Obama's Heavy Hand Smashing Secure Email Services

[boedicca]

Lavabit, the secure email provider used by Snowden is closing down instead of complying with the Overlords...and now Silent Circle is stopping its secure email service.

At what point will it be illegal to have a private conversation?

At what point will we be forced to register on forums like USMB with our SS # and real name?

When will anonymous proxies be make illegal?

If Obama has his way, very soon.

Silent Circle, an email provider which guarantees end-to-end secure email, has announced that it's going the same way as Edward Snowden's beloved Lavabit and shuttering over concerns of external pressures.

In a blog post, Silent Circle's CTO Jon Callas explained that the move is a result of *cough* outside *cough* pressures that prompted Lavabit to close up shop. He also suggests that the insecure nature of email protocols is a problem, too, but realistically this boils down to pre-emptively avoiding trouble from the authorities. Indeed, Silent Circle says it hadn't received any "subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else." Yet....

http://gizmodo.com/another-secure-email-service-silent-circle-is-shuttin-1075763867

 

[waltky]

Don't bet on so-called 'secure' encryption - gov't. usin' supercomputers to crack it...

Report: NSA cracked most online encryption
Sep 6,`13 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The National Security Agency, working with the British government, has secretly been unraveling encryption technology that billions of Internet users rely upon to keep their electronic messages and confidential data safe from prying eyes, according to published reports based on internal U.S. government documents.

The NSA has bypassed or altogether cracked much of the digital encryption used by businesses and everyday Web users, according to reports Thursday in The New York Times, Britain's Guardian newspaper and the nonprofit news website ProPublica. The reports describe how the NSA invested billions of dollars since 2000 to make nearly everyone's secrets available for government consumption.

In doing so, the NSA built powerful supercomputers to break encryption codes and partnered with unnamed technology companies to insert "back doors" into their software, the reports said. Such a practice would give the government access to users' digital information before it was encrypted and sent over the Internet. "For the past decade, NSA has led an aggressive, multipronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies," according to a 2010 briefing document about the NSA's accomplishments meant for its UK counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Security experts told the news organizations such a code-breaking practice would ultimately undermine Internet security and leave everyday Web users vulnerable to hackers.

The revelations stem from documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who sought asylum in Russia this summer. His leaks, first published by the Guardian, revealed a massive effort by the U.S. government to collect and analyze all sorts of digital data that Americans send at home and around the world. Those revelations prompted a renewed debate in the United States about the proper balance between civil liberties and keeping the country safe from terrorists. President Barack Obama said he welcomed the debate and called it "healthy for our democracy" but meanwhile criticized the leaks; the Justice Department charged Snowden under the federal Espionage Act.

Thursday's reports described how some of the NSA's "most intensive efforts" focused on Secure Sockets Layer, a type of encryption widely used on the Web by online retailers and corporate networks to secure their Internet traffic. One document said GCHQ had been trying for years to exploit traffic from popular companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook. GCHQ, they said, developed "new access opportunities" into Google's computers by 2012 but said the newly released documents didn't elaborate on how extensive the project was or what kind of data it could access.

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Google argues for right to continue scanning Gmail
Sep 6,`13 -- Attorneys suing Google say the firm violates privacy and takes personal property by electronically scanning the contents of people's Gmail accounts and then targeting ads to them.

"This company reads, on a daily basis, every email that's submitted, and when I say read, I mean looking at every word to determine meaning," said Texas attorney Sean Rommel, who is co-counsel suing Google. But in a federal court hearing Thursday in San Jose, Google argued that the case should be dismissed, and that "all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing." Judge Lucy Koh said she would consider Google's request to terminate the case, but she said she is also interested in scheduling a trial for next year, indicating she is unlikely to dismiss. She did not say when she would decide. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of 10 individuals, is expected to be certified as a class action and is widely seen as a precedent-setting case for other email providers.

The plaintiffs say Google "unlawfully opens up, reads, and acquires the content of people's private email messages" in violation of California's privacy laws and federal wiretapping statutes. The lawsuit notes that the company even scans messages sent to any of the 425 million active Gmail users from non-Gmail users who never agreed to the company's terms. And Rommel said "the data that's being amassed by this company" could be used for more than just targeting advertising, although the parts of the lawsuit discussing what more Google might be doing with private information is currently under seal. "The injury is two-fold: the privacy invasion and the loss of property. Google is taking people's property because they can get it for free as opposed to paying for it," Rommel said.

Scrutinizing Google's privacy policy, Judge Koh noted that it doesn't specify that Google is scanning Gmail when it describes the type of information it's collecting. "Why wouldn't you just say `the content of your emails?'" she asked. Google attorney Whitty Somvichian said that the company is attempting to have a single privacy policy for all of its services, meaning it didn't separately reference every single product. But he said it's "inconceivable" that someone using a Gmail account would not be aware that the information in their email would be known to Google.

Google has repeatedly described how it targets its advertising based on words that show up in Gmail messages. For example, the company says if someone has received a lot of messages about photography or cameras then it might display an advertisement from a local camera store. Google says the process is fully automated, "and no humans read your email..." "Users, while they're using their Google Gmail account, have given Google the ability to use the emails they send and receive for providing that service," Somvichian said in court. "They have not assumed the risk that Google will disclose their information and they fully retain the right to delete their emails." Privacy advocates have long questioned the practice, and were closely watching the lawsuit. "In this Gmail case Google is trying to argue that its technology is exempt from privacy and wiretap laws. If they win, it will set a horrible precedent that they will try to apply to other Google technologies greatly threatening consumers' privacy rights," Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project director John Simpson said on Thursday.

http://ap.stripes.com/dynamic/stories/U/US_GMAIL_PRIVACY?SITE=DCSAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT