Silent Circle Shuts Down Silent Mail

Silent Circle, a subscription service offering similar encrypted email services to Lavabit (as well as 3G, 4G, WiFi encrypted mobile, video and voice service) announced today that they were preemptively shutting down their email service.

From Al Jazeera:

Silent Circle on Friday said it would close its secure email service, hours after Lavabit said it would shut down rather than "become complicit in crimes against the American people".

"We see the writing on the wall, and we have decided that it is best for us to shut down Silent Mail," the statement said on Friday, citing the Lavabit decision.

"We have not received subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else by any government, and this is why we are acting now."

In a post on the company's blog, they said they would continue (for now) to support its Silent Phone, Silent Text, and Silent Eyes teleconferencing platform, assuring users that Silent Circle collects no encrypted data or metadata about conversations.

"Silent Mail was a good idea at the time, and that time is past."