New Encrypted Email Services Coming From Kim Dotcom's Mega And Newzbin

from the unintended-effects dept

A month ago, we wrote about Kim Dotcom's plans to form his own political party in New Zealand. But that's not the only way that Dotcom is going on the attack against the system. Here's Vikram Kumar, the Chief Executive of Dotcom's "privacy company" Mega, on another bold move: Mega chief executive Vikram Kumar told ZDNet that the company was being asked to deliver secure email and voice services. In the wake of the closures [of other email services like Lavabit], he expanded on his plans.



Kumar said work is in progress, building off the end-to-end encryption and contacts functionality already working for documents in Mega. That's not going to be easy, as both Lavabit and Silent Circle know too well. Despite that challenge, Mega isn't the only company hoping to meet it. Another, rather surprisingly perhaps, is Newzbin, best known as a UK Usenet aggregator. TorrentFreak explains: according to the site's former lawyer, Newzbin intends to make a comeback with new services designed to defeat NSA spying.



"We are horrified by the recently disclosed antics of the NSA in indiscriminately spying on all Internet users," David Harris told TorrentFreak.



"We cut our teeth protecting our users from the surveillance of corrupt US corporations like the Hollywood movie studios. We now plan to bring a range of privacy services to help protect the public from governments. Our first product is a secure email service which is about to enter closed early beta testing." What's interesting here is the common thread with Dotcom. Both he and Newzbin's David Harris ran services that tried to resist unwanted scrutiny. That puts both of them in a good position when it comes to establishing secure email services -- at least, insofar that is possible given the limitations imposed by email's architecture. It looks like the US government's uncritical support for the copyright industry's frenzied pursuit of file-sharing sites could ultimately lead to the creation of new online services that thwart its law agencies in the far more important area of national security.

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Filed Under: encrypted email, kim dotcom, privacy, security, unintended consequences

Companies: mega, newzbin