Texas-based Encrypted Email Service ‘ Lavabit ,’ that was forced to shut down in 2013 after not complying with a court order demanding access to SSL keys to snoop on Edward Snowden’s emails , is relaunching on Friday.
Lavabit CEO Ladar Levison had custody of the service’s SSL encryption key that could have helped the government obtain Snowden’s password. Although the FBI insisted it was only after Snowden’s account, that was the key to the kingdom that would have helped the FBI agents obtain other users’ credentials as well.
But rather than complying with the federal request that could compromise the communications of all of its customers, Levison preferred to shut down his encrypted email service, leaving its 410,000 users unable to access their email accounts.
Now, Levison has announced that he is reviving Lavabit with a new architecture that fixes the SSL problem — which according to him, was the biggest threat — and includes other privacy-enhancing features that will help its users send emails that he can’t eavesdrop, even if ordered to do so.
Levison is releasing the source code for an open-source end-to-end encrypted global email standard that promises surveillance-proof messaging that even hides the metadata on emails to prevent agencies like the NSA or FBI from being able to find out with whom Lavabit users communicate.
