8 ms·

End to end encrypted email, based in Sweden

• coldcode 13y ago
  This doesn't support iOS which makes it pointless. Requiring Java is a non starter anyway. I think the only way this will be at least somewhat palatable if it was an open source native application with the servers in a country likely to not interfere with them. Is there such a place?
• benmmurphy 13y ago
  kind of worrying you need to run java to use the service. also, it is a signed applet that requests full permissions, has obfuscated code and contains a native module (or native executable). i realise it probably needs full permissions on java for usb key support. but i wouldn't use this service. the only 'online' email service i would trust would be one that shipped its product as a browser extension that was opensource.
  • nwh 13y ago
    I don't even have any subset of browser java enabled. The risk is just too high. The only reason I have it installed is that Adobe's nasty software requires it.
  • mikemoka 13y ago
    "Our Session encryption scheme: 1. User starts our Java-applet.." Funny, I stopped exactly here as well =)
    • KirinDave 13y ago
      This is exactly how Hushmail worked too.
  • SimHacker 13y ago
    Would you trust it more if it required JavaScript instead of Java? Why or why not? Would it matter if the JavaScript code was un-obfuscated and open source? Java is now owned by Oracle, which has always been and will always be evil. But there are multiple JavaScript implementations available, so it would be harder for the code to be compromised by a back door in the VM. And the people developing JavaScript interpreters are generally not as shady and untrustworthy as Oracle. (Although one of them is known to be inexplicably homophobic...)
    • dragonwriter 13y ago
      > Java is now owned by Oracle, which has always been and will always be evil. > But there are multiple JavaScript implementations available These are posed as if they are a contrast, but they are not. There are multiple Java implementations available, as well.
      • SimHacker 13y ago
        But how many people actually use non-Oracle Java VMs as the default Java VM in a web browser? Or even as a non-default Java VM?
        • stormbrew 13y ago
          To the former, everyone who uses an Android device (Dalvik).
          • lvh 13y ago
            Dalvik isn't a JVM. It's a virtual machine for which someone has written a compiler from JVM bytecode to its native bytecode.
            • stormbrew 13y ago
              I think this is more of a legal convenience than anything else. It probably would be an extended JVM if Google weren't concerned about Sun/Oracle's litigious nature when it comes to extending the JVM. Really it's a VM that runs JVM code, even though it needs an extra translation step. It's not like there's anything else that targets it afaik.
        • tlarkworthy 13y ago
          OpenJDK ships with Ubuntu, its a pain to install the Oracle one
    • comex 13y ago
      Oracle being intentionally malicious is unlikely, but Java has had well publicized security issues lately. (1) I'm not sure that the JVM is actually less secure than JavaScript engines, but it's unnecessary enough in the modern web that many users like to turn it off entirely. Requiring it to be on is a step back. (2) The applet is trusted. So if it's backdoored or exploited, the adversary gets your entire computer rather than "just" your email. This is par for the course for native apps, Java is harder to exploit than native code, and in theory email should not really be much of an attack vector (plain text and maybe basic HTML); but this app is not well-known and is thus more likely to have simple programming errors (not that popular services are immune from those either!), the browser security model is easier to screw up, and webapps are expected to be sandboxed. Again, a step backwards. (3) The choice of Java may be an indicator of inflexibility, thus poor programming skills, thus insecurity. This is speculation, but far from improbable. Off-topic, their claim to be (effectively) protected against rogue CAs is dubious, never mind the claim that they are the only provider with such protection.
• gfosco 13y ago
  Wouldn't all of your recipients also need to be using countermail? Email is just not the answer, if you want any privacy at all... We need a whole new communication protocol, or a new platform where people go for ephemeral and encrypted communication.
  • bengrunfeld 13y ago
    I agree with you. Small workarounds like E2E encrypted email aren't enough. I think that it's time the tech industry had an open and frank discussion about about re-building our infrastructure from the ground up to avoid organizations with means (e.g. the NSA) from abusing the system. Privacy is essential to a healthy culture and a healthy economy. Can you imagine Putin taking advantage of similar tracking to hunt down homosexuals with his draconian anti-gay laws? This is a pandora's box that needs to locked shut.
    • putinfan 13y ago
      This anti-Putin gay propaganda has to stop. If he seriously wanted gays exterminated, there wouldn't be a single one left alive in Russia today. All he's doing is try to fight the gay agenda, which even as a non-Russian, I'm thankful for.
