Lavabit

Key takeaways

Lavabit belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lavabit to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lavabit from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lavabit is an open-source encrypted webmail service, founded in 2004. The service suspended its operations on August 8, 2013, after the U.S. Federal Government ordered it to turn over its Transport Layer Security (TLS) private keys, in order to allow the government to spy on Edward Snowden's email. Lavabit's owner and operator, Ladar Levison, announced on January 20, 2017, that Lavabit would start operating again, using the new Dark Internet Mail Environment (DIME), which is an end-to-end email encryption platform designed to be more surveillance-resistant. However, as of June 2017, while the DIME transition was being completed, service was only being offered to past customers and those who took advantage of the early signup offer. As of October 2017, new customers were again being offered the opportunity to purchase service.

History Lavabit was founded by Texas-based programmers who formed Nerdshack LLC (renamed Lavabit LLC the next year), citing privacy concerns about Gmail, Google's free, widely used email service, and their use of the content of users' email to generate advertisements and marketing data. Lavabit offered significant privacy protection for their users' email, including asymmetric encryption. The strength of the cryptographic methods used was of a level that is presumed impossible even for intelligence agencies to crack. In August 2013, Lavabit had about 410,000 users and offered free and paid accounts with levels of storage ranging from 128 megabytes to 8 gigabytes. In January 2011, Lavabit had launched a shared web hosting service. Before the Snowden incident, Lavabit had complied with previous search warrants. For example, in June 2013 a search warrant was executed against a Lavabit account for suspected possession of child pornography.

Connection to Edward Snowden

Lavabit received media attention in July 2013 when it was revealed that Edward Snowden was using the Lavabit email address Ed_Snowden@lavabit.com to invite human rights lawyers and activists to a press conference during his confinement at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. The day after Snowden revealed his identity, the United States federal government served a court order, dated June 10, 2013, and issued under 18 USC 2703(d), a 1994 amendment of the Stored Communications Act, asking for metadata on a customer who was unnamed. Kevin Poulsen of Wired wrote that "the timing and circumstances suggest" that Snowden was this customer. In July 2013 the federal government obtained a search warrant demanding that Lavabit give away the private SSL keys to its service, affecting all Lavabit users. A 2016 redaction error confirmed that Edward Snowden was the target.

Suspension and gag order On August 8, 2013, Lavabit suspended its operations, and the email service log-in page was replaced by a message from the owner and operator Ladar Levison. The New Yorker suggested that the suspension might be related to the US National Security Agency (NSA)'s "domestic-surveillance practices". Wired speculated that Levison was fighting a warrant or national security letter seeking customer information under extraordinary circumstances, as Lavabit had complied with at least one routine search warrant in the past. Levison stated in an interview that he responded to "at least two dozen subpoenas" over the lifetime of the service. He hinted that the objectionable request was for "information about all the users" of Lavabit. Levison explained he was under a gag order and that he was legally unable to explain to the public why he ended the service. Instead, he asked for donations to "fight for the Constitution" in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Levison also stated he has even been barred from sharing some information with his lawyer. Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation called on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to provide greater transparency to the public, in part to help observers "understand what led to a ten-year-old business closing its doors and a new start-up abandoning a business opportunity". Levison said that he could be arrested for closing the site instead of releasing the information, and it was reported that the federal prosecutor's office had sent Levison's lawyer an email to that effect. Lavabit is believed to be the first technology firm that has chosen to suspend or shut down its operation rather than comply with an order from the United States government to reveal information or grant access to information. Silent Circle, an encrypted email, mobile video and voice service provider, followed the example of Lavabit by discontinuing its encrypted email services. Citing the impossibility of being able to maintain the confidentiality of its customers' emails should it be served with government orders, Silent Circle permanently erased the encryption keys that allowed access to emails stored or transmitted by its service.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lavabit

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lavabit claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lavabit before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lavabit ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lavabit

In research: Lavabit appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lavabit in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lavabit is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2004 establishments in Texas, Email clients, History of cryptography, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lavabit outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Lavabit in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lavabit means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lavabit out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lavabit in simple terms?

Lavabit is an open-source encrypted webmail service, founded in 2004. The service suspended its operations on August 8, 2013, after the U.S.

Why does Lavabit matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lavabit?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lavabit.