7 ms·

Bravo, EFF. Seriously, that is one heck of a broad warrant, namely the private key used to decrypt all business records of all customers.

dingaling 13y ago
The warrant was specifically for the data relating to Mr Snowden. Go and read the disclosed documents: that is the only individual on whom data was requested. There was no warrant for the SSL keys; that was issued as a subpoena when Mr Levison stated that the data-in-transit was encrypted. The judge told him to disclose the keys that were protecting Mr Snowden's data. That Mr Levison happened to use the same SSL certs for all paying customers isn't the fault of anyone but... him.
- enry_straker 13y ago
  Now, the courts get to decide how to run your business?
  - AnkhMorporkian 13y ago
    When they have a warrant? Absolutely they do. They've always had that power, and every country I know of has warrants of similar power. If you're hosting encrypted data that focuses on privacy while remaining law abiding, it's just sensible to maintain separate SSL keys so you avoid this very scenario. It's not as if it wasn't foreseeable.
    - lsiebert 13y ago
      Doesn't separate ssl certd allow someone to know which user is using the service?
      - adekok 13y ago
        Yes. If you have separate server certs per user (as suggested above), then you can tell which user is using the service. If you have separate client certs per user, then you call tell which user is using the service. The Lavabit response to the original order was not the best, IMHO. As he was in possession of the certs and private keys, he could have decrypted Snowdon's traffic himself, and handed it to the court. Instead, he tried to hide behind a BS "it's encrypted" defence. The court called his bluff. He lost.
        talmand 13y ago
        I thought he offered to do that and they turned him down? I would imagine him decrypting the data himself would cause problems in a chain-of-evidence type of way though.
        lsiebert 13y ago
        hmm... is there a way to obfuscate that to the outside? Can you wrap the individual certs? Or use the same cert for everyone, but do a zero knowledge key exchange for people who want to log in, and then have them authenticate with a signed document keyed to a public key they gave when they signed up for the service? Anyway, at least in the physical security industry, security isn't about preventing intrusions. It is about delaying it and limiting it until a sufficient response can be mobilized. Perfect security is impossible
    - talmand 13y ago
      No. A warrant doesn't allow anyone to dictate how one runs their business. How the guy chose to run his business and what the warrant was requesting are two different things.
      - mhurron 13y ago
        When the warrant requests data, it says you can't burn it all down and delete it. Well, you can't without breaking the law. Yes a warrant imposes certain restrictions on your business.
        talmand 13y ago
        I disagree, but it depends on what type of warrant we're talking about. I'm speaking of a search warrant. A search warrant is used to find and collect evidence that already exists. If authorities need you to change how your business runs to collect new evidence that doesn't yet exist then that runs into a whole different set of laws. A search warrant doesn't allow, or at least it shouldn't, authorities to walk in and take over your business for their own purposes. Search warrants shouldn't have that level of power because they are so easy to obtain, police just ask a judge to sign a piece of paper. It's easy to obtain because all it should be is a piece of paper that allows law enforcement to enter your property without permission, which would normally be a crime, so that they can search for particular evidence. Search warrants can even be very, very specific as to what exactly law enforcement is really looking for within the property if the judge doesn't want to be overly broad. What you are describing does happen, but I fail to see how it would happen under a search warrant. As for your destroying data being against the law if it is requested by the courts. You are correct, except that if your business model is to destroy data in a timely manner then you cannot be held in contempt for destroying data before it was requested. At that point it becomes something different as they have to request you no longer destroy that data so that they can collect it. I don't see how that request falls under a search warrant. I suppose it could happen if a judge likes being overly broad in search warrants (which could cause problems in the criminal case), but it seems unlikely that's how a typical search warrant would be executed.
- adekok 13y ago
  > That Mr Levison happened to use the same SSL certs for all paying customers isn't the fault of anyone but... him. Name me one large company using HTTPS, with separate SSL server certs for each user. Just one. I'll wait.
