Hushmail: Encrypted Email Provider Turns Over Clear Text Messages to Feds
November 8th, 2007“I don’t believe in web based email solutions that purport to provide strong encryption and/or anonymity. Who knows what their applets and servers are doing? Not me.”
—The Ugly Truth About Online Anonymity
* sigh *
Via: Wired:
Hushmail, a longtime provider of encrypted web-based email, markets itself by saying that “not even a Hushmail employee with access to our servers can read your encrypted e-mail, since each message is uniquely encoded before it leaves your computer.”
But it turns out that statement seems not to apply to individuals targeted by government agencies that are able to convince a Canadian court to serve a court order on the company.
A September court document (.pdf) from a federal prosecution of alleged steroid dealers reveals the Canadian company turned over 12 CDs worth of e-mails from three Hushmail accounts, following a court order obtained through a mutual assistance treaty between the U.S. and Canada.
There are probably backdoors in every encryption program you could get anyway, even PPP! Privacy is only for the powerful it seems.
Its the end of the (communication) world as we’ve known it. And I DON’T FEEL FINE!!!
Bastards. Every single one of them.
Can you hear me now?
Like you haven’t been listening to me since when.
AAAARGGGH!