Gmail and Skype alternatives

Pushrod said:
If you want true email privacy, you are going to need to colocate a server of your own. In any other case, there is an admin that is not you who has access to the machine and thus the data on it.
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I would add that the colocated server should be in a country perceived as privacy friendly. Switzerland used to be a choice, but IFAIK is no longer on the go-to list. Anyone else have suggestions for countries of known neutrality and privacy friendliness?
 
Actually, if you need full privacy, you'd have to purchase your own metal, use full disk encryption, and record a local copy of it's remote management controller's SSL certificate. Then you ship it to collocation.
 
Zare said:
Actually, if you need full privacy, you'd have to purchase your own metal, use full disk encryption, and record a local copy of it's remote management controller's SSL certificate. Then you ship it to collocation.
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You are absolutely correct. Still, it boils down to trust on other levels. The colocator would still have the ability to monkey with your network. The problem does not involve governments only, but includes the dark-side entities. I came to realize that my $300/mo payment for colocation services would always pale in the face of potential bribes. So, it boils down to the ethics of the colocator. Sometimes, even the normally good ethics of the ISP are compromised by government demands, via which the colocator might - with no guilt - morally dismiss himself for the breach. Governments are not automatically "ethical".

Been looking for a good server farm management corp in the Solomon Islands ... :-)
 
ronaldlees said:
I would add that the colocated server should be in a country perceived as privacy friendly. Switzerland used to be a choice, but IFAIK is no longer on the go-to list. Anyone else have suggestions for countries of known neutrality and privacy friendliness?
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IMHO, you cannot trust any server collocation outside of your own house.

In the U.K. purportedly, your home is your castle. There, the people could set up their own Home File/Mail/Cloud Server, and wait for a regular judge to sign a dedicated search decision before a Secret Service Stalker (SSS) may get his hand on their server -- which is most probably never ever going to happen. The disadvantage of U.K. is, that purportedly it is raining over there every day.

Seriously, in every of the countries in the western world that I know of, nobody is allowed to enter your house without a dedicated search decision. Even in the U.S., the pre-emptively blank search decision against more than a billion of internet and telephone users world-wide, signed by a secret judge, would not be valid for a SSS to secretly enter your house and get his hand on your machinery, in that case instead, Stand your Ground would apply.

For 300 US$/m you should be able to comfortably connect your own stuff in your own house at any reasonable data rate.
 
My home is my castle? Methinks someone has drained the moat, poisoned the gators, and paid off the draw bridge operator. So, I'll take you up on the in-house co-location. Hmmm ... I guess it's just "location" then ... but only if the house is on the island :-)

Really, the castle is abridged if the telecoms are not working completely in your interest. It's probably a near-impossible situation.

Those islanders take no bribes, because they have no reason for money or jealousy (except for the island girl). If they have clean loin clothes and a good fishing trip, they're happy. They say that is changing, though. Yep - some of those ocean-going outrigger kayaks have fish finders on them now. They need money for those ... so the demise of their paradise is on the horizon. Still, the weather's nice.
 
Did Lavabit deceive their customers about the security of their email service or did they not know about their shortcomings?
It’s not clear whether the Lavabit crew consciously understood the system’s shortcomings and chose to misrepresent them, or if they really believed they had built something based on can’t rather than won’t. One way or the other, in the security world, a product that uses the language of cryptography to fundamentally misrepresent its capabilities is the basic definition of snake oil.
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http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/lavabit-critique/
 
tzoi516 said:
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?
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Maybe there is no need - this is just how you poison the trust in the software. It is like the police picking up some small mobster, keeping him for tea and cake and putting him back to the street thanking him (loudly) for his cooperation. Doubt in GPG is planted now, mission accomplished.
 
Erratus said:
Did Lavabit deceive their customers about the security of their email service or did they not know about their shortcomings? http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/lavabit-critique/
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Ladar Levison was in a recent video with some ex-military personnel for a joint project they're starting called Dark Mail. In the video he mentions that he has worked with authorities in the past for access to accounts. Whether or not he gave them access or provided data I don't recall, but the fact remains there was a way to comply in the past. Not intentionally sewing seed of doubt, but Ladar's associates being that close to NSA and being ex-special forces guys makes me worry some about the new project.
 
tzoi516 said:
Ladar Levison was in a recent video with some ex-military personnel for a joint project they're starting called Dark Mail. In the video he mentions that he has worked with authorities in the past for access to accounts. Whether or not he gave them access or provided data I don't recall, but the fact remains there was a way to comply in the past. Not intentionally sewing seed of doubt, but Ladar's associates being that close to NSA and being ex-special forces guys makes me worry some about the new project.
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So are you saying it is the classic Honey Pot?
 
