Awesome Stuff Goes Dark: Dark Mail And Dark Wallet

from the sometimes-it's-good-to-be-in-the-dark dept

Sat, Nov 9th 2013 9:00am — Mike Masnick

This week we've got two projects for our awesome stuff post that have to do with some of the topics we've been discussing lately: secure email and Bitcoin.

Last week, we were the first to report that Ladar Levison was planning to release Lavabit's code as open source (including dark mail capabilities Levison is working on with Silent Circle) and to put up a Kickstarter campaign. That campaign is now live. It's worth pointing out that respected security guru Moxie Marlinspike wrote an interesting criticism of Lavabit, but also that Levison provided a detailed response. It appears that many people are believers. In just a few days, the campaign managed to bring in over $75,000. That's still short of the $196,608 being sought, but it seems fairly likely that he'll get there. It's interesting to see that one person has already agreed to give $10,000.
Moving on from dark mail, we've got Dark Wallet, an interesting IndieGoGo project to create a simple and easy-to-use, but secure, Bitcoin wallet. The folks behind it are hoping to build a series of useful Bitcoin tools down the road. The IndieGogo campaign has raised a little over $30,000 towards its goal of $50,000, but as a flex funds campaign, the goal doesn't really matter. The money will go to the developers either way. Of course, they also have it set up so you can donate separately, using Bitcoin -- and have already brought in over 55 Bitcoins, which, depending on what exchange rate you use, means that's probably worth another $15,000 or so (though, that can change fairly rapidly in either direction).

That's it for this week, we'll be back next week with something a little lighter, I'm sure.

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Filed Under: awesome stuff, bitcoin, dark mail, dark wallet, email
Companies: lavabit

5 Comments

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vilain (profile), 9 Nov 2013 @ 10:53am

Thanks for posting this
I just pledged for the FOSS Lavabit Kickstart.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2013 @ 4:23am

Is Dark Wallet another Armory?

I use the Bitcoin-Qt at the moment.

By constructing our societies as a federation of communities, each providing different models and alternatives within them, we can transcend collectivised straitjacketing and decentralise the system. More free choice for the people. This isn't the same as free choice for the consumers as consumerism is a passive ideology, but instead requires active participation. You are involved in the creation, maintenance and participation. Responsibility no longer comes from states but resides within you, the individual.

Technology tools are already obsoleting the old democratic systems. In Berlin, the German PirateParty is creating a platform for self determination called LiquidFeedback. Elsewhere we are seeing the development of a variety of communication (such as BitMessage), markets and self governance systems.

Source: DarkWallet-UnSystem

Hmmm...DarkWallet is not another Armor is intended to become a platform.

Just a wallet?
Actually we aim for more, but want to remain focused on our core offering before getting lost in feature creep. DarkWallet has a bigger vision, but we have to think extensively on how to integrate and properly combine all these disparate features in a user friendly package. We want to explore distributed identity, distributed reputation systems, encrypted messaging (ala BitMessage), private asset issuance, decentralised trading and semi-persistant storage systems. All these tools can be combined to create decentralised markets.

We want to start an exploration into turning these rough concepts into a usable privacy reality for the people.

The interesting part is the decentralized identity and distributed reputation systems.

Text Hash(SHA512).
4c899e0e8f1352bbd777480918d25b0859f740652382bf8938a877d587338b456e84a333b70eb6a4acef3b5 a00acad67f3a8531d5078f69c8757d954d3b9b720
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Martin Young (profile), 10 Nov 2013 @ 5:01am

open sourcing email
Yes coding requires a bit of knowledge but even a novice can tell when someone has added a bit of extra code to a known code size. Easier to tell than if you have no idea what the underlying code is when you click on an icon. I salute the gentlemen.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Nov 2013 @ 2:31pm

This project is already a complete failure
Oh, it's well-intentioned. But it's a total failure already, as those behind it haven't done anything to prevent end users' systems from compromising it.

They won't do that because it would GREATLY diminish the size of the potential user base. But that's exactly what they need to do in order to have a fighting chance of success.

Here is what will happen -- write it down, note the date, if you like.

It will be carefully designed. It will be (mostly) correctly implemented. It will subsequently (or perhaps, simultaneously) draw the attention of various intelligence agencies as well as the usual suspects: phishers, spammers, and so on. In short order, they will reprogram their botnets to exfiltrate data from it. It won't be long after that until they have those same botnets generate synthetic traffic, and of course not long after that until they're in a position to inject malware and conduct known-plaintext attacks against the crypto. Those who relied on this service will wake up one day to discover that they're fairly well screwed.

I hope I'm completely wrong about all of that. I strongly suspect I'm not.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 Nov 2013 @ 4:26am

Poor naming
Dark mail? Why not just call it blackmail?
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