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Do you think it's different in other countries? Everywhere, the email service will have to give your emails to the police when they come knocking...

• JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > Everywhere, the email service will have to give your emails to the police when they come knocking The Australian law is broader and contains fewer checks than anything comparable in the developed world. It lets law enforcement compel, with no oversight and in secret, any Australian "to re-engineer software and hardware under their control, so that it can be used to spy on their users" [1]. (Australia has no bill of rights [2].) The American analog is an intelligence agency getting a national security letter [3] stamped by a FISA court [4]. The order can compel disclosure of information on hand, but cannot compel a product to be re-engineered [5]. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/new-fight-online-privacy-and-security-australia-falls-what-happens-next https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/new-fight-online-priva... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/opinion/australia-encryption-surveillance-bill.html?module=inline https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/opinion/australia-encrypt... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • pavlov 7y ago
    > "The order can compel disclosure of information on hand, but cannot compel a product to be re-engineered." OTOH this could be unnecessary at large American companies because the needs of national security services may have been engineered in. Thinking of Room 641A [1], etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
    • JumpCrisscross 7y ago
      > this could be unnecessary at large American companies because the needs of national security services may have been engineered in That's voluntary co-operation. The situation is far from perfect in the United States, but Australia is an extreme case.
• latexr 7y ago
  > Everywhere, the email service will have to give your emails to the police when they come knocking Not if you’re Ladar Levison running Lavabit in 2013. He opted to shut down the service instead of complying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit#Suspension_and_gag_order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit#Suspension_and_gag_ord...
  • lfam 7y ago
    That service was worse than anything else because it failed to provide the crucial "availability" property. And in the end he gave the keys to the government anyways. So he failed on every count.
  • enriquto 7y ago
    Notice that lavabit reopened again in 2017, and is now even open for new customers. I will try it, but I'm a bit scared of the likelihood that it will be closed again. Changing your email address is no small hassle, and I am already pretty happy with my fastmail one.
    • LyndsySimon 7y ago
      > Changing your email address is no small hassle I moved my addresses over to my own domain (lyndsysimon.com) many years ago, way back when I was still using gmail as my provider. I've since switched a couple of times, and have never had to change my address. These days I use Protonmail. I like it for what it is, and it checks all of my "privacy" boxes, but the search functionality leaves much to be desired. I understand the technical limitations that constrain that, but I still wish there were more options.
    • chappi42 7y ago
      If you are pretty happy with fastmail, why switch? They will only access your email with a court order (fine with me). If you don't want this, I'd try ProtonMail, they encrypt the email, i.e. are unable to provide email content in clear text. The price is that email handling is (much) more painful.