- Lavabit + Silent Circle are starting a non-profit called the Dark Mail Alliance.
- Planning to release an open source protocol for end-to-end encrypted email, along with some open source implementations. Expecting feedback from the community to drive the direction.
- Sketch of the protocol: Mail body/details is saved encrypted on some server somewhere. Encrypted XMPP message containing URI describing where to retrieve the message is sent to the recipients. Recipient clients figure out how to fetch it and decrypt it.
- The protocol is based heavily on Silent Circle's protocol. Functional proof of concept already exists.
- There will be several modes of security, default being the most secure, but allowing the user to explicitly scale down on a case-by-case basis (e.g. to abide by regulations and corporate policies).
- Sounds like it's backwards-compatible with SMTP, perhaps through gateways. It'll be explicitly marked as insecure.
- Ladar's goal is to transition Lavabit from a services company into a software company, using the free/open source business model and offer support services around it.
- The protocol will be using "new elliptic curve cryptography we [Silent Circle] developed." They're expecting the encryption methods will change over time.