The U.S. Government’s overreaching has claimed another victim. The CryptoSeal VPN service has pulled the plug. These are good guys who did everything possible to provide a secure, private VPN service. They didn’t keep logs and could provide authorities only with user billing information.
In the aftermath of the Lavabit case they felt that the FBI or other government entity would use a pen register warrant as leverage to demand the site’s SSL encryption key thereby rendering all the site’s users vulnerable. As a result they have shut down their service and destroyed all customer records.
I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand their customers have been inconvenienced but are safe. In this regard, they are heroes; they shut down their business rather than be a party to what they consider crimes against innocent people by an out of control government. On the other hand, they are advancing the government’s cause by eliminating one more means for people who value their privacy to use the Web in a secure and confidential manner. That’s a tragedy that should concern us all.
This case shows, once again, how important it is to insist that the government knock off their thuggish behavior and start respecting citizens’ rights. They will, of course, scream “terrorist” and “think of the children” and all the other nonsense they always spout when they get caught with their hands in the cookie jar but it’s time to demand an end to their extralegal activities.