#darkmail

From Ars Technica:

Ladar Levison is probably most well-known to Ars readers as the founder of the secure e-mail service Lavabit, which he shut down in mid-2013 in an effort to avoid being forced to comply with a US government demand to turn over users’ e-mails. But his latest project is a lot grander in scope than a single hosted e-mail service: Levison is attempting, with the aid of some fellow crypto-minded developers, to change e-mail at large and build encryption into its fundamental nature.

As one of the members of the Darkmail Technical Alliance, Levison—along with Jon Callas, Mike Janke, and PGP designer Phil Zimmermann—is working on a project collectively referred to as DIME, the Dark Internet Mail Environment. DIME will eventually take the form of a drop-in replacement for existing e-mail servers that will be able to use DMTP (the Dark Mail Transfer Protocol) and DMAP (Dark Mail Access Protocol) to encrypt e-mails by default.

In our research we came across various tools and technologies that work to advance our lives by providing us with more protection and anonymity in our online interactions. Below is a short explanation of each item as well as a video that will explain the technology or tool in much greater detail.

TOR- (The Onion Router) TOR functions to allow you to surf the darknet anonymously as well as the regular web. This is useful for people whose governments have placed restrictions on their browsing abilities as well as for people who wish to anonymously host a website without legal repercussions.

Dark Mail Dark Mail, much like darknet, came about from programmers who felt that the internet and more specifically email was not anonymous enough. The project was placed on Kickstarter in order to be funded and was successfully funded. It allows for completely anonymous emailing that still functions to contact unencrypted email clients.

Bittorrent Bittorrent is a way to somewhat anonymously share files that are distributed across a vast network of clients called a swarm. You can share any file you wish which has led to much criticism because of the illegal use by most people.

VPN - Virtual Private Network VPN’s allow for people to use the internet (emailing, watching videos, general surfing) while acting as another user. To those that are potentially be watched, this is a good way to protect some anonymity.

Bitcoin / Litecoin Bitcoin and Litecoin are cryptocurrencies. They are a form of currency that are completely digital and have no form of monetary backing (gold, silver, or otherwise). They are also completely anonymous and allow for the purchase of illegal goods and services without being tracked.

Silent Circle and Lavabit launch “Dark Mail Alliance” to thwart e-mail spying. The new protocol will be based on Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, or XMPP, and it's set to be released in mid-2014. The group will ditch the old protocol, SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), which is used for almost every bit of e-mail on the Internet. “This is just another transport—what we’re getting rid of is SMTP,” said Jon Callas, the CTO at Silent Circle. “We like to laugh at it, but there are reasons why it was a good system. We’re replacing the transport with a new transport. E-mail was designed 40 years ago when everybody on the Internet knew each other and were friends.” #Privacy #Lavabit #SilentCircle #DarkMail #XMPP #SMTP #email #Encryption #Messaging #Communication #NSA #Surveillance #Spying #Spy #Technology #Security #Freedom #Liberty #Levison Silent Circle and Lavabit launch “DarkMail Alliance” to thwart e-mail spying

"You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated" (Naked Security) http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/10/31/you-cant-have-your-privacy-violated-if-you-dont-know-your-privacy-is-violated/

Revealed: NSA pushed 9/11 as key 'sound bite' to justify surveillance (Al-Jazeera America) http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/30/revealed-nsa-pushed911askeysoundbitetojustifysurveillance.html

El CNI facilitó el espionaje masivo de EEUU a España (El Mundo) http://www.elmundo.es/espana/2013/10/30/5270985d63fd3d7d778b4576.html

No U.S. Action, So States Move on Privacy Law (NYT) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/technology/no-us-action-so-states-move-on-privacy-law.html?_r=0

NSA leaks helping India become 'Big Brother' state? (BBC) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24753696 Also: India plans to restrict webmail use following NSA leaks http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24744695

Silent Circle and Lavabit launch “DarkMail Alliance” to thwart e-mail spying (Ars) http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/silent-circle-and-lavabit-launch-darkmail-alliance-to-thwart-e-mail-spying/

Bitcoin Pursues the Mainstream (NYT) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/technology/bitcoin-pursues-the-mainstream.html?_r=0

UK trial shows phone hacking techniques (AP) http://news.yahoo.com/uk-trial-shows-phone-hacking-techniques-111423389--finance.html

Drones: A rare glimpse at sophisticated US spy plane (BBC) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24729998

NSA, DHS Sued For Threatening People Who Created Parody Merchandise (Tech Dirt) http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131029/18152325060/nsa-dhs-sued-threatening-people-who-created-parody-merchandise.shtml

Drive in Google Glass, get a ticket (CNN) http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/tech/mobile/google-glass-driving-ticket/index.html

Share prices rarely hit hard by cyberattacks (FT) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/348d7f1a-417e-11e3-9073-00144feabdc0.html

Russia's Spying Craze (Moscow Times) http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/russias-spying-craze/488773.html

“Lawful intrusion” – it isn’t hacking when we do it, Dutch police say (Computer World) http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/security/3476491/police-should-be-allowed-hack-into-computers-euro-cops-say/