For security reasons we have turned off SSLv3 on POP connections (port 995) today. That means we now only allow TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 on POP connections.
As a Runbox user you should not have to do anything — your email program should already support TLS and use it automatically. If not, please make sure your email program is up-to-date.
Apple Mail users: Please see our notice regarding APOP.
If you do experience any problems, please contact Runbox Support.
To celebrate a great year and to further the cause of secure and private communication, we would like to give all our customers:
A Runbox account is a great gift to someone you know who cares about secure and private communication — and of course a fully featured, professional email service.
And make sure you lock in our current great prices by taking advantage of our 3 years for the price of 2 offer on the Medium subscription plan!
Please contact us after you have completed your payment to let us know you want to take advantage of this offer so that we can add the sub-account slot to your main account.
You will then be able to set up the sub-account by going to Account > Sub-Accounts.
Note that whenever you renew your main account the additional time will simply be added to the end of your subscription, so you won’t lose any subscription time by renewing early.
Happy Holidays from everyone at Runbox, with our best wishes for the new year!
Terms of this offer:
We have worked hard on upgrading our email server park to accommodate all our new customers — and things will only get better: Based on our recent success, our shareholders decided to invest fresh capital to start several new projects that will take Runbox to the next level.
To boost IMAP performance and improve the experience especially for iPhone and iPad users we will soon deploy new Dovecot-based IMAP software.
We have started implementing an SSD (Solid-state Drive) based storage strategy to dramatically improve the performance of our email storage units. SSDs are up to 100 times faster than regular, rotating disks, so this will improve the speed of our IMAP services.
We are also expanding our server park with new servers and upgrades to continue improving reliability and overall performance.
We will continue working hard to ensure the privacy and security of your data, and have the following projects lined up for next year:
We look forward to continue providing great email services in the year to come.
2014 has been an exciting year for Runbox and we’ve seen a substantial increase in popularity and growth. This has really boosted our progress — we now have several major upgrades in the pipeline, and we are very happy to be launching a new Webmail design!
We’ve called the new design Runbox Aero because it’s lighter, airier, and simpler — and it makes using email a breeze!
Runbox Aero is inspired by modern, state-of-the-art design, and we have listened carefully to feedback from you in order to make it both aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly.
You can try the new design now by going to
Webmail > Preferences and selecting Runbox Aero from the drop-down menu. Make sure you click Save Settings afterwards!
You will quickly notice some of the improvements, but the following changes are worth mentioning:
We hope you like the new design, and please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions!
Due to network maintenance there will be some periods of downtime on 2014-10-06, between 00:01 and 07:59 CET.
This maintenance will require rebooting routers, which will cause about 10 minutes of downtime for
each router.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
We are emphasizing Runbox’ location in Norway as something that is important to you as an email user, and you may wonder why. This article will explain it all.
All your Runbox email is privacy protected because our servers are located in Norway, and Runbox strictly adheres to the Norwegian privacy legislation.First of all, Norway has enacted strong legislation regulating the collection, storage, and processing of personal data, mainly in The Personal Data Act (Lov om behandling av personopplysninger; Personopplysningsloven) and Regulations on the Processing of Personal Data (Forskrift om behandling av personopplysninger; Personopplysningsforskriften).
The first version of The Personal Data Act was implemented as early as 1978. This was a result of the pioneering work provided by the Department of Private Law at the University of Oslo, where one of the first academic teams within IT and privacy worldwide was established in 1970.
Additionally, the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (Datatilsynet), an independent authority, facilitates protection of individuals from violation of their right to privacy through processing of their personal data. It also verifies that statutes and regulations which apply to the processing of personal data are complied with, and that errors or deficiencies are rectified.
Any complaint against decisions made by The Data Protection Authority may be reported to The Privacy Tribunal (Personvernnemda), another independent authority, for decision.
