Encrypted Email Provider Lavabit Shuts Down, Blames US Gov't 771
clorkster writes to note the following explanation posted to the front page of encrypted email provider Lavabit: "'I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations. I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what's going on--the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.' No doubt this has much to do with Snowden's use of the provider."
OK. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OK. (Score:5, Interesting)
So it has come to this.
Well if your clients are customers who use your service because it wont be snopped I would say you are screwed!
American cloud companies are now suffering. [arstechnica.com] I put this link as a story, and I am surprised the slashdot editors didn't accept this.
60% of all European companies are canceling their cloud contracts or are revising them due to security concerns!
Canada's health ministry is quotes in that article's comments on already cancelling as there is no confidentiality thanks to the NSA's prism program.
So my hunch is it is not his overeaction, but all his customers leaving for European or Canadian encrypted email cloud providers instead.
Re:OK. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OK. (Score:5, Insightful)
The cloud movement could have been the next great economic success (mostly in the US), but instead the entire economic opportunity is being shut-down by the very government that it would most benefit.
Re:OK. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never been convinced that the cloud was a good place to store stuff - even without the US (or any) government involved. In general, 'midnight auto supply and cloud services inc.' just seems like a really unreliable and unsafe place to put the business jewels, so to speak. It's hard enough to manage security for one's own hardware and software, but trusting an anonymous entity with unknown employees and who-knows-what kind of locks and security arrangements means that if a break-in occurs you are never even likely to know about it, much less have anything you can do about it.
Protip - a few years ago I was talking to the then-head of the Navy's then-nascent cybersecurity team (soon to become one or two battalions). He said that their red-team tests showed that the average cost to buy your way into a Fortune 500 company's data center was $7500. If nothing else, Snowden showed that it may cost nothing at all.
And that's not even to mention the potential penetrations at every ISP on the way to and from the cloud provider.
(Snowden seems to me somewhat equivalent to the 'Falcon' in "The Falcon and the Snowman", with updated technology. In 1975, the Falcon [wikipedia.org] became concerned about what he saw coming across the teletype at TRW, and one thing led to another. He got out of prison (after 24 years of a 40 year sentence) a few years ago.
Re: OK. (Score:5, Informative)
The Human Rights Watch (Score:5, Insightful)
All these do not have to come to pass if not for that "Human Rights Watch"
They are the one who revealed Snowden's use of Lavabit when they intentionally posted Snowden's message along with his email addy, edsnowden@lavabit.com
The "Human Righs Watch" are helping Uncle Sam more than helping Edward Snowden.
And I'm proud to be an American... (Score:5, Funny)
Where at least I know I'm free!
Re:And I'm proud to be an American... (Score:5, Insightful)
Where at least I know I'm free!
-- Robert Heinlein
Applause (Score:5, Insightful)
I applaud him for taking a stance against the snooping. Unfortune that he had to shut the service down though. Maybe he can move it offshore.
Re:Applause (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe he can move it offshore.
It is probably too late. The demand has already been issued.
He cannot destroy anything, it has already been demanded by the feds and destroying it after it is requested will land him in jail.
He cannot legally take it out of the country due to ITAR.
The best he can do if he (as the business) attempt to fight it is to surrender the servers to a court-certified secure escrow company; they will make duplicates of every disk and hold both the originals and copies in limbo. If the government takes a copy while it is still in secure escrow then they run afoul of the courts, not like that worries most of them as there are many ways around it like writing a generic statement that it is urgent for undisclosed national security purposes.
Just a hunch, but I'm guessing the soul searching was if he should take everything to an incineration company and burn it to white ash, potentially facing prison terms for doing so. Unless that happens, everything on the machine is still vulnerable to the $5 wrench attack.
Re:Applause (Score:5, Interesting)
The core problem is that Lavabit got their security model wrong. With their scheme, the encrypted private key is stored on their servers, which means that the government need only demand that the unencrypted password for a user be logged somewhere whenever that user logs in, and then the government has access to all emails, past and present.
Such a model is not significantly more secure than an unencrypted mail provider, because anyone capable of compromising the machine can capture that passphrase, and then the entire security model comes down like a house of cards. The only situation in which your data is more secure with such weak encryption is if you happen to not log in to the account while the server is compromised. Therefore, the only way to protect the users' data is to shut down the servers so that they cannot log in.
Had they used a more paranoid security model—a proper client-side app to generate and store the keys and perform all decryption—then the private key would be stored on the user's machine, and would never be seen by the server. In that case, the only thing the government could do would be to demand that new messages to a particular user be stored off to the side in the clear, and it would not be possible to gain access to any existing messages.
Re:Applause (Score:5, Interesting)
While what you say is true, it misses the most important point, which is that Mr. Levison is not even allowed to tell us why he has to shut down. The problem isn't surveillance, the problem is secrecy about surveillance that prevents it from being properly discussed and evaluated.
Re:Applause (Score:5, Interesting)
My only guess is they ordered him to install spyware. He could not tell us that or disobey the order but he could shut the system down.
