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I agree with your point about Levison's own politics for refusing the initial limited request getting him in this situation. I also think he could be considerab

I agree with your point about Levison's own politics for refusing the initial limited request getting him in this situation. I also think he could be considerably more honest that this is what happened. But even by that standard, the headline is still very inaccurate. He may have been willing and needed to log everyone's meta-data to get what the FBI wanted(assuming he wasn't doing so already), but the FBI only wanted the data on Snowden and that's all he probably was going to handover after extracting it from the logs. Certainly it's all he was originally required to hand over. Fundamentally, the headline makes it seem like Levison was willing to sell out everyone for money and that FBI explicitly wanted everyone's data. Neither of these are the case. The FBI just used a very large sledge hammer to get data for one account because they felt Levison was jerking them around in part because of his demands for writing code to get that limited data.

brianpgordon 13y ago
> the headline makes it seem like Levison was willing to sell out everyone for money and that FBI explicitly wanted everyone's data. Neither of these are the case. The FBI just used a very large sledge hammer to get data for one account Levison made an interesting claim that in fact the FBI systematically collects encryption keys to expand the US intelligence agencies' wiretapping capabilities: > We know now that the N.S.A. has been systematically cracking encryption across the Web, and it has built a database of encryption keys that automatically decode messages ... Levison suggests that his case also illustrates one of the ways in which it collects them: by secretly compelling companies to turn them over. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/how-lavabit-edward-snowden-email-service-melted-down.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/how-l...
- anologwintermut 13y ago
  I took that to mean his case revealed the FBI could get SSL keys under gag order, not that that was their objective in his case from the onset. (though given that they got them, the keys probably would end up in that database, hence why he closed down) Remember, the FBI originally got an order for data on Snowden's account. Data that any other mail provider could easily hand over on at least a daily basis. Why would the FBI think that was a decent pretext for SSL keys? As far as I can tell, the only reason the FBI got a federal judge to sign of on the SSL order was that Lavabit pissed off the Judge by not cooperating with the Feds on the original order to the Judge's satisfaction. Absent that, it's not the least bit clear they could have gotten an order for it.

brianpgordon 13y ago

> the headline makes it seem like Levison was willing to sell out everyone for money and that FBI explicitly wanted everyone's data. Neither of these are the case. The FBI just used a very large sledge hammer to get data for one account Levison made an interesting claim that in fact the FBI systematically collects encryption keys to expand the US intelligence agencies' wiretapping capabilities: > We know now that the N.S.A. has been systematically cracking encryption across the Web, and it has built a database of encryption keys that automatically decode messages ... Levison suggests that his case also illustrates one of the ways in which it collects them: by secretly compelling companies to turn them over. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/how-lavabit-edward-snowden-email-service-melted-down.html http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/10/how-l...

anologwintermut 13y ago
I took that to mean his case revealed the FBI could get SSL keys under gag order, not that that was their objective in his case from the onset. (though given that they got them, the keys probably would end up in that database, hence why he closed down) Remember, the FBI originally got an order for data on Snowden's account. Data that any other mail provider could easily hand over on at least a daily basis. Why would the FBI think that was a decent pretext for SSL keys? As far as I can tell, the only reason the FBI got a federal judge to sign of on the SSL order was that Lavabit pissed off the Judge by not cooperating with the Feds on the original order to the Judge's satisfaction. Absent that, it's not the least bit clear they could have gotten an order for it.