The Norwegian Criminal Procedure Act (Lov om rettergangsmåten i straffesaker; Straffeloven, unofficial translation) is an important law governing the seizure of objects or data when a criminal act has been reported to the police. Section 211 states that mail may only be seized from an electronic communication service pursuant to a court order.
Another important law in this context is the Norwegian Penal Code (NPC, Almindelig borgelig straffelov; Straffeloven, unofficial translation) which states that it is illegal to access information systems or data unauthorized (NPC §145), and this includes all employees in the public sector (NPC §116).
We must also mention Norwegian Law on Electronic Communications (Lov om elektronisk kommunikasjon; Ekomloven), which regulates telecommunications in Norway. This law contains rules for the interception of electronic communications and for the duration of storage of personal data.
Because Runbox is similar to an Internet service provider and not a telecommunications company, Runbox is NOT affected by this law. This means that Runbox for instance is permitted to delete your email data upon your request at any time, and that we are not required to store any traffic logs.
The bottom line is that a request from Norwegian police authorities to disclose data from any Runbox account will be rejected by Runbox unless a Norwegian court has decided otherwise.
So what does Runbox’ compliance to Norwegian laws mean regarding your personal data when using Runbox, and the content of your emails stored on our servers?
Runbox does not collect any data about you except what is necessary to provide you with our services. This is in accordance with our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which is compliant to The Personal Data Act §8. This paragraph states that personal details can only be collected and processed with consent from the registrant.
Similarly important is §11, stating that personal data must not be used for purposes inconsistent with the initial purpose of collection except with consent from the user.
Only if presented with a court ordered seizure pursuant to the Norwegian Criminal Procedure Act may Runbox be forced to disclose information to The Norwegian Police Service. It is therefore an absolute prerequisite that a crime has been committed.
A request from foreign authorities or agencies regarding Runbox account details or user data has a long way to go before it reaches Runbox:
It will in general start with a legal request (letter rogatory) submitted through diplomatic channels to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who sends it to the Attorney General at the Norwegian Office of the Prime Minister, who will, if appropriate, forward the request to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security who in turn sends it to the appropriate police unit, for example the National Criminal Investigation Service, Norway (Den nasjonale enhet for bekjempelse av organisert og annen alvorlig kriminalitet; Kripos) or The Norwegian Police Security Service (Politiets sikkerhetstjeneste; PST) for independent investigation. All requests will of course be evaluated with regards to Norwegian laws and regulations.
The Norwegian police authorities may then present Runbox with a subpoena, which will be rejected by Runbox as a matter of principle. The case may then be submitted to a Norwegian court, and an attorney will be appointed to represent the account owner. If the court finds that there is evidence or probable cause for suspicion of criminal activity on the part of the account owner, Runbox may be presented with a court order requesting us to disclose the requested information.
Norway has entered into agreements with some foreign nations to cooperation in criminal matters regarding disclosure of objects and data, that may simplify the procedure above:
Through the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters requests go directly to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, through the Schengen Agreement requests go to the public prosecutor in Norway, and between Nordic countries, requests go to central or local police (district chiefs of police). Requests from Canada and Thailand go directly to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security.
All other nations, the United States included, have to follow the general rule outlined above: Requests must be sent through diplomatic channels to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The agreement between Norway and the United States (and Australia) is about extradition of criminals only, not about assistance in “ordinary” legal matters.
Since Runbox Solutions was founded in 2011 we have received 0 court orders for disclosure of account details or user data. We have received 3 requests directly from attorneys in the United States, all of which have been rejected outright.
According to the laws mentioned above, the Norwegian police authorities can not execute communication control, for instance surveillance of electronic messages, without a valid court order. An independent tribunal, the Control Committee for Wiretapping (Kontrollutvalget for kommunikasjonskontroll) is established to control that the police’s use of wiretapping occurs within the framework of the law and that the use of such methods is as limited as possible.
