The developer behind Lavabit, an email service that noted leaker Edward Snowden used, is releasing source code for an open-source, end-to-end encrypted email standard that promises surveillance-proof messaging.
The code for the Dark Internet Mail Environment (DIME) standard will become available on Github, along with an associated mail server program, said its developer, Ladar Levison, on Friday.
DIME will work across different service providers and perhaps crucially will be “flexible enough to allow users to continue using their email without a Ph. D. in cryptology,” said Levison.
To coincide with its launch, Levison is also reviving Lavabit. The encrypted email service shut down in 2013 when federal agents investigating Snowden demanded access to email messages of his 410,000 customers, including their private encryption keys.
Levison decided to shut it down rather than help the U. S. government violate his customers’ privacy, he wrote on Friday.