Re:Applause (Score:5, Insightful)
This, I think, leads us to an hypothesis about what happened. Let's say he got a secret FISA order for a customer's (guess who) email. He replies and says
sorry I cannot decrypt this without the passphrase. So the spooks say, "install a logger on your service for the next time he logs in, and that's
an order." The nasty bit about FISA orders is you can't talk about them. He can't refuse the order, but they can't stop him from terminating the
service, and thereby making the order moot. A beautiful gesture.
Re:Applause (Score:5, Insightful)
That was my immediate conclusion upon reading how the service worked. (Thanks, Google cache.) I mean, it's possible that it was something else, but that's by far the most obvious method of attack. The second method of attack would involve forcing him to turn over his SSL keys, which would have exactly the same effect, but more broadly (because everybody's passwords would get caught up in the honeypot). Either way, it's probably safe to say that in one way or another, the order demanded access to the password stream on the way in.
That said, it's also possible that they demanded metadata logs of sent and received messages (from, to, sending hostname and IP, etc.) going forward, which would also be something that could be made moot by shutting the service down.
Re:Applause (Score:5, Interesting)
We are more obedient, because our "KGB" is nowhere near as oppressive as that of GDR or USSR. Not yet, anyway. So far their targets really are terrorists and other nasty criminals. It may or may not get there — and the trends are scary, but it is still a long way to go to get there...
Not that we can't make a fast leap forward (ahem) to cover the distance... If the IRS and other Federal departments have already been used to target opposition [dailycaller.com], what's to stop the "KGB" from being used the same way? Nothing — other than morals and scruples of the actual people there. Hardened FBI crime-fighters aren't quite the same as the IRS. But that, admittedly, is a weak defense...
Re:Applause (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Applause (Score:5, Insightful)
"So far their targets really are terrorists and other nasty criminals"
Sure. If you consider a whilsteblower like Snowden to be a nasty criminal, after Obama said previously that whistleblower's would be protected.
Re:Applause (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Applause (Score:5, Insightful)
What good is outrage when it's not converted in to action, starting with voting for non-aligned candidates? On every election day all this 'outrage' will magically disappear. In fact, statistically speaking it never was bigger than a speck of dust. All the voters turn into zombies, doing what the TV tells them to do. This is a dead issue and will remain that way for the foreseeable future. The light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.
Re:Applause (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Applause (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, this is exactly the sort of thing free speech is supposed to be for. He's forced to violate his conscience or shut his business down and he cannot even expose the situation to sunlight. perhaps he can tell someone in the next cell about it using prisoner's raps.
No speech could be more political than talking about exactly what your government is doing to you and what excuses it gives.
Re:Applause (Score:5, Insightful)
Even with all of that, the restraint of free speech makes the order illegal.
Context (Score:5, Insightful)
So when Obama boycotts a meeting with the Russians due to concerns over "human rights", you may now know that this is a lie.
Re:Context (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Context (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the stuff coming out of Russia on gay rights. Russia is not showing the US up on human rights; they have simply taken an opportunity to embarrass us on our own human rights failures, not because they disapprove of skulduggery, but because they disapprove of us. This is like a crack dealer turning in the mayor for smoking crack (hey, I live in DC, it's the first metaphor that came to mind).
Re:Context (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Context (Score:5, Interesting)
> just want to make the U.S. look bad.
No, all the other countries - the ones who are publicly condemning the US but secretly working with them and/or sharing their information - are too scared of the US to let him in.
Re:Context (Score:5, Insightful)
Bizarre?
Regardless of your opinion an Snowden or any related matters, his actions do not seem bizarre as long as you properly weight his motives. I don't think he was trying to force a comparison between the US and other countries.
I would suggest his primary concern was to avoid extradition - you know... as in what most people are hoping for when they seek asylum for any odd reason. Given the far reach of the US in today's world, his choices were/are rather limited.
Re:Context (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Context (Score:5, Insightful)
It was bizarre that Snowden ran to countries that are much worse on civil rights, but just want to make the U.S. look bad.
Snowden ran to countries that wouldn't put him in jail. I suspect their civil rights records were a much lower weighted factor.
Re:Context (Score:5, Informative)
All of what you said would make sense if the evidence was in direct contradiction. Crime rates are not spiking or even raising, but going down significantly over the last 25 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
Re:Context (Score:5, Insightful)
I would think that opposition to gay rights actually decreases the birth rate, since gay people in countries where they are welcomed into society and who want children have lots of avenues to have them -- surrogacy, sperm donation, "hey, let's fuck even though I'm not into your gender just so one of gets pregnant" arrangements, etc. This is unlikely to happen in Russia now.
Also, the people often cited as "undesirables" -- Africans, Muslims, whatever -- all tend to have homophobia and misogyny in common. One would think that if one wanted to keep Muslims away (not saying, of course, that this is a good thing!), it seems like allowing open homosexuality and public displays of sexuality would be a good way to make a country less appealing to puritans.
Re:Context (Score:4, Insightful)
So yeah, basically you just tried to justify homophobia with racism.