This means that no surveillance of traffic to or from Runbox can occur unless a valid court order is presented. However, the regulation that governs wiretapping (Forskrift om kommunikasjonskontroll; Kommunikasjonskontrollforskriften) and the Control Committee for Wiretapping do not pertain to intelligence, which is the domain of The Norwegian Parliamentary Intelligence Oversight Committee (Stortingets kontrollutvalg for etterretnings-, overvåkings- og sikkerhetstjeneste), see below.
Let us examine the various Norwegian intelligence agencies and their mandates:
The Norwegian Intelligence Service (Etterretningstjenesten) is a body established in order to survey and monitor civil and military activities outside Norway. This body is not authorized to survey or collect information about Norwegian natural or legal persons, which includes companies. For that reason, Runbox is beyond the authority of this agency.
The Norwegian Police Security Service (Politiets sikkerhetstjeneste; PST) do NOT have any legal rights beyond The Norwegian Police Service, which is discussed above.
The Norwegian Defence Security Department (Forsvarets sikkerhetsavdeling, FSA) applies to military institutions only, and is not relevant for Runbox customers at all.
The National Security Authority (Nasjonal sikkerhetsmyndighet, NSM) is established to control governmental and civil institutions regarding security, and because Runbox does not provide services to such institutions, this authority is not relevant to Runbox or our customers.
Joint Counter-terrorism Center (Felles kontraterrorsenter, FKTS), is a recently established department within PST staffed with people from PST and Etterretningstjenesten. FKTS is a cooperation agency sharing information and analyzing terror threats against Norway. FKTS is subject to the laws and regulations governing the activities of The Norwegian Police Security Service and the Norwegian Intelligence Service.
In order to monitor these agencies and ensure they are acting in accordance with laws and regulations, the Norwegian Parliament has established The Norwegian Parliamentary Intelligence Oversight Committee (Stortingets kontrollutvalg for etterretnings-, overvåkings- og sikkerhetstjeneste), and Control Committee for Wiretapping (Kontrollutvalget for kommunikasjonskontroll). Their mandate is to ensure that the police’s use of wiretapping is in accordance with the law and is as limited as possible.
All your Runbox email stored on our servers is safe because Runbox is located in Norway. Runbox strictly adheres to the Norwegian Personal Data Act and the Norwegian Criminal Procedure Act, which is the main legislation governing our operations. This fact, along with our ethics, prevent us from doing anything unauthorized with your data.
Specifically, Runbox protects your data against disclosure requested by the authorities because they must present a valid court order to seize any data. Such a court order is difficult to obtain, because it must be based on evidence of criminal activity related to the account owner.
Norwegian authorities are not allowed to perform surveillance of data traffic without a valid court order. Norway has established independent agencies to ensure that these agencies follow the laws and regulations under which they operate. In addition, Norway is an open democracy with a critical and investigative press which readily publicizes any suspicion of breached laws and regulations.
Any foreign nation asking for data have to send a formal request according to established protocols and strict rules. And any such legal request will be scrutinized by Norwegian judicial authorities, and only in cases where Norwegian law is breached could a request result in a court ordered seizure which is necessary to obtain data from Runbox.
In short, no authority or agency can monitor Runbox’ data or traffic without a court order, which can only be issued on evidence of criminal activity in violation of Norwegian penal code.
Runbox customers automatically have an advantage by storing their email in Norway, and you can add another layer of protection by encrypting your communication with Runbox.
To protect your privacy even further, Runbox does NOT use Google Analytics or any other third-party tracking of our customers’ usage. We never use data or traffic information for any other purpose than anonymous statistics in order to improve our services and our system’s performance. Our service is absolutely ad-free, and we do not share or sell your personal details to anyone.
The combination of the strict Norwegian legal environment, our solid IT infrastructure, Runbox’ ethics and Privacy Policy, and the technology Runbox provides, means that Runbox provides a service that is uniquely private and secure.
For more information about the privacy and security of Runbox’ services, please see the following links — and feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.
We are currently experiencing problems with either our network or our firewall, and all Runbox email services are currently unavailable.
