It’s a dark time for email and privacy in general. Thanks to the NSA and its collaborators, e-mail has come under fire. Nobody knows that better than Ladar Levison, who recently shut down his security enhanced Lavabit email service, which was used by whistleblower Edward Snowden, due to government requests for user data.
Levison has a plan though. On Monday, he launched a campaign on Kickstarter to raise funds for what he calls the Dark Mail Initiative. In partnership with encrypted communication service Silent Circle, Levison hopes to make Dark Mail a new email protocol that provides users with end-to-end encryption that would make it impossible for anyone to access users’ messages.
“No one can guarantee that a third-party is or is not eavesdropping on a series of communications,” Levison writes on the Kickstarter page, “but Dark Mail can guarantee that when a third-party does gain access, or demands access, the privacy users rightfully deserve is maintained without fail.”
Dark Mail will, according to Levison, be a completely new messaging protocol that has PGP encryption built in. (It will also be open source, meaning anyone can make sure the code is doing what Levison says it is.) Now, if you know anything about current PGP email encryption methods, you also know that using them can be a giant pain in the rear. Levison says he solves this problem by making the encryption functionality “invisible to the user.”
“Dark Mail users will get the security of PGP without the cognitive burden; if someone can use email today they will be able to use Dark Mail tomorrow,” writes Levison.
Levison is looking to raise the oddly specific goal of $196,608 by November 27, and has so far earned nearly $17,000 from more than 500 backers as of this writing. If the campaign is successful, Levison and the Silent Circle team will release the Dark Mail client for all major operating systems, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS.
[Image via AAresTT/Shutterstock]
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.