Freedom (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone know a good freedom dealer? I'm an addict and need my fix of freedom, but I can't seem to find it within the borders of the US at this point.
Re:Freedom (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone know a good freedom dealer? I'm an addict and need my fix of freedom, but I can't seem to find it within the borders of the US at this point.
I never saw freedom sold on the street.
We always had to grow our own.
Then we'd take it from our garden on a bus.
They'd tell us we had to sit in back.
When we got there they said we couldn't dance.
Yet somehow that light still shown.
We grew our own.
First Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
In my mind, disallowing people from criticizing government actions and government policy is a serious violation of the First Amendment. It is exactly what the First Amendment was written to prevent. I hope someone will challenge this issue in court.
Re:First Amendment (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. Anyone involved in issuing or enforcing this gag order is committing a consipracy against rights [cornell.edu], and is a criminal.
Re:First Amendment (Score:5, Interesting)
You're an optimist. An independent judiciary would never have allowed secret courts in the first place. An independent judiciary would have denied at least one request for national security letters.
No, it's worse than that. All three branches of our government, which are supposed to serve as checks on each other, have conspired against the Constitution. They are ALL criminals.
Sic semper evello mortem Tyrannis!
Eh, life in the big city (Score:4, Insightful)
I am surprised the government let him shut down. That action alone probably violated the gag order.
Remember anon.penet.fi? (Score:4, Informative)
That system go shut down by the Church of Scientology. The powers that be fear a populous they can not spy on.
Re:Remember anon.penet.fi? (Score:5, Interesting)
They wanted to know who was leaking their secrets so they could harrass and persecute them and anon.penet.fi was an anonymous email relay used by the leakers. Now why do I get this persistent sense of deja-vu when reading the news these days?
Legally (Score:5, Insightful)
The operator of Lavabit CAN legally discuss what is happening. He cannot *safely* do so, because our government does not obey the law, and will punish him for exercising his first amendment rights.
Re:Legally (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Legally (Score:5, Interesting)
The PATRIOT act does not supercede the constitution. This man has a constitutional right to speak out against the government, telling his personal story about how he is being oppressed by the government is absolutely protected by the first amendment.
Re:Legally (Score:4, Informative)
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
He should make a public redress of grievances listing all the information he has and release it to the press. We need a Martyr to fight those in power. I just don't know if the operator of Lavabit wants to get crucified by parallel construction [reuters.com]. As long as they have a culture of fear, people will still refuse to stand their ground. This is not unlike what the Germans experienced in WW2 and Soviets experienced soon after.
Re:Legally (Score:5, Insightful)
The Constitution is the law, and it has not been rewritten. The government can obey the Constitution, it can rewrite the Constitution, or it can completely ignore the Constitution and the rule of law. It has chosen the last option.
We are ruled by criminals. Not just in the winking "crooks & liars" way, but geniune thugs no different than any other strongman government.
The death-knell of US cloud providers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly the operator of Lavabit received a national security letter or warrant which he objected to.
Now since Lavabit is based on normal mail protocols, the operator has the ability to see all the data when it comes in, and obviously with a warrant or NSL, the provider can be compelled to provide the information to the feds. But I suspect that the request was not just something mild ("This sleazebag's mail account") but something broader, given the reaction was to close down the service completely.
In any case, this is also a great reminder of why the cloud, especially US cloud providers, can't be trusted. Companies who care about security are going to have to abandon the cloud and go back to insourcing their infrastructure.
Re:The death-knell of US cloud providers... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now since Lavabit is based on normal mail protocols, the operator has the ability to see all the data when it comes in, and obviously with a warrant or NSL, the provider can be compelled to provide the information to the feds. But I suspect that the request was not just something mild ("This sleazebag's mail account") but something broader, given the reaction was to close down the service completely.
I own/operate VFEmail.net and consider Lavabit a 'peer' in the email space.
I totally agree with your assessment. I've had to deal with requests and subpoenas, as I'm sure Lavabit has, and I've never been asked for broad access. In fact, the one time I did have to get 'in depth', I was specifically told by the agent in charge when everything initiated, "We are not installing any equipment at your site." In fact, he even offered to get me whatever I needed, and I declined, doing what was necessary to comply in-house. They only received what was requested on a signed subpoena, and were very clear they didn't even WANT anything else.
I have a sinking feeling that sort of mutual cooperation is no longer the norm, and I wonder if I will be similarly backed into a corner. Unfortunately by closing, it forces our user's to seek refuge with providers who don't have any problem installing spy equipment.
Re:The death-knell of US cloud providers... (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer is to turn the tables on them, "flip the script", as it were.
Set up rotating surveillance teams at NSA, DHS, CIA, TSA, and FISA facilities. If one person/group is caught recording video, etc have another person/team standing by to take their place when theyâ(TM)re ordered to move on. Create and build up lists of personnel and dossiers on those seen coming & going.
Track them to where they live. Note who they associate with and who their family members are and gather intelligence on them as well. Record addresses, vehicle make/model/year and license plate number(s), etc. Correlate against public information and databases, DMV/court records, property records, tax and political contribution records, etc etc.
