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Remember in 2013 when Lavabit said their email was so secure that even their sysadmins can't read it? And then, after the secret US government subpoena was made

by aorth 9y ago

Remember in 2013 when Lavabit said their email was so secure that even their sysadmins can't read it? And then, after the secret US government subpoena was made public it turned out that Lavabit's claim of "can't" was more like "won't". Better to not have to trust the intentions (or ability to resist torture, etc) of Telegram, Pavel Durov, et al. Better to have end-to-end encryption by default, like in Signal. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131002/17443624734/lavabit-tried-giving-feds-its-ssl-key-11-pages-4-point-type-feds-complained-that-it-was-illegible.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131002/17443624734/lavab...

Shank 9y ago
The key in the article is a TLS key, not the keys that actually guarded the email contents. Lavabit shutdown after disclosing the TLS key. They couldn’t give up the actual storage keys because they weren’t stored. The courts wanted Lavabit to implement a mechanism to capture the keys during use, which they didn’t do.
miaklesp 9y ago
Signal and Telegram are in different categories. Signal is more secure in general due to end-to-end encryption but user experience is bad. I would use Signal when I really have something to fear very seriously, in this case personal security more important than usability. Telegram is much better made UX-wise. It's a more decent product for average user. It's a Facebook Messenger alternative which is secure enough and doesn't sell your data to anyone. If you are not security expert or journalist and black helicopters are not chaising you, you don't need Signal, Telegram is much better messenger with great clients on different platforms.
- mykull 9y ago
  I don't see what's bad about signal UX honestly. I have a few private 1on1 conversations in it and it feels like any other text messaging client. However, the only place I use it is on my Android phone, and there may be features others are missing that just never interested me personally.

by aorth 9y ago

Shank 9y ago

The key in the article is a TLS key, not the keys that actually guarded the email contents. Lavabit shutdown after disclosing the TLS key. They couldn’t give up the actual storage keys because they weren’t stored. The courts wanted Lavabit to implement a mechanism to capture the keys during use, which they didn’t do.

miaklesp 9y ago

Signal and Telegram are in different categories. Signal is more secure in general due to end-to-end encryption but user experience is bad. I would use Signal when I really have something to fear very seriously, in this case personal security more important than usability. Telegram is much better made UX-wise. It's a more decent product for average user. It's a Facebook Messenger alternative which is secure enough and doesn't sell your data to anyone. If you are not security expert or journalist and black helicopters are not chaising you, you don't need Signal, Telegram is much better messenger with great clients on different platforms.

mykull 9y ago
I don't see what's bad about signal UX honestly. I have a few private 1on1 conversations in it and it feels like any other text messaging client. However, the only place I use it is on my Android phone, and there may be features others are missing that just never interested me personally.