As for why he is announcing he is shutting it down rather than just pulling the plug, pulling the plug may well be considered obstruction of justice, but just refusing to donate materially can't be prevented by the government. It may well be that lawyers have advised him that by announcing his decision to not participate it gives the government reasonable notice to be able to find an alternative or take some action, and counting on there being no practical way for the government to respond without revealing that they are involved.
Edit: It may also be possible that he has become aware of a 'looming' threat to de-anonymize the service but can't speak of it, and he is announcing that he is pulling out since if he is subsequently compelled not to pull out it will act as a canary.
If you haven't read about it, read the post mortem on the Lavabit page.
To me, it's very likely that the government demanded backdoors in TOR code itself, or backdoor access to critical TOR infrastructure (bridge nodes, directory authority, large exit nodes, ...), all under gag orders that forbid any mention of this to the public.
Probably in the interest of 'national security'.
Can't be sure, of course, but I would not feel comfortable with using TOR for anything sensitive anymore.
So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of suits leaned on him to "cooperate".
That said, iirc, as long as you own your entry node and its a public node...Tor remains secure since the only successful attacks have all required someone to be in control of the entry node you use to connect to the Tor network (at least, the attacks intended to expose end users).
Out of curiosity, what alternative(s) would you use?
I mainly used Tor if I was on a dubious WiFi and was afraid someone was snooping on me - note that due to insecure exit notes you have the same problem there, too - or when something was blocked. But at least your employer doesn't see you use Facebook ;-)
Nowadays I use a server I rented in a different country as a SOCKS proxy which works well.
If you want to be anonymous towards the sure your accessing, I don't know of a good alternative. But many sites block Tor anyway now because people use it for spam or harassment.
Just a crazy idea, but if my safety needs were really high, I'd try to 1) buy botnet nodes and use them as a proxy or 2) build a ultra-low-energy Wi-Fi capable system (saw something commercial on HN the other day, forgot the name), set it up as a proxy, and throw it with a battery near a free Wi-Fi (coffee shop etc.).
-) Rent a small virtual server overseas, payable by bitcoin
-) Make sure to only pay with bitcoins acquired anonymously (buy directly with cash, there are machines in bigger cities too. then run them through a bitcoin laundry to make sure)
-) Route all your traffic through the virtual server (over a VPN).
-) Keep using tor, but only proxied through the VPN
-) Only access your server from public wifi hot spots, with a laptop acquired with cash, and running TAILS or a similar privacy focused Linux distribution without persistance.
-) Keep all your confidential data on an encrypted usb stick that can be easily disposed.
Voi la. Easy, right? :D
Is it possible that maybe the US military have gone on to alternative methods of hiding their identity. If the NSA can mandate backdoor access to every data centre in the country then couldn't they work with the military to use those backdoors to hide their own identities. To an observer it looks like someone is accessing Google but in actuality it's a CIA field agent sending top secret information to the Pentagon using a backdoor in a Google data centre.
Of course it's also possible that it's all due to some infighting within the project or other issues we don't know about.
But the only reason for me for being so vague, in a critical project like this, is the potential of vulnerability.
He must have known that not mentioning any details would raise concerns like mine.
Does the organization still housecleaning to do? The Tor leadership jumped on the grenade, presumably clearing the area for everyone else. Is there an entirely different angle that I'm missing? Because that vague of a post only implies one.
The Appelbaum crisis is the most recent public drama, but that's mostly a settled matter and a fall has already been taken for it. It would be fairly strange to do this now over that incident.
Given which, it looks like someone involved with a privacy project is refusing to disclose their motives for shutdown, but also shutting down slowly and openly, the way you wouldn't if someone was knocking on your door. This is an ambiguous outcome to almost everyone.
It wouldn't be strange if you thought the accusations were bullshit.
I agree, though; for someone who (a) is a volunteer and (b) is doing it because he dislikes the direction of the organization, this is a remarkably civil disentangling.
Tor Torpedoes Tonga
Top Torian Torpedoes Tonga TechI personally like reading comments even if they are speculative, as I am interested but not an expert.