Create a website to host and share this data publicly, and host it somewhere like Ecuador or Hong Kong that will tell the US government to go pound sand.
Put THEM and their activities, travel, and associations in the spotlight for a change. Cockroaches and similar vermin hate bright light.
It seems that the US government has chosen to fight terrorism not by addressing the root causes and the people actually at fault, but by simply becoming the biggest terrorists of them all and driving out the competition.
The US government is far and away a much larger threat, by orders of magnitude, to the citizens of the US (and the rest of the world as well) than all the terrorist groups, foreign & domestic, combined.
Strat
Re:The death-knell of US cloud providers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The death-knell of US cloud providers... (Score:4, Insightful)
Lavabit is supposed to be a zero knowledge mail provider.
If you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. It is perfectly possible to make a email system where the provider knows very little, but you need to change the basic email protocols to do that. Even PGP isn't sufficient, since it doesn't protect key portions of the mail (To:, From:, Subject:, message length, etc) from observation.
If you receive normal email through SMTP, the provider must be able to read the email as it arrives. Similarly, if you offer a web interface to access, the provider must be able to read your email when you access it through the web interface, because the provider can always provide JavaScript that leaks any keys involved back to the server.
Where is the GOP saying business-first shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why isn't the entire Republican party standing up for this provider, telling government to get out of the way of business? He built that! Now, if he's been a multi-trillion dollar bank, the government would leave him alone, hell, he'd be telling the government what to do.
This is just another example of "might makes right, we're a bully, and we're going to push the world around, usa #1 F-yeah!"
We are living in a police state; there's no doubt about that at this point.
Re:Where is the GOP saying business-first shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
We desperately need sane opposition to the Democrats, and the Republicans just don't qualify anymore.
Re:Where is the GOP saying business-first shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's because the only rights that the Republican party cares about are (a) the right to property, specifically when it relates to rich people not being taxed; and (b) the right to bear arms. Caring about other rights makes you a dirty communist hippie traitor.
Bull-Fucking-Shit (Score:5, Insightful)
the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this. Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise.
Congress does not have the authority to violate the Constitution. They can "pass" all the bullshit "laws" they want, but the fact remains that there is not a soul in the federal government who has the power to supersede our Constitutional Liberties. The only, ONLY legitimate way to alter the content of said document would be via a Constitutional Amendment approved by 2/3 of all state legislatures, or by the formation of a Constitutional Congress. Neither of these events have occurred, therefore your right to tell us that the NSA is trying to force you to turn over your encryption keys stands firm. Fuck you Stasi dogfuckers ('cuz I know you're skimming this).
FYI, by making such a statement, and doing as they tell you, you're only helping them perpetuate the myth that they can do this kind of shit and get away with it.
Re:Bull-Fucking-Shit (Score:5, Insightful)
it is not a myth, the government is getting away with ignoring the constitution and committing crimes including seizing propery, incarcerating people without warrant, hurting people, etc.
Re:Bull-Fucking-Shit (Score:4, Informative)
The myth is that it's legal. What the NSA is doing is criminal.
How the media will spin this (Score:5, Insightful)
Story leaves out important bits (Score:5, Informative)
What’s going to happen now? We’ve already started preparing the paperwork needed to continue to fight for the Constitution in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. A favorable decision would allow me resurrect Lavabit as an American company.
This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States.
Sincerely,
Ladar Levison
Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLC
Defending the constitution is expensive! Help us by donating to the Lavabit Legal Defense Fund here.
He leaves a link to donote to their legal defense fund. In other words, he's still fighting it, but in secret shadow court.
Re:Story leaves out important bits (Score:5, Insightful)
So much for freedoms. (Score:5, Interesting)
So, instead of fixing its behavior (or at least make it a bit less visible), US government (and its corporate sponsors) decided to go out and spy+opress its citizens officially. You're at the tipping point, folks. Your lovely government is now switching from covert police state to overt tyranical regime. This process will propably take another year or two until you'll get pretty much where nazi Germany was in 1939. Your favorite TV station will inform you every day how many "enemies of America" were caught/jailed/murdered this week and you'll fear every day if FBI squad will raid your house because of some phony suspicion.
Having said that, I'd recommend Americans, especially young ones to have second passport and be ready to leave this shithole when things go full retard (eg. your fucked up government starts some mega-war and will need as much cannon fodder as possible).
encrypted email provider? (Score:4, Interesting)
Concrete reality (Score:5, Interesting)
My name is Anthony Coulter. I signed up for Lavabit on October 5, 2009 with the address anthonycoulter(at)lavabit.com. I chose Lavabit very consciously. My university email address was about to expire and I had concerns about Google's privacy policies. Lavabit was created specifically for privacy-conscious people. They offered server-side encryption to paying customers; when I became a paying customer a year or two later I decided to check that box because, hell, why not?
