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Comment by jnbiche | Hacker News Reader

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jnbiche·

For the record, Lavabit routinely complied with search warrants, including one just months before this incident [1].

So what was different about this one?

1. https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Maryland_District_Court/1-...

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The difference is that FBI this time wanted to install their own equipment inside of his facilities (at the point where everything of every user is decrypted):

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/801182/redacted-pleadi...

"shall furnish agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, forthwith , all information, facilities, and technical assistance necessary to accomplish the installation and use of the pen/trap device."

Before, they would really demand only the information of the user named in the court order. This time it was "just let us install this thing inside and don't ask."

It would have enabled to government to listen in to everyone using the service, not just get the information of the intended target.

Is that true? As I understood it, the original request was for pen/trap on Snowden alone; when that was refused and Levison threatened with contempt, he relented, only to be rebuked by DOJ with a new demand for blanket surveillance.

But as I understand it, Levison could have complied with the earlier demand for surveillance narrowly targeting Snowden.

Yes it is true, it would have enabled FBI to listen in to everyone using the service. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6487778

Your understanding is not accurate from my read of the court docs. They wanted their black box (you know the ones), called a pen/trap device in the documents, to be installed on the network. It won't work without the SSL keys, so they wanted those. He offered to modify his software to intercept a single user's email, but they said no.

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