Dark Mail Alliance Explained

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., the only original member of the team still listed on the Dark Mail Alliance website is Levison.

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)
• Dark Mail Access Protocol (DMAP)

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]

See also

• Email encryption
• Email privacy
• Kolab Now
• Pretty Good Privacy
• pretty Easy privacy

External links

• Dark Mail Alliance web site

Notes and References

1. Web site: Levison . Ladar . Dark Mail Alliance website . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20221228104308/https://darkmail.info/index.html . 2022-12-28 . 2023-08-03 . Dark Mail Alliance.
2. Web site: Lavabit's Dark Mail Initiative. Kickstarter.
3. Web site: Email is broken but Dark Mail Alliance is aiming to fix it. Hern. Alex. 31 December 2013 . The Guardian newspaper. 2 January 2014.
4. Web site: DEF CON 22 - Ladar Levison and Stephen Watt - Dark Mail. Youtube.
5. Web site: Dark Internet Mail Environment, Architecture and Specifications, December 2014. Dark Mail. 2015-07-25.
6. Web site: Dark Internet Mail Environment, Architecture and Specifications, March 2015. Dark Mail. 2015-07-25.
7. https://darkmail.info/downloads/dark-internet-mail-environment-june-2018.pdf Dark Internet Mail Environment. Architecture and Specifications
8. Web site: Paganini . Pierluigi . 2017-01-21 . Lavabit, the Snowden recommended encrypted email service, is back . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20230803194842/https://securityaffairs.com/55524/digital-id/lavabit-encrypted-email-service.html . 2023-08-03 . 2023-08-03 . Security Affairs . en-US.
9. Web site: 15 November 2022 . lavabit/magma.classic . GitHub.
10. News: DIME, Formerly DarkMail, Promises Secure Email. Scharr. Jill.