Dark Mail Alliance

The Dark Mail Alliance is an organization dedicated to creating an email protocol and architecture with end-to-end encryption.^[1]

In October 2013, Silent Circle and Lavabit announced a project to create a more secure alternative to email and began a fundraising effort.^[2]^[3] The Dark Mail Alliance team originally consisted of Phil Zimmermann, Jon Callas, Mike Janke, and Ladar Levison. As of August 2023^[update], the only original member of the team still listed on the Dark Mail Alliance website is Levison.^[1]

DIME

Dark Internet Mail Environment (DIME) aims to be a secure communication platform for asynchronous messaging across the Internet. It was presented by Ladar Levison and Stephen Watt at DEF CON on August 8, 2014.^[4]

Specifications

There have been multiple revisions for DIME specifications. The latest revision is presented as a preliminary draft.

First public revision, December 2014^[5]
Preliminary draft, March 2015^[6]
Draft, June 2018^[7]

Protocols

Dark Mail Transfer Protocol (DMTP)^[6]
Dark Mail Access Protocol (DMAP)^[6]

Data formats

Signet Data Format
Message Data Format (D/MIME)

Implementations

Server-side

Magma is the reference MIME server implementation. It supports server side encryption, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Post Office Protocol (POP), Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).^[8]^[9]

Client-side

Volcano, a Thunderbird fork with DIME support.^[10]

References

^ ^a ^b Levison, Ladar. "Dark Mail Alliance website". Dark Mail Alliance. Archived from the original on 2022-12-28. Retrieved 2023-08-03.
^ "Lavabit's Dark Mail Initiative". Kickstarter.
^ Hern, Alex (31 December 2013). "Email is broken but Dark Mail Alliance is aiming to fix it". The Guardian newspaper. Retrieved 2 January 2014.
^ "DEF CON 22 - Ladar Levison and Stephen Watt - Dark Mail". Youtube.
^ "Dark Internet Mail Environment, Architecture and Specifications, December 2014" (PDF). Dark Mail. Retrieved 2015-07-25.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Dark Internet Mail Environment, Architecture and Specifications, March 2015" (PDF). Dark Mail. Retrieved 2015-07-25.
^ Dark Internet Mail Environment. Architecture and Specifications. darkmail.info, Retrieved June 6, 2024
^ Paganini, Pierluigi (2017-01-21). "Lavabit, the Snowden recommended encrypted email service, is back". Security Affairs. Archived from the original on 2023-08-03. Retrieved 2023-08-03.
^ "lavabit/magma.classic". GitHub. 15 November 2022.
^ Scharr, Jill. "DIME, Formerly DarkMail, Promises Secure Email".

External links

Dark Mail Alliance web site

[official_web_site-1] Levison, Ladar. "Dark Mail Alliance website". Dark Mail Alliance. Archived from the original on 2022-12-28. Retrieved 2023-08-03.

[2] "Lavabit's Dark Mail Initiative". Kickstarter.

[3] Hern, Alex (31 December 2013). "Email is broken but Dark Mail Alliance is aiming to fix it". The Guardian newspaper. Retrieved 2 January 2014.

[4] "DEF CON 22 - Ladar Levison and Stephen Watt - Dark Mail". Youtube.

[dime-2014-12-5] "Dark Internet Mail Environment, Architecture and Specifications, December 2014" (PDF). Dark Mail. Retrieved 2015-07-25.

[dime-2015-03-6] "Dark Internet Mail Environment, Architecture and Specifications, March 2015" (PDF). Dark Mail. Retrieved 2015-07-25.

[7] Dark Internet Mail Environment. Architecture and Specifications. darkmail.info, Retrieved June 6, 2024

[8] Paganini, Pierluigi (2017-01-21). "Lavabit, the Snowden recommended encrypted email service, is back". Security Affairs. Archived from the original on 2023-08-03. Retrieved 2023-08-03.

[9] "lavabit/magma.classic". GitHub. 15 November 2022.

[10] Scharr, Jill. "DIME, Formerly DarkMail, Promises Secure Email".

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