[Note that I never did ask how server-side encryption worked. They said that things were rigged up so that they could not decrypt my on-server email even if they were coerced into it. My guess was that they used a hash of your login password to decrypt your email. I didn't know whether it was true or not, but I didn't think it really mattered. Apparently it did matter.]
I use my Lavabit account for everything. My bank statements are mailed to it. Most of my internet login IDs created since 2009 depend on it. All of my friends use it. And now it's gone.
I last checked my email around 9pm on Tuesday, August 6. When I woke up the next morning my connection attempts to the Lavabit server timed out. That was inconvenient; I had to send some information to my parents about an upcoming family reunion, so I sent them a text message promising to email it to them when the service was restored Wednesday night. It wasn't; I finally sent the email from an old family account I used back in the late 1990s. When I woke up *this* morning and Lavabit was still down, I did a couple of Google searches to see if anyone else noticed that an email provider had been gone for twenty-four straight hours. I found this [emaildiscussions.com] discussion, which I quote for the benefit of people who will read this post long after the forum has ceased to exist:
This was posted at 10:55pm last night; when I saw it this morning I instantly dismissed the poster as a childish Internet revolutionary. The idea that the Federal government would clog up Lavabit for an entire day and a half just to get at Snowden is silly! They can't disrupt business like that!
Then I ran another Google search for "lavabit down" before getting off work today, and... here we are. Emails sent to my lavabit account still don't get bounce warnings, so noone who's emailed me since 9pm on Tuesday will know that I didn't get their email, or that I never will. I also have to go through the long and tedious process of reassociating all of my Internet accounts with a new email address. But which provider will I choose? I still don't trust Google. I don't know what I'll do yet; it was only two hours ago when discovered that my four-year-old email address had been taken down by the Federal government.
I just donated two thousand dollars to Lavabit's legal defense fund. (The confirmation email from Paypal just arrived in my old Cox account.) I cannot prove this to the Internet, and it's debatably silly for someone so privacy-conscious to want to do so. But at some point we will have to take this issue seriously. I watched the Snowden news from a distance; I didn't say or do anything about it because it wasn't really my problem. Now I lost my email, and if I had used IMAP this would have been a tragedy of enormous proportions.
--Anthony Coulter, a.k.a. Red Jesus
Re:Concrete reality (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been modded up, which is fantastic, but to be honest I was hoping to provoke discussion.
What I was thinking when I wrote the above post (and was more sober) was that this issue is affecting regular people. I'm a real person! I live in an apartment in midtown Atlanta! I have a trilobite collection and I like to take long walks. I'm preparing dinner for some friends tomorrow evening. I'm a savvy Internet user, like the rest of you, who reflexively discounts conspiracy theories. But my email provider was just taken down because it provided too much privacy.
Godwin's Law prevents me from typing many of my thoughts right now. I know from experience that everyone's weary from constant political combat. I was even in Washington D.C. (well, Richmond; the DC subways weren't working that day) for the Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity, which emphasized the importance of getting along with your neighbors, even if they disagreed with your politics. And besides, I didn't do anything about the Snowden revelation, even though I consciously understood it was a Bad Thing.
But here I am today with no email because (we assume) the Federal government presented Ladar Levison with an ultimatum: either break his own security and tell nobody, or stop providing the service altogether. (Fortunately Levison did what I paid him to do: he stood up for my privacy and let Lavabit go down.) But we can't be sure that this is what transpired because of Levison has been under a gag order for six weeks. This is a terrifying concept.
Has anyone on Slashdot watched Babylon 5? It had a long story arc in which the Earth government gradually became more and more repressive. There was an episode in the middle of Season 3 called "Severed Dreams" in which the Interstellar News Network (ISN) was forcibly brought offline by the military. Right before they went off the air, an anchor came onscreen, apologized for interrupting, reported that some colonies had declared independence and that the president didn't want that information let out, and that many things had been going on for a year that ISN was not allowed to report. Some explosions damaged the building, ISN went offline, and a week later, it came back with a new (completely unfamiliar) news anchor who calmly explained that terrorists had faked the previous broadcast.
That's how I feel about Lavabit right now. I've been watching the Snowden news for months. Then my email went down... And then suddenly I'm hit with this speech that for the last six weeks, Lavabit's founder has been fighting to protect my privacy while under a gag order, and twice has tried to get that order lifted. But he failed and now I have to go change my email address everywhere it's used. Wow! I never imagined that the drama on the news, where the United States tried to promise Russia that we wouldn't torture one of our own citizens were he extradited, would have a direct impact on my insignificant life! But it did. And apparently Lavabit has been fighting for the last six weeks, while I've been going to work, trying to talk pretty girls into dinner, and going jogging around the neighborhood. This is real! These issues aren't going away. I ignored them and I lost my email account. What will I lose next?
Please, Slashdot. Please, please, please take this seriously. This isn't just another petty Internet squabble. This is serious business. I got caught in the crossfire early because I cared enough about my privacy to use Lavabit. Other people got caught in it earlier---Manning and Snowden because they had both moral courage and access to incriminating information, and probably many other people of Pakistani descent because that's just how things go. I got caught in it today. When will the rest of you get caught? GMail users are safe from shutdowns because even in 2009 we knew that Google didn't care about your privacy, but I wouldn't be surprised that the stakes will continue to increase as time wears on.
