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Isn't this the concept of "host proof hosting"? The idea is that the encryption secret is never even transmitted to the host so they have no way of decrypting i

Isn't this the concept of "host proof hosting"? The idea is that the encryption secret is never even transmitted to the host so they have no way of decrypting it. Why wasn't Lavabit setup in a similar fashion? Why isn't this more widely practiced?

jessaustin 13y ago
This is what TFA means when it says: In the end, what led to Lavabit's shutdown was not that the company's technology was too resistant to insider attacks, but that it wasn't resistant.
patmcc 13y ago
It's not widely practiced because it makes for a poor user experience in most cases - what happens when a user forgets their secret? Either they can never access their email account again, or at least they can never read their old emails. Besides that, you also lose the ability to do much of anything on the server - so super-fast search ala gmail is out. Most users will choose a provider that has good protection against illegal attacks (like crackers), and little protection against legal attacks (like warrants) because those are the threats they see themselves facing.
- bigiain 13y ago
  " … because those are the threats they see themselves facing." Or perhaps "because those were the threats they saw themselves facing before Snowden's revelations"
- Zigurd 13y ago
  > It's not widely practiced because it makes for a poor user experience in most cases Skype seemed to work just fine that way until it was captured and neutered.
  - judk 13y ago
    Skype does not provide the same feature set as Gmail account with to searchable archives
betterunix 13y ago
Lavabit was not set up like that because Lavabit could not be set up like that. You cannot have webmail that works like that; at best, you have a client that is delivered via the web, but then why not just run the client locally? Basically, if you want encryption to be local, then you do not want an encryption service. Which is exactly what you should be doing anyway; privacy and security are not services.

jessaustin 13y ago

This is what TFA means when it says: In the end, what led to Lavabit's shutdown was not that the company's technology was too resistant to insider attacks, but that it wasn't resistant.

patmcc 13y ago

It's not widely practiced because it makes for a poor user experience in most cases - what happens when a user forgets their secret? Either they can never access their email account again, or at least they can never read their old emails. Besides that, you also lose the ability to do much of anything on the server - so super-fast search ala gmail is out. Most users will choose a provider that has good protection against illegal attacks (like crackers), and little protection against legal attacks (like warrants) because those are the threats they see themselves facing.

bigiain 13y ago
" … because those are the threats they see themselves facing." Or perhaps "because those were the threats they saw themselves facing before Snowden's revelations"
Zigurd 13y ago
> It's not widely practiced because it makes for a poor user experience in most cases Skype seemed to work just fine that way until it was captured and neutered.
- judk 13y ago
  Skype does not provide the same feature set as Gmail account with to searchable archives

betterunix 13y ago

Lavabit was not set up like that because Lavabit could not be set up like that. You cannot have webmail that works like that; at best, you have a client that is delivered via the web, but then why not just run the client locally? Basically, if you want encryption to be local, then you do not want an encryption service. Which is exactly what you should be doing anyway; privacy and security are not services.