News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Lavabit abruptly shuts down. Parent comment

Re:Lavabit abruptly shuts down by qwerta on Friday August 09, 2013 @04:09AM (#6184317)
Could you name some examples from Europe? Cases when police physically takes servers are common. But I never heard of case where police would require encryption keys for 'maybe we will needed it'.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Lavabit abruptly shuts down by DanBC on Friday August 09, 2013 @08:40AM (#6185220)
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) in the UK is relevant here.

(http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/361693/teenager-jailed-for-refus...)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Lavabit abruptly shuts down by northwest on Friday August 09, 2013 @04:31AM (#6184389)
Also, what prevents the guy from setting up that service in a European country (Switzerland is not subject to EU laws)?

I don't see why his 10 years of work would be lost.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Lavabit abruptly shuts down by draugadrotten on Friday August 09, 2013 @05:52AM (#6184669)
He might not want to relocate.

It's risky to relocate the servers in another country. You will have to obey the other country's laws, but the US gov will still claim jurisdiction if the staff and/or owner is in the US. The US will even claim jurisdiction as soon as you use a ".com" domain [1]

Of course the hosting nation will also claim jurisdiction. So relocating your servers to one country while staying in another will expose you to two national laws as well as any international agreements between these nations.

[1] Richard O’Dwyer, a UK citizen who ran a UK-based web site, was facing extradition to the U.S. because he used a .com domain. - http://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/jun/17/student-file-shar...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Lavabit abruptly shuts down by northwest on Friday August 09, 2013 @07:02AM (#6184864)
He could still just sell it to someone in another country. Neither the service nor his 10 years of work would be lost.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Lavabit abruptly shuts down by kbenson on Friday August 09, 2013 @10:50AM (#6185981)
Depending on how bad the government wants the data, that's essentially just charging a high premium to get all the data instead of a specific user's data.

If the purchasing party is less scrupulous, you've thwarted nothing. In extreme cases (or for smaller companies), the purchaser could even be a government front.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Lavabit abruptly shuts down by rdl on Sunday August 11, 2013 @04:34AM (#6194349)
I'm pretty sure there are known entities offshore you could sell to who are unlikely to be government fronts. Imagine selling to someone Wikileaks affiliated...
[ Parent | on HN ]