Lavabit privacy rating

Summary

Lavabit scores 26 out of 100 (grade F) on the email providers criteria. It meets 3 of 21 criteria: no trackers or telemetry, TLS configuration and POP3 support. It partly meets email security standards, IMAP support, SMTP submission and mail transport security. It does not meet independent audit, transparency report, tells users about requests, security headers, modern web standards, Sender Rewriting Scheme and ARC sealing. Still needing evidence: open source, no ads or data sales, end-to-end encryption, encrypted mailbox storage, open protocols, custom domains and sign up without personal data. It is based in the United States: Five Eyes member; subject to the US CLOUD Act. Automated tests: SSL Labs grade A+, Mozilla HTTP Observatory grade D, Internet.nl website score 68% and Internet.nl email score 71%.

Score 26 out of 100. How scoring works

Criteria

• ?Unknown

  Open source ×3Weight 3 of 3

  Is all the source code needed to run the product public?

  Needs evidence. Add it

• ✔Yes

  No trackers or telemetry ×3Weight 3 of 3

  Are the website and apps free of third-party trackers, with any analytics anonymous and any telemetry off by default?

  The website is a single static page with no scripts, cookies or third-party resources. No privacy policy is published.

  lavabit.com

• ?Unknown

  No ads or data sales ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Is the product funded without advertising, ad targeting or selling user data?

  Needs evidence. Add it

• ✖No

  Independent audit ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Has an independent security or privacy audit been published within the last three years?

  No independent audit is published.

• ✖No

  Transparency report ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Does the provider regularly publish how many government and legal requests it receives and how it responds?

  No transparency report or government request policy is published.

• ✖No

  Tells users about requests ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Does the provider promise to tell users about requests for their data, unless a court forbids it?

  No published policy on notifying users about data requests.

• ?Unknown

  End-to-end encryption ×3Weight 3 of 3

  Can mail be end-to-end encrypted so that the provider cannot read message contents?

  Needs evidence. Add it

• ?Unknown

  Encrypted mailbox storage ×3Weight 3 of 3

  Is stored mail encrypted with a key the provider does not hold?

  Needs evidence. Add it

• ?Unknown

  Open protocols ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Can any standard app connect over IMAP, POP3, SMTP, CalDAV or CardDAV, without extra software?

  Needs evidence. Add it

• ?Unknown

  Custom domains ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Can mail be sent and received with your own domain?

  Needs evidence. Add it

• ?Unknown

  Sign up without personal data ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Can an account be created without a phone number or another email address?

  Needs evidence. Add it

• ✖No

  Sender Rewriting Scheme ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Is the envelope sender rewritten with SRS when mail is forwarded, so forwarded mail keeps passing SPF?

  No published documentation on SRS for forwarded mail.

• ✖No

  ARC sealing ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Does the provider validate and add ARC (RFC 8617) signatures, so authentication results survive forwarding?

  No published documentation on ARC signing or validation.

Automated tests

• ✔Yes

  TLS configuration ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Does the website pass the Qualys SSL Labs test with a grade of A or better?

  Grade A+

  ssllabs.com

• ✖No

  Security headers ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Does the website pass the Mozilla HTTP Observatory test with a grade of A or better?

  Grade D (30/100+)

  developer.mozilla.org

• ✖No

  Modern web standards ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Does the website score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl website test?

  Score 68%

  batch.internet.nl

• ◐Partial

  Email security standards ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Does the mail domain score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl email test?

  Score 71%

  batch.internet.nl

• ◐Partial

  IMAP support ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Does the IMAP server accept connections over implicit TLS on port 993 and advertise IMAP4rev1 or IMAP4rev2 with IDLE push?

  lavabit.com:993 (implicit TLS). IMAP4rev1 advertised, no IDLE before login.

• ✔Yes

  POP3 support ×1Weight 1 of 3

  Does the POP3 server accept connections over implicit TLS on port 995 and answer CAPA with UIDL?

  lavabit.com:995 (implicit TLS). CAPA: TOP, USER, UIDL, PIPELINING, EXPIRE, LOGIN-DELAY, RESP-CODES, AUTH-RESP-CODE, IMPLEMENTATION.

• ◐Partial

  SMTP submission ×2Weight 2 of 3

  Does mail submission work over implicit TLS on port 465 with SMTPUTF8, 8BITMIME, PIPELINING and AUTH?

  lavabit.com:465 (implicit TLS). Missing: SMTPUTF8.

• ◐Partial

  Mail transport security ×3Weight 3 of 3

  Does the mail domain enforce encrypted, authenticated delivery with MTA-STS, DANE, DNSSEC, TLS-RPT and an enforced DMARC policy?

  Passes: SPF, DMARC reject, DNSSEC, DANE all. Missing: MTA-STS missing, TLS-RPT.

Email standards

• ✔Yes: Mail serversMXlavabit.com
• ✔Yes: RFC 7208 sender policySPFpublished
• ✔Yes: RFC 7489. Quarantine or reject counts as enforcedDMARCp=reject
• ✖No: RFC 8461 strict transport securityMTA-STSmissing
• ✖No: RFC 8460 TLS failure reportsTLS-RPTmissing
• ✔Yes: RFC 4033 signed DNSDNSSECsigned and validated
• ✔Yes: RFC 7672 TLSA records on MX hostsDANEall
• ✖No: Brand logo record (not scored)BIMInone
• ✔Yes: RFC 6186 and RFC 8314 service records (not scored)SRVclient autoconfiguration published

Capabilities are what each server advertises before login. How these tests work