The business of protecting consumers from prying, government eyes has suddenly become a pre-emptive one for Silent Circle. The communications encryptions firm said Friday that it was shutting down its e-mail service to prevent spying, a day after competitor Lavabit shut down its core email service. Lavabit’s founder had suggested in a letter to customers that he had been the subject of a U.S. government investigation and gag order.
Silent Circle, which has seen a 400% revenue jump in recent months as a result of the Snowden furore and concerns over government surveillance, does not rely solely on e-mail hosting as Lavabit does. It also encrypts phone calls, text messages and video conferencing with a suite of iOS and Android apps.
Co-founder and CTO Jon Callas said in a blog post Friday that Silent Circle’s e-mail service had “always been something of a quandary for us.” This, in spite of the fact that one of Silent Circle’s other co-founder is Phil Zimmermann, inventor of the popular e-mail encryption software PGP.
Electronic mail uses standard internet protocols that cannot have the same security guarantees that real-time communication has, Callas said. “Email as we know it with SMTP, POP3, and IMAP cannot be secure.”
Since many of its customers wanted an email service, Silent Circle offered it anyway with full disclosure of the risks. “However, we have reconsidered this position,” Callas said.
“We’ve been thinking about this for some time, whether it was a good idea at all. Yesterday, another secure email provider, Lavabit, shut down their system lest they ‘be complicit in crimes against the American people.’ We see the writing on the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail.”
Last month it came to light that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden had probably used the Lavabit email service after an observer at his recent Moscow airport briefing posted the email address esnowden@lavabit.com on Facebook FB +0.35%. Lavabit’s founder, Ladar Levinson, said Thursday that he would suspend operations at his his e-mail hosting company rather than “become complicit in crimes against the American people.” He added that he was legally prevented from talking about the events that had led to his decision.
Callas said Silent Circle had not received subpoenas, warrants or anything other similar request from any government. The company had been debating what to do about its email service for weeks, and up until Friday was ready to phase the service out so that it would continue for existing customers. “It is always better to be safe than sorry,” Callas said.
