Richieste di nuovi servizi temporaneamente disattivate

[english version below]

Giovedì 8 agosto Lavabit, un provider statunitense che offre caselle di posta sicure tra cui quella usata da Edward Snowden, è stato costretto a chiudere all’improvviso per essersi rifiutato di consegnare all’NSA dati sui suoi utenti.
Dopo alcune ore un altro servizio analogo, Silent Circle, ha deciso di chiudere a sua volta per prevenire rischi per i propri utenti.
A questi eventi ha fatto seguito una prevedibile impennata nelle richieste dei nostri servizi, una situazione eccezionale a cui A/I per il momento non è in grado di far fronte.
Per questo abbiamo deciso di bloccare temporaneamente la richiesta di nuovi servizi finché non avremo trovato un modo ragionevole di sostenere l’ondata.
Siate pazienti e comprensivi: riattiveremo tutto al più presto.



Requests for new services temporarily suspended

On Thursday 8th August, Lavabit, an American provider offering secure mail services including Edward Snowden’s mailbox, was suddenly forced to shut down after having refused to give data on its users to the NSA.
Hours later, Silent Circle, a similar service, decided to pre-emptively shut down their email service to avoid risks for their users.
After this, we witnessed a predictable surge in requests for our services, an unprecedented situation that A/I isn’t currently able to face.
Therefore we have decided to temporarily suspend the requests for new services, until we find a reasonable way to sustain this rise.
Please, be patient and understanding: everything will be re-activated as soon as possible.

28 Responses to “Richieste di nuovi servizi temporaneamente disattivate”

  1. GothFvck Says:

    I’d say e-mail me when you guys re-suspend this but I won’t get the e-mail!

  2. Guillermo Ruiz Says:

    Solo che non voglio che nessuno di vedere il mio indirizzo email, perché a mio parere è che l’email deve essere assolutamente privato. Grazie.

  3. Werner Says:

    Incredible

  4. joan Says:

    YES, NOT CREDIBLE
    YES, NOT CREDIBLE

  5. Victor Murillo Says:

    I mean on this request of American goverment and I am user of Lavabit also, but know some servers out of USA don’t have risk..

  6. anon Says:

    Is everything ok?….how do you plain to fight against NSA ?

  7. anon Says:

    Its every thing ok?….im worried about A/I collective, how do you plain to fight against NSA and the domination system?

  8. Peter Says:

    Perhaps you should start charging a nominal fee via bitcoin.

    This will do several things:

    1) It will weed out those who just want a free email account (there’s gmail for that).
    2) It will qualify that they are serious enough about privacy, since they have taken the trouble to understand bitcoin.
    3) It will help you to continue to provide a great service.

  9. Joe Says:

    why not charge for a fee for opening an email account?

  10. mishle Says:

    I would be happy to pay $25 per year per account for email service.

    When will you be opening for new service?

  11. 0blivian Says:

    The reason why we do not charge any fee and we will not do that is due to the very nature of our project – we’re not a commercial offering, and we don’t want to put a price on people’s freedom of speech and privacy. Also, while a 25$/yr fee may seem more than reasonable in Western Europe or in the US, that’s a steep price tag for people living in less rich countries, and we certainly don’t want to reserve our services to people that can afford to pay .

    Besides, the real issue here is that a/i is NOT lavabit – everything is run by unpaid volunteers and we will not change this. So, our service is granted only to people subscribing our policy and who can relate to our manifesto – we don’t have customers but users!

    Being all volunteers, we’re not able to manage the kind of flood of requests (and presumably the number of helpdesk tickets) we got in the last few days. We’re discussing how to manage this situation – it will require some time as we’ve both to come up with a political and technical solution.

    In any case, charging for the service is not a viable option, but thanks for the suggestions!

  12. Peter Says:

    I will gladly volunteer my time to help with the tickets! Please shoot me an email once you re-activate your services again. Thanks!

