[tor-talk] Secure email with limited usable metadata

[coderman]

On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 11:15 PM, Andreas Krey <a.krey at gmx.de> wrote:
> ...
> Put new clients into the next instance of this service, formally
> operated by someone else?

you say this like there's an inexhaustible supply of dedicated
individuals / volunteers able to administer a business entity /
incorporation each with enough autonomy and self sufficiency to avoid
conspiracy charges ... ;)

i am skeptical this can scale in any meaningful sense; still better
than nothing?



> ...
> Lawful intercepts also include the access metadata (which I assume to
> be equally secure here), and access to the emails themselves. While
> encrypted the service still has to know source and destination to
> some extent.

the joy of email is that you defer hard problems like unlinkability,
psuedonymity, anonymity to lower layers where possible.  i agree that
"pen register" and other metadata is just as critical to privacy as
content - perhaps more so given the lack of constraints around access
to "pen register" metadata.

did i mention this is a hard problem?



> I guess under NSLs this could be construed as publishing same,
> so the NSL effectively forces you to stay in business.

"Due to circumstances outside our control we are no longer able to
provide customers with quality service. Effective immediately.
[datetimestamp]"