Maybe I deserve to be alone in this mess because I left Manning, Snowden, and probably untold others in the lurch when they needed support. Yes, I probably do...
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:5, Insightful)
It would probably be worst. Remember who actually enacted these laws.
And remember who ran under the platform with one of the key points being that he would repeal them.
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you kidding? He was reelected in 2012, after four years of acting like a GW Bush clone.
We forgot really fucking quickly.
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a hypothesis that it is impossible for anyone who would actually be a good President to get through the nomination process. This hypothesis has proved valid for a couple of decades now.
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we all lost the 2012 elections.
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:4, Insightful)
We didn't 'lose' it. We gave it up freely of our own volition.
Re: IF ONLY ... !! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we all lost the last four Presidential elections.
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:5, Insightful)
You think Romney or Hillary Clinton or any of the Bushes would have done anything different? Only candidates that would would try to put an end to the corruption and abuse of power in the American system these days would be Ron or Rand Paul. They will never get elected because all the powers that be fear and hate them. If, by some fluke, they did get elected by the actual American voters, inspite of the negative media bombardment aimed at them, they would be assassinated in months.
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:5, Insightful)
Rand and Ron Paul would not be assassinated. What would happen to them would be far worse.... for us! They would quietly settle into the same patterns that Bush and Obama did. They are politicians, nothing more. They would make grand statements, something large (but not too large) and mostly symbolic would happen ("We're finally closing Gitmo! ....... and shipping all prisoners to a Saudi Torture chamber."), and then when the initial fervor died down, and after a few key meetings, they would realize the "necessity" of surveillance on everyone in America and abroad.
Put simply: we're kind of fucked.
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:5, Insightful)
You have got to be shitting me. Ron and Rand Paul are may not be beholden to the status quo, but they are not the libertarians they claim to be. They are theocrats and racists who want to tear down equality and justice in America.
Gary Johnson is a better Libertarian that either Pauls, and he is a god damn supporter of the modern slavery movement (for profit prison industrial work farms).
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:5, Insightful)
...and he is a god damn supporter of the modern slavery movement (for profit prison industrial work farms).
He also vetoed more bills as a governor of New Mexico than any other governor, from any other state, in history (if my memory serves me correctly).
Yes, he's a politician like any other, but this single fact alone puts him a bit above the rest. The bureaucratic weight that is crushing this country is generated by endless legislation. We are managing a 21st century nation with 200 year old methods. It's time to modernize and clean house.
Much like cleaning out a garage, we'll have to make a large organized mess in the yard if we intend to get it clean.
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:5, Insightful)
They will never get elected because, with the possible exception of this issue, most of their positions are considered lunatic fringe. It has nothing to do with fear or hate and everything to do with them simply being unacceptable candidates.
Show me someone whose social and corporate positions are reasonably to Obama's, but with a more reasoned position on domestic spying, the TSA, etc. and I'll show you a candidate I'd vote for. Instead, you're showing me someone whose social positions seem to be reasonably close to Walt Disney's, and whose corporate positions are reasonably close to John D. Rockefeller's.
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:4, Insightful)
Only candidates that would would try to put an end to the corruption and abuse of power in the American system these days would be Ron or Rand Paul.
Or Gary Johnson, or John Huntsman, or Jill Stein, or several other people who didn't manage to make it onto prime-time national debates.
Re:IF ONLY ... !! (Score:4, Insightful)
He who lives his life by taking famous quotations and applying them to different situations without context, makes trivial points.
Edward, is that you? (Score:5, Funny)
I once lived there. I've been a tourist there a couple of times. I don't think I'll ever set mu foot there again. Good luck.
There's a great Piroshky stand in the East terminal of the airport, you should try it.
Re:Great country you have over there (Score:4, Insightful)
very sad. once we hold you in great esteem USA, but now we doubt if it is a good idea to go there for a mere vacation.
Re:Great country you have over there (Score:5, Informative)
Go someplace where you speak the language. I'd consider the UK, even though I wouldn't really want to live there. I could put up with it for 5 or 10 years to get citizenship, then you can go anywhere in the EU. But I'm happy where I ended up, though I may look into EU once I get my dual citizenship.
Re:Great country you have over there (Score:5, Insightful)
the UK??? are you serious?
if anything, they are THE poster child for anti-freedom and snooping. they are known as the nanny state and for good reason.
I used to travel to the UK quite regularly. I will probably never return, now. things are too creepy there and the country is melting down, bit by bit. they are a has-been.
and the US is well on its way to the same fate.
I feel sorry for both our countries. we used to be great (both of us) but now, we are nothing like what made us great ;(
Re:Great country you have over there (Score:5, Informative)
"Did you read what I said? I didn't advocate the UK as a better place, but as a convenient place to get EU citizenship to go to other countries in the EU that are better. "
You could've picked a whole fucking other better country. Like Germany, or Norway.
