Lavabit founder recounts dedicated surveillance by US government on secured email

By Rizza Sta. Ana

Oct 03, 2013 01:26 PM EDT

Secure email provider Lavabit LLC founder Ladar Levison shared the latest developments of the events the lead him to shut the company down. Lavabit's downfall started with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Snowden used Lavabit's service to communicate to media about his press conference.

The post also showed how Levision trolled federal investigators. Trolling is the act of sowing discord on the Internet by upsetting people or starting arguments. When asked by investigators about the SSH keys of his site, Levison, gave them an 11-page list in four-point type. The US government said the documents could not be read by the naked eye. Prosecutors wrote, "To make use of these keys, the FBI would have to manually input all 2560 characters, and one incorrect keystroke in this laborious process would render the FBI collection system incapable of collecting decrypted data."

Prior to its shutdown, Lavabit services 410,000 registered users with its secured email accounts. Fans had supported Levison's fight in court, pouring a total of USD90,000 as of August to help with legal costs. 

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