Lavabit founder: “I had effectively lost the ability to control my own network”

Via Nancy

Dated.

Ladar Levison, the founder of encrypted email service Lavabit, abruptly shut down the service in August after pressure from the government to hand over user information.  Levison said at the time that the move was necessary in order to avoid becoming “complicit in crimes against the American people.”
Levison had been unable to comment much about the situation because he was legally prohibited from doing so. Since then, more has been made public in recent weeks after some of the documents in the case have been unsealed.  Those alone revealed the lengths to which Levison went to try and get around the government’s demands, including fighting them with an ultra-tiny font (as The Verge put it).
In a previous interview, Levison briefly elaborated that he had in the past complied with warrants on routine law enforcement requests.  But the circumstances surrounding the incident that finally prompted him to make the drastic decision to shut down his service were different.

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