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Silent Circle removes warrant canary

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Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#41

Post by anonbanker »

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #7
jakobdabo wrote: post #4

Current warrant canaries are useless, it's a one time fuse. We need new, better, recurring (i.e. monthly) warrant canaries of different types (common canaries, individual canaries for each user). I want something like this everywhere: Jan 2016 - we haven't received any NSL Feb 2016 - we haven't received any NSL concerning your account Mar 2016 - we haven't received any NSL Apr 2016 - Jun 2016 - we haven't received an…

Why monthly and not daily? Or hourly?

it is a disturbing commentary on our rights in society that we have to actually think about these things as a normal part of life. it is remarkable our ability and resolve to continue enforcing our rights in new and creative ways, but we should actually all recognize the fact that our right to privacy has been completely violated, as well as our right to self-incrimination.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#42

Post by pavel_lishin »

zekevermillion wrote: post #34
pavel_lishin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Furthermore, one can never be assured that a canary is entirely reliable as a signal -- just look at the other comments with conjecture as to why a canary might be removed. I would treat the removal of a canary as I would a fire alarm. Sure, it's possible that it's a business decision, just like it's possible that the fire alarm is a false alarm. But I'd rather make the assumption that is most likely to protect me.

Fair point. I would make that assumption from the beginning though, regardless of whatever the service provider tells me. It's a shame though, as the warrant canary is such an ingenious legal device that I have to admire it even as I doubt its usefulness.

But if you make that assumption from the beginning, you can't use any of those services. It's like assuming that every building you enter is on fire.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#43

Post by anonbanker »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #9

Warrant canaries have outlived their usefulness. Did anyone stop using Reddit when they removed theirs? Or Apple products, when they removed theirs?

Sadly, you're correct, but not for the reason you mean. People don't care about their rights anymore, having traded them in for convenience. Because "war".

EDIT: maybe the downvoters could respond with how I'm wrong?

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#44

Post by rsync »

jakobdabo wrote: post #4

Current warrant canaries are useless, it's a one time fuse. We need new, better, recurring (i.e. monthly) warrant canaries of different types (common canaries, individual canaries for each user). I want something like this everywhere: Jan 2016 - we haven't received any NSL Feb 2016 - we haven't received any NSL concerning your account Mar 2016 - we haven't received any NSL Apr 2016 - Jun 2016 - we haven't received an…

The rsync.net warrant canary has been issued monthly, with news headlines, for over ten years now.[1][2]

We split it for each location - SanDiego/Denver/Zurich/HongKong. Further, the individual location canaries can be retrieved from the actual storage array itself - that is, you can just fetch it via sftp/scp/rsync/whatever from (whatever system your account is on).

Finally, our canary is machine readable/parseable and nicely formatted. So much so that the maintainer of "Canary Watch" has told me that he wishes all warrant canaries followed our original format.

Oh By[3] will have a similar canary soon, modeled exactly after the rsync.net warrant canary.

[1] https://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt

[2] http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2010/08/the-warrant-can...

[3] https://0x.co

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#45

Post by jacquesm »

logicallee wrote: post #36
jfoutz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, no one is going to prison. However, a federal court case starts at 1.5 million to defend. Not many people have that in the bank. They can make you miserable for years. This has played a role in at least one person's suicide. Getting on the bad side of the feds is pretty brutal.

I'd like to see a federal court case over publishing "Apr 2016 - " in a context that meant it's a canary. Go ahead and publish it. No one will sue you. Nobody will throw you in prison. Nobody will show up in black cars and take you to an interrogation. Nobody will put a bullet in your head. These questions about warrant canaries have been answered by judges, and not in the way that either I quoted or that you clarifi…

I think with the claims you are making the onus is on you that one could get away with this.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#47

Post by burkaman »

matthewmarkus wrote: post #40
jakobdabo wrote: post #4

Current warrant canaries are useless, it's a one time fuse. We need new, better, recurring (i.e. monthly) warrant canaries of different types (common canaries, individual canaries for each user). I want something like this everywhere: Jan 2016 - we haven't received any NSL Feb 2016 - we haven't received any NSL concerning your account Mar 2016 - we haven't received any NSL Apr 2016 - Jun 2016 - we haven't received an…

I've always wondered if there is a side-channel that could be used instead of a warrant canary. More specifically, my understanding is that witnesses have Miranda Rights. Therefore, couldn't a company promulgate a process whereby they'll publicly solicit bids for legal counsel should they receive a NSL? If they start asking for bids, you can assume they've received a NSL. If not, then no NSL has been received. Any la…

I'm not a lawyer, but I think you almost definitely can't do that. The law is not an algorithm, at some point a human judge is going to decide if you've broken it. If the law says "you can't tell anyone" and you tell someone, you've broken the law. It doesn't matter if you told someone through the medium of a press release, or a predefined "unrelated (wink)" process.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#48

Post by btreecat »

cordite wrote: post #37

I've been using Silent Circle's black phone 2 for almost a year now, and it is a rather terrible experience. They are ahead on app-specific permission denials, but they have hardly any sense of decent QA for their SilentOS. Previous updates had power regressions where the phone would be dead from a full charge within 8 hours. Took 3 months for them to fix that. Most recent update no longer has a functioning headphone…

>It also is crashing after 15 minutes of map usage as it seems to overheat.

So it might be worth checking in "Developer options" if "Force GPU Rendering" is checked. If it is, try un-checking it and seeing if it keeps your phone a little cooler.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#49

Post by tptacek »

logicallee wrote: post #36
jfoutz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, no one is going to prison. However, a federal court case starts at 1.5 million to defend. Not many people have that in the bank. They can make you miserable for years. This has played a role in at least one person's suicide. Getting on the bad side of the feds is pretty brutal.

I'd like to see a federal court case over publishing "Apr 2016 - " in a context that meant it's a canary. Go ahead and publish it. No one will sue you. Nobody will throw you in prison. Nobody will show up in black cars and take you to an interrogation. Nobody will put a bullet in your head. These questions about warrant canaries have been answered by judges, and not in the way that either I quoted or that you clarifi…

"The defendant merely published the string 'Apr 2016 -'" is what the defense's pretrial motion will say. It's not what the prosecution will say.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#50

Post by matthewmarkus »

burkaman wrote: post #47
matthewmarkus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered if there is a side-channel that could be used instead of a warrant canary. More specifically, my understanding is that witnesses have Miranda Rights. Therefore, couldn't a company promulgate a process whereby they'll publicly solicit bids for legal counsel should they receive a NSL? If they start asking for bids, you can assume they've received a NSL. If not, then no NSL has been received. Any la…

I'm not a lawyer, but I think you almost definitely can't do that. The law is not an algorithm, at some point a human judge is going to decide if you've broken it. If the law says "you can't tell anyone" and you tell someone, you've broken the law. It doesn't matter if you told someone through the medium of a press release, or a predefined "unrelated (wink)" process.

Well, I know if you're charged, you have a right to be represented by counsel of your choice under the 6th Amendment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistance_of_Counsel_Clause#C...

I wonder if that extends to witnesses not charged with a crime in some way. Or can you be denied counsel of your choice under questioning?!

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