Our system administrators are working to correct the problem. Meanwhile, any incoming email will be queued on other servers for later delivery.
Our web and domain hosting services are not affected by this problem.
UPDATE 23:50 CET: A power strip inside a server rack had died, causing the firewall server to go down. We expect this to be resolved shortly.
UPDATE 23:51 CET: Problem has been resolved and email services are back online.
There has been much talk in the media recently about using email encryption to avoid surveillance and monitoring. In this article we help you understand what email encryption is, how it works, and the options that are available to you as a Runbox customer.
In order to understand how email encryption works, we need to cover the basics of email communication. Don’t worry, we’ll keep it non-technical and it’s pretty simple.
To send an email to someone, 4 things are usually needed (in addition to the Internet itself):
The email communication between the client and server (#1 and #2 above) is already encrypted by default if you are using the recommended settings. When using Runbox Webmail encryption is always enabled, which you can tell by the padlock in the address bar and the web address starting with “https” (where the “s” stands for secure).
This type of encryption is called Transport Layer Security or TLS for short (which has succeeded Secure Sockets Layer, SSL) and protects your data from being eavesdropped on its way from your email client to our servers.
After accepting the message for relay, the Runbox outbound email server then looks up the email service responsible for the recipient’s domain name and connects to one of their servers. Runbox always attempts to establish an encrypted connection using TLS, but many services do not support such connections yet.
After connecting to the receiving server (#3 above), Runbox hands over the message for further processing.
The final step (#4 above) between the receiving email server and the recipient is usually encrypted, but it depends on the encryption support of the receiving email service’s servers and the settings in the recipient’s email client. More details: Secure Transfer of Email
In other words, there is no way of knowing whether the communication is actually encrypted all the way from you to the recipient. Although some email services provide encrypted email storage, this doesn’t resolve the problem of unencrypted connections further down the message’s path.
In the event that someone was able to eavesdrop on communication encrypted using SSL/TLS, they would in principle not be able to decrypt the contents without somehow accessing the private encryption key which is only stored on the provider’s servers (unless Perfect Forward Secrecy was implemented, which is the case with Runbox).
However, this type of encryption is still theoretically vulnerable to surveillance because the encryption standards used have been developed in cooperation with US intelligence agencies, although any such weakening has been denied by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology).
The best solution available is to add another layer of encryption on the email communication all the way from sender to recipient. This is called end-to-end encryption and is already available for use with virtually any email service or provider.
When using end-to-end encryption, the contents of messages will be unreadable to a potential eavesdropper all the way from sender to recipient. It is of course always important that the two parties take great caution to secure their computers or devices to prevent them from being compromised.
Note that the metadata (sender and recipient addresses, subject line, timestamp, etc) of email messages is always unencrypted in order for the message to be routed to its recipient.
There are two main email encryption standards available: PGP and S/MIME. This may look cryptographic in itself, but we will explain both of them. Runbox supports both standards, which can be used with an email client or with Runbox Webmail.
See Encrypting Your Runbox Email for an overview of email clients and their encryption support.
Despite the name, PGP is considered to be cryptographically very strong and is probably the most popular email encryption standard today.
PGP is the easiest encryption standard to get started with because it doesn’t involve anyone but the sender and recipient of a message. It is based on a “web of trust” because it only involves the sender and recipient and assumes that they trust each other.
To get started, see our Encrypting and Securing Email Using OpenPGP help page.
S/MIME is a standard being adopted by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and requires some more preparation on the part of the email user.
We hope this article helped you understand how email encryption works and how to get started using it. And as always, please contact us if you have any questions.
In order to further simplify our price plans and improve our offering we have decided to increase the email alias quota of all account subscriptions to 100 (except the Max plan which already has it).
This change has already taken effect, which you can tell from the Alias Administration screen.
If you are wondering what an email alias is and what it can be used for, it’s basically an alternative email address pointing to your Runbox account. This is very useful in order to manage identities/profiles, especially if you host a domain with Runbox.
