Lavabit

mekitron · 2 Dec 2014, 02:10 AM

How do you compare LavaBit email service with Fastmail, Posteo, LuxSci or any other service?

LavaBit owner Ladar Levison strongly recommended against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States. Fastmail servers are located in New York where LuxSci is a Canadian company. Posteo is living in Germany. Is Posteo a hope for secure and private email?

janusz · 2 Dec 2014, 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mekitron

How do you compare LavaBit email service with Fastmail, Posteo, LuxSci or any other service?

There is no email (or any other) service offered by Lavabit. The other providers you mention are still alive and kicking.

scryptmail · 2 Dec 2014, 03:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mekitron

How do you compare LavaBit email service with Fastmail, Posteo, LuxSci or any other service?

LavaBit owner Ladar Levison strongly recommended against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States. Fastmail servers are located in New York where LuxSci is a Canadian company. Posteo is living in Germany. Is Posteo a hope for secure and private email?

Do you believe, that organization spied on Merkel, won't be able to get data from german based company?

mekitron · 2 Dec 2014, 03:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by janusz

There is no email (or any other) service offered by Lavabit. The other providers you mention are still alive and kicking.

Lavabit is down, I know.

pjwalsh · 2 Dec 2014, 03:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mekitron

How do you compare LavaBit email service with Fastmail, Posteo, LuxSci or any other service?

LavaBit owner Ladar Levison strongly recommended against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States. Fastmail servers are located in New York where LuxSci is a Canadian company. Posteo is living in Germany. Is Posteo a hope for secure and private email?

ProtonMail is probably closest to the Lavabit philosophy and focus on security and privacy. Their servers are in Switzerland. Still in beta, they've generated a great deal of interest and $550,000 Indiegogo funding, the goal was $100,000. You can reserve a username at https://protonmail.ch/invite. It could be a month or two before the invite comes through. Accounts are free with 500MB space, they will have paid options.

https://protonmail.ch/pages/security-details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProtonMail
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/protonmail

mekitron · 2 Dec 2014, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scryptmail

Do you believe, that organization spied on Merkel, won't be able to get data from german based company?

How a company fights for their cutomers is main objective.

mekitron · 2 Dec 2014, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pjwalsh

ProtonMail is probably closest to the Lavabit philosophy and focus on security and privacy.

seems considerable

kijinbear · 2 Dec 2014, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mekitron

LuxSci is a Canadian company

LuxSci is based in Massachusetts, USA.

If you want to go offshore, Runbox (in Norway) is another decent option.

17pm · 2 Dec 2014, 07:13 PM

There's also tutanota.de.

For some reason, I really don't find protonmail.ch's admins to be any good... They're taking forever to provide stuff that others provided way faster. Those others didn't have 550k usd to back them up!

I'm frankly dissapointed at the speed protonmail is working.

EDIT:

Apparently protonmail.ch is hiring!! Their new blog post states that.. Good on them!

Now if they only sent me the goddamn link to create an account!

janusz · 2 Dec 2014, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kijinbear

If you want to go offshore, Runbox (in Norway) is another decent option.

Thanks to that post, the good folks in Norway suddenly realised they are offshore

On an oil platform, probably

Tsunami · 2 Dec 2014, 10:26 PM

Lavabit is down or, I am unsure if this is true but read on a different email related site, that they would probably not return.

I am unsure what to think of Protonmail.ch ; but I think taking a slow pace to develop quality is nothing bad. I haven't looked into them deep enough to form a good opinion, but to state they are slow in delivery doesn't mean anything bad necessarily. Lavabit at some point was a bit shaky in my opinion. If ProtonMail is taking time to develop their software and program, but then deliver a quality product, then that's a good thing I would say.

LuxSci is USA based. Maybe the OP confused with Hushmail, which is Canada-based. Also, if you want to go offshore (but without going as far as oil rinks

) and have a very solid provider, Safe-Mail.net is a good idea, I have been using them for 7 years now and never a problem. They are based outside US and EU, in Israel.

That said, personally I would not mind too much about using a US based servers as long as the provider is ethical when it comes to privacy. Remember, the moment you email from for example Switzerland/Canada/Norway to USA if your friends have Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail etc accounts, your email will only leave from a safe server but end up in an "unsafe" server. So to totally bypass the USA I would say, is very difficult. Unless your friends are very privacy-aware and decide to massively move their accounts away from US based providers.

PS: I realise that some would advise against it, but Russia is known for high quality products too. Not every Russian provider is reliable, but there are some mail providers who have an excellent reputation. Unless someone mistrusts Russia of course, given current events. Although so far there doesn't seem to be any actions against Russian based ESP's.

north · 3 Dec 2014, 02:01 AM

remember that lavabit did not pay back the prepaid money for accounts. so in my point of view lavabit is and was just a service to rip off money from users.

David · 3 Dec 2014, 02:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by north

remember that lavabit did not pay back the prepaid money for accounts. so in my point of view lavabit is and was just a service to rip off money from users.