Except for the rather unfortunate fact that Norway is not a member of the EU?
- Jesper
Re:Great country you have over there (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a shame, and I say that as a proud American. We came up with the modern national park (Yosemite was the first); we have a great deal of ecological and geographic diversity, and some lovely people. We have some fantastic cultural things. It's a shame that our government is working overtime to make our beautiful country such an unwelcoming place to everyone else.
Sorry; hopefully we'll come to our senses soon enough.
Re:Great country you have over there (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great country you have over there (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who has moved to the US only about four years ago, I can say that it still is a great country. There is still the possibility to fix the government's wrongdoings - and there are really great people here in the US.
The country is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen (well, it is half a continent, isn't it?). I took the California Zephyr and traveled a little, otherwise spent most of my time at the East Coast or West Coast. I'm planning to do a cross-country trip quite soon with a car.
But so, whether it was in the major cities or small towns and villages - the people are really great, nice, not always educated enough (to my expectations), but have a great heart.
Unfortunately, the last decade was a nightmare as a lot of people here started thinking about isolationism again - also arrogance (Government mostly, but also some John Does).
I think there are only very few things that Americans need to do to make their country really a Great Country again:
1) Fight for your freedoms that are enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution - all your rights are there and you need to grab them back from your government and government agencies;
2) Have a serious interest in what's really going on in the world - politically, economically, socially - and take actions (not military) using soft-power to expand the rights and freedoms into other places in the world;
3) Use your riches to share with the rest of the world and help people in other places to increase their wellbeing/wealth
4) Take responsible action towards the nature and environment - you are the guys who, more or less, "invented" National Parks and Nature Reserves
5) Stop waging war on anything - fighting against terrorists is a police activity, not military - there is no need for a "War on Terrorism" (we in Good Ol' Europe had terrorism for a very long time and made a lot of mistakes - learn from them - but we never fought a "War on Terror" [except Turkey])
6) And stay/become liberal, welcoming, diverse again - as much as possible.
I must say, having lived in Europe, Turkey and in spent some time in other countries, the US is still the country where I feel most "free" - that doesn't mean it is free, but it is to show how "unfree" you can feel in other places on this planet. Let's just make the US again the "Country of Ms Liberty"
Re:Great country you have over there (Score:5, Insightful)
All the fatalism by Slashdot posters is completely ridiculous. Liberty requires "eternal vigilance", which necessitates optimism. You can't throw your hands up. You must complain and then methodically, untiringly work for change.
The free speech rights we enjoy these days were unheard of 100 years ago. The First Amendment was a dead letter until the 1940s-1950s. Parents were arrested if their kids refused to say the pledge of allegiance. Passing out union labor flyers in public parks was illegal.
The same Founding Fathers who passed the First Amendment also passed the Alien & Sedition Act. The Founding Fathers did not literally intend for us to have the freedoms we enjoy now. They're novel and extravagant. We had to develop as a society for over a hundred years _after_ the Bill of Rights was passed in order to institute them.
Same thing with 4th Amendment rights. The police routinely violated search & seizure law well into the 1960s. It was the Warren Court that gave us the protections we enjoy now. Again, these are far more than the Founding Fathers ever expected or intended. Why? For one thing government was much smaller; they were more concerned about providing small governments flexibility than in reigning in a huge government.
All the "checks & balances" and separation of powers theory was directed toward the federal government, which was never meant to regulate day-to-day life. And many Founding Fathers stated that things like the Bill of Rights were not even necessarily to be enforced by the courts, but were simply proclamations to be obeyed by the legislature, lest they be voted out office. The whole notion of judicial review was never discussed much because it never entered into their thinking or expectations.
So, seriously people. Work for change. Donate money to the ACLU, EFF, etc. We have a loooonngggggg road ahead of us. Things could get much, much worse. But they can also get much, much better. The freedoms we enjoy now are unprecedented in even American history. They're at jeopardy, for sure, but that's no excuse for giving up.
Re:Great country you have over there (Score:5, Interesting)
Can I just say that as someone who has just moved to the US four MONTHS (not years) ago, I echo this sentiment completely. I can tell that this place used to be the America that some people still think it is - the most prosperous, fair and free society on earth. And the people are still some of the friendliest you will meet. But gee, it's going downhill fast.
My experience in the first four months, for anyone that's interested in a new immigrant's perspective:
The amount of poverty (or near-poverty) here compared to my home country (Australia) astounds me. Huge portions of the population barely getting by...the run-down infrastructure etc. Not to say there's not nice areas too ... but it's really inconsistent. You don't see that at home (due no doubt in part to a more progressive tax structure and universal medical/housing safety-nets). Education seems a bit lacking too - not so much formal education but general awareness by people of what's going on, both at home and abroad, and general knowledge (particularly of scientific matters). A lot of that comes down to the utterly terrible TV news here (relying on my VPN back to Australia to get decent ABC/SBS/BBC news services) and the lack of a decent documentary-focused public broadcaster (PBS is OK, but it pales in comparison to BBC/ABC (Australia)/CBC (Canada) etc.)
