However, we have reconsidered this position. We’ve been thinking about this for some time, whether it was a good idea at all. Today, another secure email provider, Lavabit, shut down their system lest they “be complicit in crimes against the American people.” We see the writing the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail now. We have not received subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else by any government, and this is why we are acting now.
Tag Archives: nsa
NSA Award for Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper
In accepting the award I don’t condone the NSA’s surveillance. Simply put, I don’t think a free society is compatible with an organisation like the NSA in its current form. Yet I’m glad I got the rare opportunity to visit with the NSA and I’m grateful for my hosts’ genuine hospitality. A large group of engineers turned up to hear my presentation, asked sharp questions, understood and cared about the privacy implications of studying password data. It affirmed my feeling that America’s core problems are in Washington and not in Fort Meade. Our focus must remain on winning the public debate around surveillance and developing privacy-enhancing technology. But I hope that this award program, established to increase engagement with academic researchers, can be a small but positive step.
via Light Blue Touchpaper » Blog Archive » NSA Award for Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper.
NSA Data-Scooping: A Coming Backlash in Europe?
Most European nations have long had stronger privacy laws than those in the United States. As a result U.S. Internet companies doing business there–incluiding Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, and AOL–have signed on to so-called “safe harbor” principles, promising a European level of privacy protection. Now, of course, it appears they’ve also been providing gobs of data about some overseas customers to the U.S. National Security Agency (see “NSA Surveillance Reflects a Broader Interpretation of the Patriot Act”).
Among other fallout, it’s reasonable now to expect E.U. regulators and customers to go nuclear–and U.S. companies to face tough sledding ahead.
via NSA Data-Scooping: A Coming Backlash in Europe? | MIT Technology Review.