Silent Circle, a startup founded by former U.S. Navy Seal Mike Janke, and well-known cryptographer Philip Zimmermann (pictured above), provides encrypted phone calls, text messages and video calls for $10 a month.

In a phone interview with Mashable on Friday, Janke said they had been thinking about this decision for a while, but Lavabit's announcement gave them the final push to not only close down the service, but to also wipe the servers and destroy them, removing "every and all traces of email in the entire architecture," he said.

The main reason behind their decision, however, is that even encrypted email isn't completely safe, he said.

nothing is completely safe...there are always risks for reward