On top of that, I don't feel any more (or less) free here than in Australia. Sure there are some things I can technically do a bit easier in America - buy a gun, speed on the highway (speeding isn't enforced here as strictly as in Australia), etc. But OTOH, they have some weird restrictions on alcohol here (an older drinking age being only the tip of the iceberg) and certain other recreational drugs are prohibited in the US whereas they were decriminalized in my state in Australia. The US is also far more censored - it's actually quite hilarious seeing what they blur out or beep out on TV here. (My American wife was fairly shocked to see full frontal nudity on standard free-to-air TV in Australia, on the flip side). Both countries have similar fundamental rights and freedoms (America's are codified in the Bill of Rights, Australia's stem from the Westminster principles of good governance, centuries of local and English common law precedent, human rights statutes at a State level and accession to international rights treaties). Ironically, even though rights are arguably more strongly protected, on paper, in the US than Australia, it also seems that they are more regularly violated or infringed upon in the US too.
I do feel more 'monitored' here. More subject to suspicion, identification, verification. Every man and his dog asks you for ID or the ubiquitous SSN (Australia has no equivalent to this and even if it did, what the hell does social security have to do with my electric company or ISP or any other company that randomly seems to need my SSN?). I was prevented from doing basic things like buy some over-the-counter cold medicine (because I didn't have a US driver license ... they wouldn't accept a passport, even a US passport!) or open a checking account at a bank (because I have no credit record ... why does that matter when I'm not even trying to borrow any money!?) None of that would be an issue for a new immigrant in Australia, but here I've had no end of problems doing even the most basic things. Cops seem aggressive, paranoid and unfriendly here, whereas at home they are usually pretty nice guys and treat you with respect. It just feels ... very unwelcoming ... not like the America I expected. And I should be a 'desirable' immigrant by any standards - university educated, significant assets and savings, a stable well-paying job, no criminal history etc.
The other thing that really surprised me is the bloatedness and inefficiency of the government. Americans look at places like Australia and think we must have a huge government in order to deliver all those social programs such as
Your starry eyes will dry out, very soon (Score:5, Insightful)
You claimed that you have just moved to US four months ago, and the other fella, four years.
Both of you are so gung ho on the States.
If neither of you are trolls, good for you !
I came from China. In the 1960's I swam to Hong Kong, soldiers were shooting at us back then.
Via Europe I ended up in the Unted States of America in the late 1960's.
When I first landed there, indeed, the States was SUPER WONDERFUL, there were democracy, there were human rights, there were freedom, and people can demonstrate on the street.
It was indeed a very stunning experience for people like me from a communist country.
My happiness in America lasted about 10 years, and then it gradually faded.
Not that I got tired of America, but as I stayed longer there, I get to know America more.
The more I know, the more I understand that the so-called "Freedom", "Democracy", "Human Rights" are mere slogans - as the government of the United States of America does not care one way or another about these things.
The people of America are great, though. But my American Dream was thoroughly disillusioned by the time of Desert Shield/Desert Storm.
By then, America was no longer practice the same thing it preached, and the American press was no longer upholding the same standard as their predecessors in the 1960's and 1970's.
I finally got out of America, back to Asia (but not back to China) in year 2003.
I've had enough of the hypocrisy.
Re:Great country you have over there (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to appear to be joining any anti-US bandwagon or proffering an opinion on any perceived rights and wrongs, but the irony of your post is quite amazing. The origin of much anti-US feeling is that people see the US as interfering in their region, whereas you are complaining that those who have anti-US feeling should do without US involvement in their region...
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Great country you have over there (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes I've heard that people in the US are not aware of what's happening in the rest of the world.
Re:Great country you have over there (Score:4, Interesting)
Having spent the past 10 years away from home, I can assure you that there are few places worse. Central Africa has some bad destinations if you really need to find one but most places are really great. Moscow really is a lot better from most aspects. The women are stunning and there is a lot to do and plenty of work, so he has really stepped up.
Re:Thanks a fucking bunch Lavabit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah he could give you warning, and then wait for the drone-express or gitmo. Why would you be smart enough to use encrypted email, and dumb enough not to have a backup of your email archive?
Re:Thanks a fucking bunch Lavabit. (Score:5, Insightful)
The operators of Lavabit have gone waaaaaay out on a limb for you today. They're risking ten years of work, their livelihood, their finances, and their freedom. I think -- even though this obviously inconveniences you and others -- you might want to give them a little slack. I think it's obvious on inspection that they're doing this on principle, and THAT is worthy of respect -- doubly so when many of their peers have chosen otherwise, as is now becoming more clear every day.
Re:Thanks a fucking bunch Lavabit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you have preferred to find out 6 months from now that carnivore had a copy of all of your email?
If you're facing a secret court order to log everything from this point forward, your only ethical option is to make sure there's nothing to log.
Re:Service was immediately suspended? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most anyone using the service as anything but a status symbol probably appreciates if it goes poof rather than being handed over.