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http://media.bestofmicro.com/S/A/396298/original/lavabit-shutdown-letter.jpg

Snowden's Secure Email Service Mysteriously Shuts Down (http://www.tomsguide.com/us/snowden-secure-email-lavabit-shutdown,news-17317.html)

Ever heard of Lavabit? It was a secure email service that NSA leaker Edward Snowden used to communicate while on the run — and now it's been shut down.

"My fellow users, 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," wrote Lavabit owner and operator Ladar Levison in an open letter posted on Lavabit.com today ( Aug. 8 ). "After significant soul searching, I have decided to suspend operations."

Source: Tom's Guide (http://www.tomsguide.com/us/snowden-secure-email-lavabit-shutdown,news-17317.html)

No mystery there. USG told him to comply with spying, shut down, or face criminal prosecution.

ETA: Before the "show me the citation" comment -- the USG doesn't need one. It's not a lawful government. Just look at how they handled the coup "complex situation" in Egypt. They're very willing to get around the spirit of a law by reinterpreting the letter.

yeah thanks Sherlock, it's not like there is a thread about it already  ::)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=270258.0

You're welcome, O Holy Guardian Troll Of The Off-Topic Forum! Hadn't seen the other thread.

simply hand control over to someone outside the US.... the US sucks as a whole im surprised you all have freedom at all....

Exactly.

Nice to know that in this day and age some people have the balls(or the ovaries) to stand up user privacy. I say its time to start using BitMessage.

First Tormail is goatsed by FBI pedophiles and now Lavabit does Banzai charge. Wasn't Lavabit run by canadians and located in Canada?

As for Lavabit they were best of the best. Years ago I was asking for access logs for my own e-mail because the PC's were confiscated and passwords compromised. They also wanted to expose unlawful e-mail access by secret service but they confirmed that they keep no access logs except IP at registration time.

I hate these people so much. I think the owner did not have much choice, the least of 3 evils :(

He could have made DB copy of Lavabit, load it on encrypted laptop and fly to Ecuador or Venezuela. Then he could show uncensored scan of NSL letter to whole world, apply for asylum and then wipe his ass with the NSL letter at a press conference. But his current action also is good enough. When Gmail will go offline forever until the separation of cyberspace and meatspace (similar to separation of government and church) are written in constitution?

If I were him I would just open-source the website code, walk away and go start a different tech biz.

Well, I'm not expecting self-sacrifice from anyone (giving up freedom to travel). Also Venezuela is a country I would never want to be dependent on. I think I'd prefer to be dependent on the US over them ...

Lavabit run on Squirrel Mail that already is open source. The real problem is the service and user data stored in database that must be made available again. You cannot imagine how many stupid people think that e-mail is the best and safest place to store most important files instead of storing them on their own harddrive.

I would rather live free in hut than be a slave in rich palace. Venezuela is not that bad.

Venezuela steals private property. Much more than the US does it (which does it too), and more than my country (which only recently stole a bank).

Venezuela attempts socialism. USA is thoroughly capitalist. Both "steal" property but socialism gives it back to society instead of rich elite in capitalism. At least such is a theory.

Even if he did have offshore Iceland servers the FISA secret court can dole out secret jail time for non compliance. This means a nice stay in a Communications Management Unit (dark hole) until you comply with whatever their insane court orders are.

At least this guy did the honorable thing and shut down the service instead of Hushmail which is known to feed users a MITM java login to capture the password which they give to the feds to decrypt everything. They also store all emails forever regardless if it appears deleted or not.

Feds control everything, you should know that. Beware.

Are there any good alternatives you know of?

I've heard of https://www.anonymousspeech.com/ but I haven't used them.

Secret courts, jail time without committing crime as a means of coercion, secret spying. What it reminds from history?

http://data.vietinfo.eu/News//2013/03/22/184677/1363941661.664.jpg
 http://www.briefmarkenverein-berliner-baer.de/fotos-vereinszeitung/241/241-1-ddr-stasi.jpghttp://www.newspeakdictionary.com/1984-movie-bb_a1.jpg