  - mhurron 13y ago
    When your business is secure email, I think we can fault the creator for designing the system in such an insecure way. If it wasn't a warrant, a single leak of the key would expose everyone's data.
    - MagicWishMonkey 13y ago
      It's fairly obvious that you have no clue how SSL actually works. Do you honestly think that it would make sense to set up a completely new domain for each and every user? Do you have any idea what a nightmare that would be to support? Do you think it would be cost effective to spend $50/year per user to implement such a system? And do you really think that SSL has anything at all to do with the encryption used for storing data inside his system?
      - MichaelGG 13y ago
        Actually you could implement it rather easily using a wildcard cert and a CA provider that provides unlimited signings (like DigiCert). The user goes to "https://myuser.whatever.com" https://myuser.whatever.com", and you use SNI to select the private key. It might be a pain to manage, and you'd need to get your wildcard cert resigned for each private key, but that's just logistics.
        MagicWishMonkey 13y ago
        It would be a nightmare to manage, and you would have to explain to all 400k of your customers how connect to the smtp/imap endpoint for that particular user. Completely and totally unrealistic for an email provider. The support costs alone would bankrupt the company.
- csoghoian 13y ago
  The government obtained a 2703(d) order for the stored non-content data of a particular user (suspected to be Snowden, but redacted from the court documents). They then obtained a pen register order, for real-time metadata about that same user. Lavabit told them they couldn't comply, so the government sought to use the 3rd party assistance language in the pen register statute to compel the company to provide its private SSL keys. The government then followed up with a grand jury subpoena and Stored Communications Act warrant specifically seeking Lavabit's private SSL keys. So, no. The warrant the government obtained was not specifically for the data relating to Mr Snowden, but rather, was for the SSL keys.
  - fiatmoney 13y ago
    "Lavabit told them they couldn't comply" That's not accurate. Lavabit offered to construct a backdoor for that particular user at well below cost. Instead the government demanded they destroy their business model by making all users insecure. Imagine you run a hotel. The police are looking for a fugitive that's been known to check in occasionally. You offer to build a system that notifies the police if that user checks in. They refuse. Instead they demand you place a camera in each room.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- MagicWishMonkey 13y ago
  That is how SSL is intended to work. You cannot have more than one SSL certificate for a given domain. That is an intentional design decision by the committee that created the SSL RFC. Does the door to your house support multiple types of keys? Or is it designed to work with a single, specifically machined key? Can you open your front door with your car key? Why not?
  - pekk 13y ago
    Why is one SSL key the only thing protecting these customers?
    - MagicWishMonkey 13y ago
      Because that is how SSL works. I don't understand your question. Your bank uses one SSL key as well. Google has one SSL key for their homepage. It is not possible for a top level domain to have more than one SSL certificate. Are you asking why SSL works the way it does? You'll have to talk to the people who wrote the RFC. SSL is what is used to protect communications between a client and the Lavabit endpoint. Once a request is inside the lavabit network other security measures are used. For example, each email message is signed using the account key for a given member, the account key is itself encrypted with the members password. The only way to decrypt a message is with the account key and the only way to decrypt the account key is with the member password. If you lose your password, your mail is gone forever. The feds had access to snowdens encrypted emails, but they had no way to decrypt them without his account password and the only way to do that is with snowdens personal password, which is why they wanted to sniff unencrypted traffic (to snag his password en route to the lavabit server). I've simplified a few things but this is a rough overview of how his system is designed.
      - pekk 13y ago
        Why is SSL the only thing protecting these customers? It's a really simple question and I think you are intentionally avoiding it and attacking a straw man.
- darkarmani 13y ago
  > That Mr Levison happened to use the same SSL certs for all paying customers isn't the fault of anyone but... him. I'm not sure you or the judge understands how SSL works. I would love to see them subpoena a bank for their SSL private key and see the reaction of the world.