  • helloNSA_ 13y ago
    If you want end-to-end, true E2E, you're gonna need client-side software of some kind. It's just the way it works. It's not a bad thing. It's a great thing. It means to get the private keys, the gubment has to gain access to each target's machine individually. Right now they just force the server-side stuff to roll with a single NSL and a phone call. If you make them have to work for each constitutional violation then they might at least consider not breaking the law. All this cloud shit has made it far too easy for NSA, etc.
  • benmmurphy 13y ago
    it uses pgp so presumably it is compatible with everyone else that uses pgp. but yeah your recipients and people that send you email need to use pgp.
• mpyne 13y ago
  Sweden, the country that is said to be such a US lapdog that they have invented charges against Assange out of thin air. You can try it though...
  • anologwintermut 13y ago
    Supposedly even more of a lap dog than the British. Who, despite the fact that we literally payed then 100 million dollars for intelligence, could not be persuaded to do anything to Assange including extraditing him to the US to face the secret espionage charges that our lap dogs in Sweden wanted to extradite him to. Next time we should give Sweden the doggy treats
    • read 13y ago
      Can HN suggest a good country to trust for hosting servers (if there is such a thing)? EDIT: I just noticed RyanZAG put together a map for crowdsourcing unsafe hosting countries. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6182001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6182001
      • cLeEOGPw 13y ago
        Why Canada is green when it has intelligence treaty with USA, and in turn NSA? I consider Canada to be on the same level of trust as USA because of that.
      • anologwintermut 13y ago
        Given that NSA, the Chinese, and presumably a bunch of other countries have a good amount of black hat hacking expertise, I think trusting your hosting provider, regardless of jurisdiction, is probably a bad idea. If you had to, I'd imagine the best idea would be to do some multi-party computation/Byzantine system where you place nodes in mutually antagonistic jurisdictions. This doesn't help for email though, since they mail still has to go to one box first.
      • mpyne 13y ago
        If you're only worried about the NSA, and only worried about pervasive surveillance, the safest thing might actually be in the U.S., but only if you self-host the software and data. I've heard KDE devs recommend Switzerland. But in general it's kind of a quandary. You'd want hosting in a strong nation so that the U.S. doesn't simply use a black bag operation to force-collect the server hardware, but nations that are strong and opposed to the U.S. are undoubtedly being extensively monitored by NSA. Really it all depends on the threat model you're trying to defend against. If you end up with "You can trust me, I'm not from the government" you're already screwed.
• dfc 13y ago
  Given how prominently they feature the diskless servers I was a little surprised that I did not see any mention of the power infrastructure. Did I miss the page with the details? What happens during a power failure? A related question: what percentage of the nodes can lockup/hang/freeze without losing user data?
• nilved 13y ago
  Good idea, but I'm not going to go install Java to try your service. Remove that giant, monolothic and irritating dependency if you want anybody to use this: I shouldn't need to install 200 MB of software to connect to your servers through IMAP.
• sprucely 13y ago
  Rather than use java, why not use a javascript implementation such as http://openpgpjs.org http://openpgpjs.org ?
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• grey-area 13y ago
  Two problems with this: Based in Sweden, which has been cooperating with the NSA and sends them at least all russian traffic and probably other traffic too: http://www.stockholmnews.com/more.aspx?NID=6402 http://www.stockholmnews.com/more.aspx?NID=6402 Easy installation with a certified Java applet This could too easily be back-doored or exploited without your knowledge, if they're going to use a binary it has to be open source at least.
  • alipang 13y ago
    Given that the email is encrypted, the FRA laws don't really matter though, right? The question is rather if the Swedish authorities can coerce them into handing over their data (including gagging them on even letting people know it happened) like in the US.
    • grey-area 13y ago
      The question is rather if the Swedish authorities can coerce them into handing over their data I don't think there's any question that a sovereign government can coerce its citizens and corporations into handing over data. The answer to that is that yes they can, and if they cite national security it's hard to argue against them in court, or you might never be allowed to see a court, or even know about it. Depending on where the encryption happens, obviously if the company is compromised your data might be too. In this case they get you to install a java applet which you can't know the workings of, so I think it'd be pretty easy to subvert the encryption. So I see the cooperation of Sweden on collecting and handing over data as in indicator that they would go farther if required by the NSA (as the UK would for example), and that other jurisdictions less subservient to the US would be a better place to store data.
    • baudehlo 13y ago
      PGP encrypts the body of the email. It leaves the metadata as-is. There's a surprising amount of information in there - the subject, to/from, IP addresses, DKIM signing information, References headers, etc. This would likely be enough information for a lot of the metadata path discovery that the government wants to do.
