Mega’s Kim Dotcom is looking to capitalize on a seemingly wide-open market in the wake of secure e-mail services Lavabit and Silent Circle voluntarily shutting down following intense pressure from US authorities. The company is accelerating efforts to build a secure e-mail service that would run on a non-US-based network according to Mega chief executive Vikram Kumar.

The executive is heading up the effort which he described as both exciting but very hard and time-consuming. As Kumar explained to CNET, the biggest tech hurdle is providing e-mail functionality that people expect, like the ability to search e-mails.

This feature is easy enough to provide if messages are stored in plain text on the server side but if all the server can see is encrypted text which is the case with true end-to-end encryption, all of that functionality must be built on the client side. Kumar said it isn’t impossible to pull off but it’s very hard to do and is perhaps why Silent Circle shuttered.

It’s likely to take many more months to crack, he said, reiterating that Mega will never launch anything that undermines its end-to-end encryption core security proposition.

In related news, Dotcom recently revealed to TorrentFreak that he may have to move Mega’s servers elsewhere if certain new surveillance laws are passed in New Zealand. The entrepreneur highlighted Iceland as a possible destination as it is a “friendly small country without enemies.”

He further noted the US was on a path to destroying its massive lead in the Internet economy. Dotcom believes mass surveillance and copyright extremism will ultimately cost the US economy more than any terrorist attack or piracy.