dingaling 13y ago

The warrant was specifically for the data relating to Mr Snowden. Go and read the disclosed documents: that is the only individual on whom data was requested. There was no warrant for the SSL keys; that was issued as a subpoena when Mr Levison stated that the data-in-transit was encrypted. The judge told him to disclose the keys that were protecting Mr Snowden's data. That Mr Levison happened to use the same SSL certs for all paying customers isn't the fault of anyone but... him.

enry_straker 13y ago
Now, the courts get to decide how to run your business?
- AnkhMorporkian 13y ago
  When they have a warrant? Absolutely they do. They've always had that power, and every country I know of has warrants of similar power. If you're hosting encrypted data that focuses on privacy while remaining law abiding, it's just sensible to maintain separate SSL keys so you avoid this very scenario. It's not as if it wasn't foreseeable.
  - lsiebert 13y ago
    Doesn't separate ssl certd allow someone to know which user is using the service?
    - adekok 13y ago
      Yes. If you have separate server certs per user (as suggested above), then you can tell which user is using the service. If you have separate client certs per user, then you call tell which user is using the service. The Lavabit response to the original order was not the best, IMHO. As he was in possession of the certs and private keys, he could have decrypted Snowdon's traffic himself, and handed it to the court. Instead, he tried to hide behind a BS "it's encrypted" defence. The court called his bluff. He lost.
      - talmand 13y ago
        I thought he offered to do that and they turned him down? I would imagine him decrypting the data himself would cause problems in a chain-of-evidence type of way though.
      - lsiebert 13y ago
        hmm... is there a way to obfuscate that to the outside? Can you wrap the individual certs? Or use the same cert for everyone, but do a zero knowledge key exchange for people who want to log in, and then have them authenticate with a signed document keyed to a public key they gave when they signed up for the service? Anyway, at least in the physical security industry, security isn't about preventing intrusions. It is about delaying it and limiting it until a sufficient response can be mobilized. Perfect security is impossible
  - talmand 13y ago
    No. A warrant doesn't allow anyone to dictate how one runs their business. How the guy chose to run his business and what the warrant was requesting are two different things.
    - mhurron 13y ago
      When the warrant requests data, it says you can't burn it all down and delete it. Well, you can't without breaking the law. Yes a warrant imposes certain restrictions on your business.
      - talmand 13y ago
        I disagree, but it depends on what type of warrant we're talking about. I'm speaking of a search warrant. A search warrant is used to find and collect evidence that already exists. If authorities need you to change how your business runs to collect new evidence that doesn't yet exist then that runs into a whole different set of laws. A search warrant doesn't allow, or at least it shouldn't, authorities to walk in and take over your business for their own purposes. Search warrants shouldn't have that level of power because they are so easy to obtain, police just ask a judge to sign a piece of paper. It's easy to obtain because all it should be is a piece of paper that allows law enforcement to enter your property without permission, which would normally be a crime, so that they can search for particular evidence. Search warrants can even be very, very specific as to what exactly law enforcement is really looking for within the property if the judge doesn't want to be overly broad. What you are describing does happen, but I fail to see how it would happen under a search warrant. As for your destroying data being against the law if it is requested by the courts. You are correct, except that if your business model is to destroy data in a timely manner then you cannot be held in contempt for destroying data before it was requested. At that point it becomes something different as they have to request you no longer destroy that data so that they can collect it. I don't see how that request falls under a search warrant. I suppose it could happen if a judge likes being overly broad in search warrants (which could cause problems in the criminal case), but it seems unlikely that's how a typical search warrant would be executed.
adekok 13y ago
> That Mr Levison happened to use the same SSL certs for all paying customers isn't the fault of anyone but... him. Name me one large company using HTTPS, with separate SSL server certs for each user. Just one. I'll wait.
- mhurron 13y ago
  When your business is secure email, I think we can fault the creator for designing the system in such an insecure way. If it wasn't a warrant, a single leak of the key would expose everyone's data.
  - MagicWishMonkey 13y ago
    It's fairly obvious that you have no clue how SSL actually works. Do you honestly think that it would make sense to set up a completely new domain for each and every user? Do you have any idea what a nightmare that would be to support? Do you think it would be cost effective to spend $50/year per user to implement such a system? And do you really think that SSL has anything at all to do with the encryption used for storing data inside his system?
    - MichaelGG 13y ago
      Actually you could implement it rather easily using a wildcard cert and a CA provider that provides unlimited signings (like DigiCert). The user goes to "https://myuser.whatever.com" https://myuser.whatever.com", and you use SNI to select the private key. It might be a pain to manage, and you'd need to get your wildcard cert resigned for each private key, but that's just logistics.
      - MagicWishMonkey 13y ago
        It would be a nightmare to manage, and you would have to explain to all 400k of your customers how connect to the smtp/imap endpoint for that particular user. Completely and totally unrealistic for an email provider. The support costs alone would bankrupt the company.
csoghoian 13y ago
The government obtained a 2703(d) order for the stored non-content data of a particular user (suspected to be Snowden, but redacted from the court documents). They then obtained a pen register order, for real-time metadata about that same user. Lavabit told them they couldn't comply, so the government sought to use the 3rd party assistance language in the pen register statute to compel the company to provide its private SSL keys. The government then followed up with a grand jury subpoena and Stored Communications Act warrant specifically seeking Lavabit's private SSL keys. So, no. The warrant the government obtained was not specifically for the data relating to Mr Snowden, but rather, was for the SSL keys.
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  "Lavabit told them they couldn't comply" That's not accurate. Lavabit offered to construct a backdoor for that particular user at well below cost. Instead the government demanded they destroy their business model by making all users insecure. Imagine you run a hotel. The police are looking for a fugitive that's been known to check in occasionally. You offer to build a system that notifies the police if that user checks in. They refuse. Instead they demand you place a camera in each room.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
MagicWishMonkey 13y ago
That is how SSL is intended to work. You cannot have more than one SSL certificate for a given domain. That is an intentional design decision by the committee that created the SSL RFC. Does the door to your house support multiple types of keys? Or is it designed to work with a single, specifically machined key? Can you open your front door with your car key? Why not?
- pekk 13y ago
  Why is one SSL key the only thing protecting these customers?
  - MagicWishMonkey 13y ago
    Because that is how SSL works. I don't understand your question. Your bank uses one SSL key as well. Google has one SSL key for their homepage. It is not possible for a top level domain to have more than one SSL certificate. Are you asking why SSL works the way it does? You'll have to talk to the people who wrote the RFC. SSL is what is used to protect communications between a client and the Lavabit endpoint. Once a request is inside the lavabit network other security measures are used. For example, each email message is signed using the account key for a given member, the account key is itself encrypted with the members password. The only way to decrypt a message is with the account key and the only way to decrypt the account key is with the member password. If you lose your password, your mail is gone forever. The feds had access to snowdens encrypted emails, but they had no way to decrypt them without his account password and the only way to do that is with snowdens personal password, which is why they wanted to sniff unencrypted traffic (to snag his password en route to the lavabit server). I've simplified a few things but this is a rough overview of how his system is designed.
    - pekk 13y ago
      Why is SSL the only thing protecting these customers? It's a really simple question and I think you are intentionally avoiding it and attacking a straw man.
darkarmani 13y ago
> That Mr Levison happened to use the same SSL certs for all paying customers isn't the fault of anyone but... him. I'm not sure you or the judge understands how SSL works. I would love to see them subpoena a bank for their SSL private key and see the reaction of the world.