The TOS of most paid email services belie the notion that money will be returned, if a company has to be closed down; was Lavabit any different?

Lavabit also provided a free email service, to very many users. I do not consider them to be a rip off myself.

xmailer · 3 Dec 2014, 03:14 AM

I agree with David. While there may be some who "feel ripped off" if they had paid in advance for Lavabit, I've seen no evidence of any kind whatsoever of any intentional action on Lavabit's part to rip anyone off.
Some things in life are unpredictable, and as such they can sometimes leave one "feeling ripped off", but a "feeling" doesn't necessarily equate to an intention.

(In fact, I had no fewer than three free accounts at Lavabit for several years, although fortunately I had been making only very minimal use of their service. I was nonetheless disappointed by what eventually happened to them, but of course I feel that I was anything but "ripped off" by their free service.)

scryptmail · 3 Dec 2014, 04:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tsunami

Lavabit is down or, I am unsure if this is true but read on a different email related site, that they would probably not return.

I am unsure what to think of Protonmail.ch ; but I think taking a slow pace to develop quality is nothing bad. I haven't looked into them deep enough to form a good opinion, but to state they are slow in delivery doesn't mean anything bad necessarily. Lavabit at some point was a bit shaky in my opinion. If ProtonMail is taking time to develop their software and program, but then deliver a quality product, then that's a good thing I would say.
...
.

Slow developing can also indicate wrong initial approach of encryption and protocol design. When protocol have no room for new features they trying to add, that essentially taking extra time and code to handle that.

Second of all they didn't not release the code, so anyone can review it and possibly point to any backdoors.

2 Dec 2014, 02:10 AM	#1
mekitron Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Central City Posts: 162	Lavabit How do you compare LavaBit email service with Fastmail, Posteo, LuxSci or any other service? LavaBit owner Ladar Levison strongly recommended against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States. Fastmail servers are located in New York where LuxSci is a Canadian company. Posteo is living in Germany. Is Posteo a hope for secure and private email?

2 Dec 2014, 07:13 PM	#9
17pm Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Sep 2013 Posts: 536	There's also tutanota.de. For some reason, I really don't find protonmail.ch's admins to be any good... They're taking forever to provide stuff that others provided way faster. Those others didn't have 550k usd to back them up! I'm frankly dissapointed at the speed protonmail is working. EDIT: Apparently protonmail.ch is hiring!! Their new blog post states that.. Good on them! Now if they only sent me the goddamn link to create an account! Last edited by 17pm : 2 Dec 2014 at 07:19 PM.

3 Dec 2014, 03:14 AM	#14
xmailer Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: USA Posts: 5,485	I agree with David. While there may be some who "feel ripped off" if they had paid in advance for Lavabit, I've seen no evidence of any kind whatsoever of any intentional action on Lavabit's part to rip anyone off. Some things in life are unpredictable, and as such they can sometimes leave one "feeling ripped off", but a "feeling" doesn't necessarily equate to an intention. (In fact, I had no fewer than three free accounts at Lavabit for several years, although fortunately I had been making only very minimal use of their service. I was nonetheless disappointed by what eventually happened to them, but of course I feel that I was anything but "ripped off" by their free service.) Last edited by xmailer : 3 Dec 2014 at 03:19 AM.

2 Dec 2014, 10:26 PM	#11
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	Lavabit is down or, I am unsure if this is true but read on a different email related site, that they would probably not return. I am unsure what to think of Protonmail.ch ; but I think taking a slow pace to develop quality is nothing bad. I haven't looked into them deep enough to form a good opinion, but to state they are slow in delivery doesn't mean anything bad necessarily. Lavabit at some point was a bit shaky in my opinion. If ProtonMail is taking time to develop their software and program, but then deliver a quality product, then that's a good thing I would say. LuxSci is USA based. Maybe the OP confused with Hushmail, which is Canada-based. Also, if you want to go offshore (but without going as far as oil rinks ) and have a very solid provider, Safe-Mail.net is a good idea, I have been using them for 7 years now and never a problem. They are based outside US and EU, in Israel. That said, personally I would not mind too much about using a US based servers as long as the provider is ethical when it comes to privacy. Remember, the moment you email from for example Switzerland/Canada/Norway to USA if your friends have Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail etc accounts, your email will only leave from a safe server but end up in an "unsafe" server. So to totally bypass the USA I would say, is very difficult. Unless your friends are very privacy-aware and decide to massively move their accounts away from US based providers. PS: I realise that some would advise against it, but Russia is known for high quality products too. Not every Russian provider is reliable, but there are some mail providers who have an excellent reputation. Unless someone mistrusts Russia of course, given current events. Although so far there doesn't seem to be any actions against Russian based ESP's.

3 Dec 2014, 02:01 AM	#12
north Senior Member Join Date: May 2012 Location: north Posts: 174	remember that lavabit did not pay back the prepaid money for accounts. so in my point of view lavabit is and was just a service to rip off money from users.