  13. Ozelot Says:

    Dear a/I team,
    I wanted to let you know that your awesome. It’s so great that in our modern times there are actually people that are more concerned about providing an alternative to the mainstream media syndicate without billing for their services. I admire your stamina in generell and your refusal to use bitcoins. You must feel like don quijote fighting windmills in certain ways. therefore I will definatly consider a donation this year for a great service provided without financial compensation. im happy to donate in dollars or euros :)
    Keep up that extraordinary work of yours!

  14. avr_nic Says:

    Actually right now we need a secure mail service. it’s a shame what happened with lavabit and silent circle.

  15. Dimitry Says:

    Maybe this is a normal evolution for a/i ? The project started 10 years ago on a volunteer basis. And now it can become “semi-commercial”.

    Hardware and manhours cost money. I don’t have problem to pay annually 25$ via bitcoine.

    All I am interested that a/i preserves their policy/agenda on retaining privacy of their users.

  16. 0blivian Says:

    I’ll try to respond quickly:

    @Dimitry: we’re an anti-capitalist collective, how can we think of turning “semi-commercial”? This is completely not an option.

    @Peter: thanks for the goodwill, but the level of trust needed to work even the most basic tickets (they may reveal details about our users) is very high. So we’re not able to accept help from people that are not part of our inner ‘web of trust’, sorry.

    @avr_nic: I don’t think that a/i is an alternative to lavabit. As I stated before, we are activists, and our services are very different from any commercial offering. As an example, we do not guarantee an uptime even remotely similar to the one that any decent commercial service may offer. The reason is: we’re volunteers and if nobody is available, our users will have to wait. I can only imagine the uproar in protests from people thinking they got a “cooler gmail with privacy” when that happens… We’re usually very good in reducing downtime, but if something goes wrong at 6 AM on january 1st, chances are you’ll be without email until late in the afternoon :))

    In general, we’re discussing how to go on and how to handle well this situation. We’re taking our time to do this. We don’t have a revenue goal to reach, we’re not losing business, we just want to continue to offer our services. If a new service provider that offers the level of privacy and anonimity we offer comes out, we will not be worried for the competition – we will be happy that other offers are in place. Having a single point of failure (or a few, including our fellow collectives) in a system defending people from control and oppression is not a good idea. So, expect some more official communication from the collective as soon as possible, but we’re not in a hurry to restore service activations. We want to do it right instead of doing it fast.

    As always, any opinion I express here is personal – I did not discuss any of this with the rest of the collective expressly, so this is not an official a/i statement. Consider an effort on my side not to leave everybody in the dark.

  17. avr_nic Says:

    Many people are aware of that and are waiting patiently for the reactivation of the service of the mail. I think that “A/I” is a good project. These systems of control imposed by companies and governments are very dangerous for our privacy.

  18. G Says:

    Thanks 0blivian to answering so correctly to the people that they just don’t want to understand the difference between a commercial service and a niche of resistance much older than the last month.
    Sometimes you cannot always buy a service so you can feel the right to complain if something go wrong.
    It’s all about partecipating everyday, and keep the critical thinking as live as possible in these hard days.
    Keep the wild wild

  19. JC Says:

    If you become aware of any other secure mail operations such as Lavabit please let us all know as we are all trying to have some email privacy which is very dificult these days

  20. Jacob Says:

    Hello,

    I came here from a note in the comment section of The Guardian, mentioning about Google admission of total lack of privacy for gmail users.
    Disappointed that the service currently is on hold, but understand the situation.

    May I suggest the following:
    1. ovh.it offers dedicated servers at 10 Euro/month with immediate availability.
    Maybe the people who are willing to donate will put a few Euros each quarter to cover the 30 Euro per 3-months payment? you will have much more capable server with high bandwidth.

    2. I noticed that for this comment section you use the re-captcha which is owned by Google. They log every comment made here. I don’t know if their javascript code can also pull in the poster’s IP address, but regardless it doesn’t bode well with this site’s motto.

