Hushmail swats code backdoor rumors

Web-based encrypted email service Hushmail has refuted rumours it stopped using software based on the source code published on its website. Within the zip archive containing the Hush Encryption Engine is a Java executable (.jar) file called HushEncryptionEngine. But this isn't the same file found on Hushmail's mail servers, a …

[Anonymous Coward]

Hushmail doing nowt wrong at all

www.cotse.com better IMHO, but hey I know the chaps who run that.

That said if your break the law then the law only have to ask for the emails etc, same with any place that does encrypted email. That and frankly if they didn;t then would you realy want to be doing business with criminals.

Running any encrypted email service is very taxing with regards to knocks on the door from the FBI etc due to the fact that the World as we know it contains idiots and they do stupid things. Stupid people get caught, dont be stupid - simple realy. Basicly if you realy have something to hide, then dont let it materialy exist, be it on paper or electronicly.

All that said I'm still awaiting the first case were somebody gives the cops/police there encryption key printed out with 1 character per page in a plethero of various fonts and stacking about 2 meters high, wrapped up so pecuriously that it would be hard not to enduce a rearangement of there order. Legaly you have presented the key in a usable form, just not very practical and alas thats legaly your only obligation in the UK - to provide the encryption key.

But basicly - Hushmail doing no wrong and somebody clearly has axe to grind with them, albiet its a small axe that most people would point and laugh at in this case.

[andy]

@paul gray

So you think it's fine that Hushmail can send you a 'poisoned java applet'?

Sounds like a step too far to me...

[Patrick O'Reilly]

Roll your own.

Why put your privacy in the hands of Others.

Just use a mail client with gpg.

[Anonymous Coward]

I reckon that.....

the FBI has a backdoor to Hushmail, either by agreement with Hushmail, or covertly.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Hushmail doing nowt wrong at all

"That and frankly if they didn;t then would you realy want to be doing business with criminals."

What does providing an encryption service have to do with being criminal?

You seem to assume that anyone that wants a level of security/privacy in their online transactions is by definition doing something criminal and that the police state has a right to read ALL of it just to make sure.

Privacy is a right of everyone - not just certain instruments of government.

Indeed it could well be argued that the government/police, as servants of the people, have no right to privacy and should practice openess in all their activities... but that would be asking too much of our stalinist overlords.

[ryan]

@alfie

half a dozen Hotmail accounts say i would!

[Henry Wertz]

No but

No, but I would hope hushmail would store E-Mail on the server in some encrypted form. Personally, for private communications I use ssh.

[A J Stiles]

It's as secure as this

Imagine a stranger with a dodgy foreign accent coming up to you and telling you he has a super-secret code, and his brother are the only two people in the world who know it: if you dictate a message to him, word by word, he will transcribe it into code, send it to his brother and his brother will then decode it and read it out to the intended recipient.

That's Hushmail, basically.