would makes things hostile for everyone.
You're not supposed to trust it or take it seriously, at all.
It's just a host for fun, for people from *chan websites.
I'm really not sure what you're expecting.
Come on, as a tech community we deserve and can do better.
(also, I don't appreciate you strawmanning my comment.)
If it's not your sense of humor, you're welcome to not visit the site. In fact, for the conversation at hand, you didn't at all need to do that because the quote made sense without doing so.
You're taking this comment thread greatly off topic. That's the reason for the downvotes. Not misogyny or something. Claiming otherwise makes your remark sound almost stereotypical.
Rape is not a joke, by no definition is it humor.
Except a joke itself, nothing is a joke, nothing is by definition humor except itself.
It is sort of like saying that an engine is not a plane, by no definition can an engine fly.
Which is true because an engine doesn't fly, planes do. (Or Apache Attack Helicopters)
Humor is something you build using other parts, it's more than the sum of it's parts, no single part in of itself is humor.
Secondly, there are no rules what humor is and what it is not except that it provides laughter and amusement. If somebody laughs about a rape joke, it's by definition humor, albeit (depending on joke) not a good one by most people's standards.
Lastly, there is something called "Gallows Humor" in which (to quote Freud) "the ego refuses to be distressed by [...] reality. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world."
As Wylie Sypher puts it, Gallows Humor is "to be able to laugh at evil and error means we have surmounted them".
It's a natural human instinct. (I'm shamelessly copying of Wikipedia here, I'm no expert in all topics)
So while, yes, rape is not a joke and it's a very horrible thing to those it happens to and we as a society should make efforts to not allow it to happen, it can only be healthy to make humor and jokes about it. Not to diminish the victims but to diminish the perpetrators. The perpetrator is worth nothing more than a joke to us, they have no further value or meaning in society and ought to be locked away forever after we thoroughly laughed, helping the victim to recover in the next step.
That is what I want from a strong and healthy society.
Obviously, this is why South Park crashed and burned, and isn't now in its 20th season.
Complaining that 4chan is offensive is a bit like complaining that knives cut things, and it won't get you much more sympathy. When I explicitly mentioned /g/, you should have known what you were in for. And if you didn't, the context might have tipped you off.
I don't think anything about cock.li is meant to imbue professionalism.
I think one of the points is that it almost immunizes them from psychological operations. [1]
I know it sounds conspiratorial, but social justice movements in online communities can be easily leveraged by orgs like the NSA to disrupt an organization. Combined with anti-meritocracy ideals, it's easy to get someone "at the top" who doesn't have any credentials (and who isn't really trying to get there for any other reason than disruption).
It might not be his actual strategy, but the offensive things serve as a deterrent against lowest common denominator character assassinations. He has no reputation to destroy.
Complaining about downvotes is against the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), so please don't do this either. Assuming that downvotes signify misogyny and then responding with outrage was a particularly huge and unhelpful leap.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13295658 and marked it off-topic.