  21. aisj Says:

    I deeply applaud your committment to the ideals of liberty and privacy.
    Kindly email me when you are ready to open accounts again? I am able to donate full fare, and would like to send a contribution if I can do so anonymously.

    I too am lost without silent circle now.
    Do you or others recommened a secure email service comparable to lavabit, or yours, but with servers located in a jurisdictoin that value privacy like iceland, netherlands, singapore etc? commercial or free?

    Did I understand your server farm was seized, or invaded, once by law enforcement under a terrzm claim, without due process, and if so, is there anything you can do to protect against such transgressions or fishing expedititions?

    One suggestion, limit new accounts to say, 10 emails a day? That is 5x more than I use, as I only use my private email account for highly personal information related usually to romance or finance.
    Many thanks.
    aisj

  22. privadvoc Says:

    Why can you not still offer a free service and offer premium services to cover your costs (i.e. bigger storage, multiple account names under one login, premium domains, etc.)??

  23. emilo Says:

    Just want to say a big – Thank you, for not falling for the narrow capitalist ways suggested in thread. Your good answers makes me believe you are on right non-corrupted track.

    Lot of people need you these days, myself included, and really hope you soon will accept new accounts.

    Can you please accept bitcoins for donations?

    Best wishes

    Emlimol

  24. Anx_lulubelle Says:

    I will be waiting for autistici to return. Hey folks, do try mykolab.com (e-mail) and diaspora (alternative to facebook)

    Cheers!

  25. ana Says:

    To all these people wanting a service outside the US: there are more draconian laws regarding Data Retention in Europe.
    boingboing.net/2013/08/08/us-businesses-stand-to-lose-up.html
    http://www.riseup.net/en/riseup-and-government-faq
    ttfa.net
    techtoolsforactivism.org

  26. RS Says:

    The level of frankness in A/I’s policy and response to comments is what has gained my trust. This level of transparency is remarkable. I will definitely donate once I start earning my own cash. Anyways, all the best to A/I in whichever way they wish to continue and please do share with us any means by which we can help your cause.

    I think since nearly all of us here have stepped into the “lets respect companies who respect our privacy” bandwagon, this should be a good portal to share the services which do respect the user’s privacy. Please do share other privacy-aware services which you do know.

    (please note that certain services such as A/I and Silent Circle offer more services than the categories they have been grouped under)
    OS – Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, JoliOS etc)
    Browser – Comodo Dragon
    Search Engine – DuckDuckGo
    Facebook Alternative – Diaspora
    Twitter Alternative – Identi.ca
    Cloud Services – Mega
    E-mail – A/I, myKolab (paid), Lavabit(currently closed), Silent Mail(currently closed)

  27. A Says:

    0blivian is right. Taking money on a regular basis would spoil the whole idea.
    This was capitalism which led us to this what we face now.
    And he is right about “steep price tag”. I know some users who donate
    just 10Euro as this is what they can earn working hard 10 hours, that is if they are allowed by the capitalists.
    Try these:
    posteo.de 1EURO/mth. you can try it for 2 weeks without paying
    -no personal data required.
    I wouldnt call them commercial. I talked to them.
    No logs, IP stripping when via WEB.
    If you resign you get the rest of the money back.
    —————————————————————————–
    privatdemail.net server in Cairo, no logs. works only with client.
    IP stripping.
    —————————————————————————–
    ico.to server in Germany, you have to ask the owner for the link
    -as there was lots of abuse. No personal data must be given.
    IP stripping when via WEB.You can donate if you want.
    —————————————————————————–
    This is not an advertisement for any of the above
    I just want to help.
    (ANA is right too-Data Retention in Europe)

  28. A Says:

    @aisj. Think twice and read this, or the other way round.
    “To be hosted on our servers you have to share our principles of anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism. Your PROJECTS must as well be based on the same non-commercial nature which keep our project alive, and on the desire to share and experience relationships and struggles, with all the patience it requires ;)))) ”
    I think for romance and finance any service with SSL will do.