For more information and tips, head over to our help page on Aliases!
In order to simplify our Price Plans and improve the reliability of messages sent from Runbox, we are introducing standard quotas on email bandwidth usage per week and on the daily outgoing message limit across all subscription plans (with a few important exceptions).
Please continue reading to find out what is being changed and how this may affect your account. We will also notify all our customers by email within the next few days.
As of June 1, 2014 we will make the following changes to the Runbox subscription plans (with a few exceptions):
*) Those who have purchased extra quotas will of course keep them, and we will accommodate those who do need to send a larger number of messages — please see below for details.
If you are unsure about which subscription plan you currently have, please see Account > Subscription Information.
The recent revelations in the media of mass surveillance of online communication especially in the US has brought many new customers to Runbox over the past months. This has lead Runbox to garner international attention by publications such as Der Spiegel and The New York Times, and Runbox has gained a position as a leading provider of secure and private email services.
In accordance with our growth strategy we have invested heavily in new hardware to replace and modernize our server park, which will increase our capacity and further improve the reliability and security of our services.
While we continue to roll out these upgrades we have reviewed our subscription plans and decided to simplify and adapt the bandwidth and outgoing message quotas.
Our growing number of customers access their email on an increasing number of laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Additionally, people increasingly use email to share multimedia files such as images and videos.
The new hardware we have installed greatly improves our ability to support this “email-on-the-go” trend and we have therefore decided to upgrade the bandwidth quota to a level corresponding to the Max subscription plan for all existing and future accounts.
With many more people sending digital photographs and videos to friends, family, and colleagues, this new higher quota will allow you to make even better usage of our market leading 100MB attachment size.
There are two different reasons for the change of outgoing message quotas:
1) A few of our customers send a large amount of legitimate email. While our systems cope well with this, there is an ever increasing volume and therefore cost to processing this kind of email. There is also an increase in staff time dealing with any issues that arise as a result of recipients sometimes reporting such email as spam.
We see that those who send large amounts of bulk email don’t necessarily need large storage quotas, so we have decided to decouple the outgoing message quota from the subscription plans. You can then freely purchase outgoing message quota upgrades independently of your subscription plan.
Please note that this change need not affect your account as you can keep your current quota upon request.
2) Runbox enforces a strict policy on email sent from our service. Unfortunately, some of our customers still have poor password or computer hygiene, which in some cases can cause their Runbox account to be used by spammers to max out the currently very high outgoing message quotas.
This not only causes problems for the account owner, but sending large amounts of unsolicited email via our outgoing mail servers can potentially affect all our customers. If a receiving server detects that unsolicited email has been sent from one of our servers, Runbox may be blacklisted and in turn be prevented from reliably delivering email sent by our customers.
By lowering the outgoing message quota we protect all accounts from jeopardizing the reputation of Runbox’ mail servers. You as a Runbox customer will benefit directly because email sent from reputable mail servers are delivered promptly and reliably to their recipients’ Inboxes.
As part of our aforementioned server upgrades we will have the ability to implement new security features that will also help protect customers’ accounts.
The bandwidth quota change will only affect your subscription positively if at all, since all subscription plans will now have the maximum 10 GB bandwidth limit per week. With many more people sending digital photographs and videos to friends, family, and colleagues, this new higher quota will allow you to make better use of our market leading 100 MB attachment size.
The outgoing message quota adjustment will only affect customers who send more than 500 messages per day. Please note that the number of messages equals the total number of recipients, because e.g. 1 message with 20 recipients is 20 messages when delivered from our servers.
If you need a higher outgoing message volume we will restore the old quota upon request.
Customers who have paid specifically for increased outgoing message quotas will keep their full quotas as long as they are renewed.
If you are unsure about your current outgoing message quota, please refer to our subscription plans.
We hope you will understand that these changes are not only necessary but beneficial to Runbox and you as a Runbox customer.
And please let us know by contacting Support if you have any questions or concerns about these changes.
