I Think I Know What NSA Did to Trigger Lavabit Closure

[davidlynch]

By listening to Ladar Levison very carefully today on Democracy Now! I was able to piece together a theory about what the NSA must have asked Lavabit to do.

Ladar Levison was very careful about his words, and he said that he hoped journalists could piece together what happened from some other sources, since he cannot say directly.

Ladar did say that Lavabit uses encryption for e-mails, meaning no one on the Lavabit staff would be able to read the e-mails because they simply don't have the keys. This also means that the e-mails would be of no value to the NSA unless...

The NSA was forcing Lavabit to set up a "sniffer" to capture incoming passwords from users as they try to access their e-mails.

If I'm right about this, it explains everything, including why both Lavabit and Silent Circle had to close immediately. If the incoming keys were to be captured, the NSA would simply wait until users accessed their e-mails once. However, by shutting down immediately without notice, both Lavabit and Silent Circle effectively defeated this attack.

If this is true, it makes me even more grateful for their integrity.

[ljm2002]

1. That does make sense...

...and explains why the shutdown had to happen immediately, without warning users.

K&R

[dkf]

2. They inserted malicious code into the Tor network.

There's no end to what they could have asked lavabit to do.

[msanthrope]

3. Yes--it's how they captured the largest child porn distributor on the Internet....

Remember your thread on it, when you forgot to mention the child porn investigation?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023403890

[dkf]

5. Because I think it was a pretense...

For all I know they framed him. I don't put anything past this government when it comes to their quest for ALL INFORMATION. Bunch of megalomaniacs.

[msanthrope]

6. You think the government planted 3 sites--- Lolita City, The Love Zone and Pedo Empire

on his servers, without his knowledge, along with pictures, videos, and users in order to ensnare him?

Seems like an awful lot of work for a frame job. I suppose Mr. Marques' transfers of cash to Romania and inquiries into obtaining asylum were planted, too?

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/fbi-agents-in-marques-probe-found-sick-websites-29489403.html

[JDPriestly]

13. They could have found the person who ran the sites without putting everyone under

surveillance. They have the ability to target their surveillance.

The collection of metadata based on probable cause would be perfectly constitutional. No problem with that.

But, say, if a person like me has to live under the threat of surveillance. Like most people, I try as hard as I can to follow the law and have great respect for the law and that is the case right now. In my case, and in the case of the vast majority of people, the surveillance is very, very wrong.

[msanthrope]

14. Do you really have a problem with putting users of pedophile sites under surveillance?

I mean, do you seriously think the government was doing something wrong by tracking the users of a site called "Lolita City?"

I mean--not for anything, but LOOKING at child porn is a crime.

[JDPriestly]

15. I have no problem with that. Most of us try to follow the law.

But they could get a specific court order or specific court orders in specific cases. That is what the Fourth Amendment permits.

What they are doing is wrong because their blanket court orders encompass the accounts of people like me who abide by the law as carefully as we can. The law intimidates people like me.

Long before the FISA court, the police could obtain pen registers from phone companies in specific cases.

The blanket surveillance under, by the way, the Foreign Intelligence Security Act -- not domestic pornography legislation -- violates the Constitution in a number of ways.

Not only does the NSA capture whether intentionally or not the communications of a person like me (70, female, if anything, according to my children, too fanatical about following speed limits and other rules), my Congressman, my Senators, my children, everyone who like me is completely innocent. This NSA surveillance can also capture the communications of judges, of members of the President's family -- of everyone. The NSA is way overstepping.

But the NSA, actually not the NSA but the FBI, has and should have the capacity to collect evidence in a criminal investigation of any kind including an international investigation. The NSA is supposed to be focused on security issues. Child pornography is a criminal matter that, I suspect, should be handled by local police and the FBI, maybe the rest of the Justice Department. I don't know why the NSA would be involved in it. Maybe Interpol would be involved. It is a serious problem.

[msanthrope]

18. First of all, this isn't the NSA. It is the FBI, a point that dkf's OP obfuscated.

And it's a criminal investigation of the FBI and prosecution by the DOJ, so it didn't involve the FISA court--rather, a grand jury that returned charges.