Martillo1 said:
So are you saying it is the classic Honey Pot?
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You will never know untill too late. Maybe he is the bait for some honey pot scheme, he does not even need to know that. But several ex-army, still-army or ex-special forces persons I know hold their oath (to protect the people) in higher regard than the gouvernment or the REMFs* in the top of the chain of command. Therefore I would not judge him by the simple fact who these persons are. If some of them were known to be on the shady side, that would be a different matter.

What has happend is that he got a court order to hand over the meta data for one user, and he complied. He also stated that there would be no way to hand over the mails in clear text, which is entirely possible. That all is fine under the current law and the past law, which is not infused with so much paranoja as the current status. But now they wanted to have all keys for all users and a way to impersonate his services. That is where he closed the door on the thing.

*I do not think the forum filter will allow me to spell out this acrynom. Please look for yourself ;)
 
Crivens said:
But several ex-army, still-army or ex-special forces persons I know hold their oath (to protect the people) in higher regard than the gouvernment or the REMFs* in the top of the chain of command.
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The ones I've known fell into 2 categories:

1. McVeigh - they view the government is violating their constitutional rights and prepare for armegeddon.

2. Country comes first - they might not like the party in charge, but their loyalty overrides that emotion - which isn't "protect the people", it's "protect the country".

I personally don't like either view because they swing into extreme territories: 1. Alex Jones, the Bible over education/facts, false flag, 9/11 was an inside job, arm yourself to the teeth, yadda yadda yadda, or 2. blind loyalty - you might not like it, but it's for the best.
 
The problem is that the bad guys now use the internet to do bad guy stuff and the cops want to stop and catch the bad guys while they're in the act. Unfortunately, the laws and restrictions in this area are scarce, quickly put into place, or created by the uninformed in such a way that the every day citizen feels they are being attacked whether intentional or not.

Eventually the dust will settle and more thought will be put into this.
 
tzoi516 said:
The ones I've known fell into 2 categories:

1. McVeigh - they view the government is violating their constitutional rights and prepare for armegeddon.

2. Country comes first - they might not like the party in charge, but their loyalty overrides that emotion - which isn't "protect the people", it's "protect the country".
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Those are around, also. But I can say, gladly, not among those I know. That you only find those two types of specimen in your army is, to me, a very very alarming thought.

My oath certainly was to the people of the country, not the country and not those in charge. We also have the right and even the duty to not only disobey an illegal order but also to arrest those higher ups who give it. This lessen was learned at a high price.
 
Crivens said:
Those are around, also. But I can say, gladly, not among those I know. That you only find those two types of specimen in your army is, to me, a very very alarming thought.

My oath certainly was to the people of the country, not the country and not those in charge. We also have the right and even the duty to not only disobey an illegal order but also to arrest those higher ups who give it. This lessen was learned at a high price.
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I was in the Navy, and the UCMJ is a political tool sometimes. I have yet to see a junior ranked person take a senior person into custody, outside of an order. The oath, as I remember, was to country.

As for the crazies, those were mainly Marines and SOF personnel. There are a few I've met that deviate from the crazies, but they usually are in the minority.
 
Only a Sith deals in absolutes...

tzoi516 said:
The ones I've known fell into 2 categories:
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"known" or just heard/read about? The reason those are the two types you hear (and consequently, "know") about is that nobody bothers to do media coverage on men and women in uniform who are not either blind loyalists or destructive psychos (the two absolute ends of the extremity scale). Those two extremes comprise a fraction of a percent of the total Armed Forces. You would be surprised how many service members are also members of the ACLU, EFF or other civil rights organizations.
 
AdamElteto said:
"known" or just heard/read about? The reason those are the two types you hear (and consequently, "know") about is that nobody bothers to do media coverage on men and women in uniform who are not either blind loyalists or destructive psychos (the two absolute ends of the extremity scale). Those two extremes comprise a fraction of a percent of the total Armed Forces. You would be surprised how many service members are also members of the ACLU, EFF or other civil rights organizations.
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Just as in life in the army you find all kinds, I know people currently serving who have both positive and negative opinions on the subject of domestic espionage, but most of the people I know sit in the middle ground and can't really decide and I don't think this situation will be fixed for a long time, a generation or two at least.
 
Gangsta_Mail__Uh__by_sweethesting.jpg
 
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