• subsystem 13y ago
  "President Barack Obama has canceled a planned meeting in Moscow with Russia's President Vladimir Putin - a diplomatic snub that follows tensions over NSA leaker Edward Snowden. [...] In place of the canceled Putin meeting, Obama will visit Sweden, according to a White House statement that called Sweden 'a close friend and partner to the United States.'" http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/07/19912184-obama-cancels-meeting-with-putin-amid-russia-tensions?lite http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/07/19912184-obama...
• timc3 13y ago
  I wouldn't trust this at all. If the Swedish police are really interested they will confiscate the servers and worry about whether its lawful at a later date ala Bahnhof raid http://associatedepress.org/swedish-police-confiscated-three-servers-during-raid-on-former-pirate-bay-host/ http://associatedepress.org/swedish-police-confiscated-three... Or they will get a warrant that they believe is related and take them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay_raid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay_raid Plus the problems other's have pointed out. Norway would be a better end destination if you want your servers in North Europe.
  • zik 13y ago
    The servers are diskless. If they confiscate the servers they get nothing. Mind you if they keep the servers in place and take control of them it'd be hard to stop them from doing whatever they like.
• tehwalrus 13y ago
  This is orders of magnitude more expensive than Lavabit was, and simply disallows you sending non-PGP email (i.e. email to anyone other than 2 or 3 very geeky friends.) I don't think I can pay $100/year to host my email if I can't actually host all my personal email there[1]. [1] (of course, I still have a gmail account for spam, "personal" here means "from an actual person".)
• fenesiistvan 13y ago
  I think that java is perfectly fine for these kind of tasks. What else do you have if you wish to run something a bit complex from browser? Someday javascript will be also capable for these kind of tasks, but I don't see how it will have less exploits than java has now...
• chmike 13y ago
  So well. And what if terrorist or people with evil goal or activity use this system ? These types of services solve only a little piece of the equation. I now also tend to think that people focusing only on privacy are individualists. A good example of individualism is defending the right to freely own and carry weapons. For rational, well balanced and honnest peoples, it sounds right and harmless as a mean of defense. Like privacy. But it is well know and demonstrated by the numbers that pople are abusing this right and using the guns for bad goals. The trust given to them, not only by the authority, but from nightbours and all honnest citizen as well has been betrayed. In europe where guns are banned and under very tight control, life is much safer. This is very counter intuitive. See ? I now tend to assume, privacy is very similar. If we give up privacy we may become much safer. Of course there must be exceptions, but with tight controls as exist for weapons in europe. Privacy should be available to lawyers and doctors for instance. Finally, a last missing piece of the solution is a feedback loop to control the controllers so that no one can abuse the system, and this includes the government.
  • nilved 13y ago
    > If we give up privacy we may become much safer. Cut the propaganda.
    • chmike 13y ago
      I expressed my current opinion with it's rational. I don't see yours or anything having a vague resemblance to a counter argument.
  • 00rion 13y ago
    I somewhat agree. However, it's incredibly dangerous for everyone to give up privacy while the government continues doing things secretly. If we all must be forced to be exposed, so should the government.
    • chmike 13y ago
      Yes, I understand but I honnestly don't see how it can be possible to detect misbehaviors or threats without surveilliance. There is a dilemma there I can't yet dealth with. Surveilliance methods are easy to defeat once you know how they work and where they are applied. This is why they are kept secret. Maybe the cummunication capacity and the terrorist threat has developped to fast for taking the time tothink of the optimal approach in terme of efficiency and respect of privacy and rights. The strategy used so far is not ok. I fully agree and we need methods to ensure there is no abuse like for the civil forfeiture law. This is the role of the feedback control loop. With such a loop Abuse or inadequacy cab be detected ASAP and corrected ASAP. Secrecy, and keeping the control to some arbitrary authority, is preventing to have such objective and independent feedback control loop. This is in my opinion the true problem in what happens with the NSA and in Europe too.
• butler14 13y ago
  Sweden: the country that has a history of bending over for the yanks.
• DavideNL 13y ago
  Sweden is part of the European Union. If i'd host my own e-mail server anywhere i'd definitely pick a non-European Union country. For example, how on earth does 'giving the US access to ALL my bank transfers' contribute to catching terrorists? (i live in the EU.) Seriously, I'm more afraid of the US government than i am of terrorists. This mass surveillance thing is going way too far.
  • raverbashing 13y ago
    "how on earth does 'giving the US access to ALL my bank transfers' contribute to catching terrorists" If I'm not mistaken what happens there is that bank transfers using the SWIFT system pass through the US as the service is ran from there. From what I've heard about SWIFT it's a system designed in the 70's with the corresponding security mindset. Think "Windows 3.1" security.