If Mr. Marques believes that his 4th amendment rights were violated, he can certainly contest that at his trial. As for the users, there is no need to obtain a specific warrant against each of them since what is sought is a business record held by a third party. The warrant or subpoena served on the service provider is enough to secure the names and info of the users.

Now, if the FBI were to pursue the users, they would need a warrant to search a house, or take a computer.

[JDPriestly]

20. Agreed. I just didn't want to go into the legal details on DU. But you are right.

It really isn't an NSA matter.

The NSA is supposed to be looking for Al Qaeda members. How many of them use AOL or Verizon or Yahoo, do you suppose?

Facebook? Maybe. I'm not on there, but I think of it as more a place to post pictures of your new baby or your new boyfriend, not really for plotting crimes or attacks. Maybe for joining with people who agree with you politically. But people post their stuff on Facebook pretty much in plain sight. I don't see why a FISA order would be needed.

I have no idea what Al Qaeda does to communicate, but I doubt that they are on DU or any of the sites that most Americans frequent on a regular basis.

[msanthrope]

21. Anwar Awlaki posted hundreds of videos to YouTube. Until Rep. Weiner

got them to take down his videos, Al Qaeda used YouTube. Awlaki also used email to plot with Rajib Karim, and the Fort Hood shooter, and others.

The NSA doesn't just look for Al Qaeda.

[JDPriestly]

22. Why was YouTube allowing them to be posted there?

Seems to me that private businesses could monitor the internet a bit -- the internet providers. That would be better than giving the NSA an excuse to monitor everything.

Private businesses can do what they want in this regard.

On DU we have a jury system that is fairly successful in getting rid of truly objectionable posts -- say racist posts or posts that advocate violence.

It isn't necessary for the NSA to be involved within the USA.

[msanthrope]

23. I really don't want business responsible for monitoring terrorists. nt

[JDPriestly]

24. No. But they could monitor YouTube videos.

[Fumesucker]

29. That's exactly what's happening with the contractors though

It's not government employees doing the monitoring for the most part, it's private businesses and their private employees.

[whopis01]

27. Do you have a problem with putting everyone under surveillance to find users of pedophile sites? n/t

[nebenaube]

17. If someone is determined to copy such crap onto your server and they did... you are fucked!

I can't believe I even have a copy of windows server running...

[msanthrope]

19. So the FBI designed three pedophile sites in order to trap Mr. Marques? nt

[nebenaube]

28. They could have, in fact I wouldn't put it past them...

Tor is a honeypot, built to collect intelligence and aid foreign dissidents. Most of the sites on the 'dark' web probably are as well. Also, 'Entrapment' is not illegal anymore.

[bobduca]

4. And they are possibly the recipient of one of the National Letters?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter


Like this guy who was silenced by one...

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/13/former_internet_provider_gagged_by_national

[99th_Monkey]

11. How can all these gag order be remotely constitutional?

"national security" <--one-size fits all excuse for ever-increasing tyranny

[Cronus Protagonist]

7. I'm sure they only wanted the metadata

...or something...

[Th1onein]

9. And it's all LEGAL, too!

And Snowden has boxes in his garage! But all of this is old, anyway, and Snowden's girlfriend is a pole dancer!

[joshcryer]

8. What bugs me about PRISM is their ability to read HTTPS FB chats.

How the fuck are they doing this without either 1) having broke HTTPS or 2) having FaceBook collude with the sharing of those chats?

It sounds like LavaBit was being tasked with providing more than just sniffers, it sounds like in fact the NSA wanted LavaBit to actually provide unencrypted data points.

[DeSwiss]

10. The NSA cannot infiltrate.....

...integrity software.

- They know neither its code, nor its language.

K&R

[AtheistCrusader]

16. And why would the server be accepting keys anyway, to sniff?

Send the encrypted data on a 'soft' password access, and have the client machine decode with the key locally.

Then there's fuck-all to sniff on the server side.

[JDPriestly]

12. Yes. I think that was probably the problem.

[nashville_brook]

25. elegant theory. i like it.

[sabrina 1]

26. Good for them. Hopefully now more people will do the same when they are asked to spy on

private citizens.