Gmail and Skype alternatives

drhowarddrfine said:
The government cannot close any US business. The Lavabit guy closed it on his own. Business in the US is private enterprise and only regulated by federal laws if they do business that crosses state lines. Even then, the owner can be thrown in jail and go bankrupt but the business can continue to run if it has someone to do it and have the funds.
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Thanks for clear things up, but I'm sure that US Government pressured to conduct closing it. I think that Lavabit founder isn't a criminal :\

It's supposed that they are interested to start again when the informative storm go away.
 
cpu82 said:
Thanks for clear things up, but I'm sure that US Government pressured to conduct closing it. I think that Lavabit founder isn't a criminal :\
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I do not. They were silly closing a source they can use. With a gag order usually customers do not get any knowledge on what's going on.
 
tzoi516 said:
Love that site; found out about it just a few months ago. RequestPolicy is a nice alternative to noScript - if people don't want to research links and deal with a lot of pop-ups.
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Actually, it's not an alternative. Neither has what the other one offers - they should both be used in conjunction.
 
Skype lives nowadays on the smartphone, not on the desktop. So if you and your family have iPhones, be sure to check Acrobits' Groundwire - the only TLS enabled VoIP app (I know of). Someone please suggest an Android pendant here.

For email: you don't really need a dedicated server but an end-to-end encryption, as unencrypted emails can easily be intercepted and read in transit.

And if you are really concerned - don't use email or IM at all! What Snowden told us is:
  1. Encrypted emails have first class priority for the agencies and do get tracked down.
  2. They can decrypt them (though the confirmation is still missing).
 
vanessa said:
S
And if you are really concerned - don't use email or IM at all! What Snowden told us is:
  1. Encrypted emails have first class priority for the agencies and do get tracked down.
  2. They can decrypt them (though the confirmation is still missing).
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Snowden can claim just about anything now and people who don't understand cryptography will believe without a single question. I'd be very careful of making such claims as 2. because there are encryption schemes that are practically impossible to crack unless the secret key gets compromised trough social engineering or some other method. GNUPG is one product that offers such encryption methods and used properly it is very safe.
 
vanessa said:
Skype lives nowadays on the smartphone, not on the desktop. So if you and your family have iPhones, be sure to check Acrobits' Groundwire
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That's not entirely true, I chat with my friends on Skype and we all use desktop, althought I'm sick of Microsoft proprietary code, but that's why I opened this thread here on FreeBSD forums to receive better alternatives.
 
kpa said:
Snowden can claim just about anything now and people who don't understand cryptography will believe without a single question. I'd be very careful of making such claims as 2. because there are encryption schemes that are practically impossible to crack unless the secret key gets compromised trough social engineering or some other method. GNUPG is one product that offers such encryption methods and used properly it is very safe.
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Well, what he really claimed is that there were backdoors in cryptography software. So while the algorithms still can not be cracked, one could theoretically encode a hint for the secret key in a message header or somewhere else.

I didn't say I believe him, but to prove him wrong one has to inspect all the source code around (and keep inspecting).
 
cpu82 said:
Thanks for clear things up, but I'm sure that US Government pressured to conduct closing it.
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No. Lavabit founder closed it on his own because he claims he didn't want to user data to be potentially turned over, or something like that.
 
According to another news, issue a gag order was appropriate in this case. Before the Snowden incident, it seems that other user had used it as a child pornography ring, this is absolutely abominable. It was a big hole about the Lavabit's Use Policy that the company could have solved at the time by expel the pedophile user for failure to use the above policy.

Sometimes choose the worst option as possible (shutdown) can't be avoided and the Lavabit's founder did it. I guess that he needs time to think the common questions about how/when/what/why, if he want to start a new project that can't be easily closed. And for a good start, I think he should learn how to properly apply the terms of use policy a.k.a. Terms of Service (ToS).

Also, it's very interesting to read Schneier's entry over the Lavabit's shutdown.
 
pkubaj said:
Actually, it's not an alternative. Neither has what the other one offers - they should both be used in conjunction.
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Granted, noScript stops scripts. However, a lot of scripts call to external sites - I'd say that 75% of the scripts I stopped with noScript are also stopped with RequestPolicy, and most local scripts are necessary for content (i.e. banks, webmail, etc). So just as long as I keep to good sites, RequestPolicy was a lot easier to use on a user-level than noScript. Just my experience.
 
Reasons not to use e-mail and PGP

An often heard recommendation is just to encrypt your email. If you need strict privacy this is an advice you should not follow blindly.
Some interesting thoughts one should know when using PGP and alike.
http://secushare.org/PGP

A resume found there:
Electronic privacy is a crime zone with blood freshly spilled all over. None of the existing tools are fully good enough. We have to get used to the fact that relevant new tools will come out all the time, and you will want to switch to a new software twice a year.
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I remember seeing the NSA vs Zimmerman playing out in the news. After the NSA backed off in the end I just assumed they were able to crack the code. Has anyone thoroughly combed through GPG's code?
 
@tzoi516 I'm not sure what's the point you want to make. Mine is, that just using email adresses compromizes privacy. The content may be safely encrypted, but the game is also about metadata.
 
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Erratus said:
@tzoi516 I'm not sure what's the point you want to make. Mine is, that just using email adresses compromizes privacy. The content may be safely encrypted, but the game is also about metadata.
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I'm not making any point, just threw out some thoughts. Otherwise, I'm in agreement with you. It's like gossiping, once it leaves your lips (or mind for that matter) it's not private anymore. Plus, unless you build something yourself you can never be guaranteed 100% it will function as advertised - why did the NSA backoff in the end? I still use GPG, but I wouldn't be surprised if it came out that it could be hacked.
 
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The methods and protocols which are associated with communication along with basic human respect will determine the amount of privacy.
 
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