Dark Mail Reaches Crowdfunding Goal

By Joe Casad

Private email project wants to implement new protocol that will prevent government spying.

The Dark Mail Alliance has reached its crowdfunding target, which means Dark Mail now has the funds to continue with its goal of re-inventing email security. The Darkmail project raised US$212,513 from 2976 Kickstarter backers.
The Dark Mail project was launched by Lavabit and Silent Circle, two secure email services that went offline when the revalations of NSA spying forced the founders conclude they could not guarantee the privacy of users. The developers pledged to use the money to "cleanup and release the source code that was used to power Lavabit as a f/oss project with support for dark mail added."
The Dark Mail protocol adds several privacy features that aren't present in conventional SMTP email, such as metadata encryption and peer-to-peer delivery that avoids storing messages on a central server. Adding the Dark Mail technology to the original Lavabit source code will create a new prototype for private email that the Dark Mail develoeprs call Email 3.0.
The project has assembled an impressive team of programmers and cryptologists to help with implementing Dark Mail, including Phil Zimmerman, creator of the popular PGP email encryption tool, who serves as President of Silent Circle.

12/10/2013