14 DAY TRIAL // Lavaboom, a web-based email solution that relies on end-to-end encryption to deliver messages, has started a crowdfunding campaign to cover increasing server costs since the service started to add more users.
The group behind the service is composed of five people, who have developed a seamless way to ensure protection of the messages, saving users the trouble of going through technical documentation.
Backers needed, 44 days left to achieve goal
They chose the Indiegogo platform for the funding campaign and set their goal at $100,000 / €88,000. At the moment of writing, 124 backers pledged over $4,000 / €3,500. The campaign expires in 4 days.
Anyone helping out the project reach its current financial purpose is entitled to a perk, proportionate with their contribution.
The most generous users get to receive quicker access to the service (24/48 hours) and premium accounts when the plan becomes available, for one year or more (lifetime for a contribution of $1,119 / €982).
Additional perks include Lavaboom stickers and t-shirts, extra invitations for friends and even Yubikey-based two factor authentication (2FA).
Lavaboom relies on zero-knowledge architecture
The project has spent 20 months in closed development and last Friday it began serving invitations to users on the waiting list.
According to the figures, last week, there were 25,000 requests to be honored, but in an email to Softpedia, Lavaboom CEO Felix Müller-Irion has said that the number of people that signed up for the service has grown to 30,000.
As more and more users adopt the secure exchange system proposed by Lavaboom, the cost with the servers intermediating the requests also grows.
The end goal for the project is to make encrypted email communication available for the non-technical users, who are not familiar with the security model provided by public key cryptography.
Translated into simple English, Lavaboom makes sure that the messages swapped between two of its users cannot be read by a third party, even if they are intercepted when travelling the web to their destination.
The encryption process includes the metadata associated with the email and it is completed locally, so the message flies out already locked. Decryption is also done locally, based on the public key from the sender. This way, the information is protected in transit.
More than this, unless the private key is not available in the web browser used to load Lavaboom, the messages cannot be read. As such, even if someone manages to steal the password for the account, all data contained remains safe.
Lavaboom’s CEO offers a brief presentation of the service and its benefits in the video below.
