Communication security

ENCRYPTED EMAIL SERVICE ONCE USED BY EDWARD SNOWDEN RELAUNCHES

IN 2013, LADAR Levison, founder of the encrypted email service Lavabit, took the defiant step of shutting down the company’s service rather than comply with a federal law enforcement request that could compromise its customers’ communications.

The FBI had sought access to the email account of one of Lavabit’s most prominent users — Edward Snowden. Levison had custody of his service’s SSL encryption key that could help the government obtain Snowden’s password. And though the feds insisted they were only after Snowden’s account, the key would have helped them obtain the credentials for other users as well.

Lavabit had 410,000 user accounts at the time...