Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Silent Circle removes warrant canary

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 197 posts

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#51

Post by res0nat0r »

rsync wrote: post #44
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…

Can you comment on if you believe these to be actually effective? I don't see how when the USG says that you cannot divulge that you've received any type of NSL, they can easily say you must continue to act like you have in the past.

I just don't see a court or a judge upholding a "cute" or "technical" workaround for something like this. Haven't there been rulings in the past where these aren't valid, ie just like the article above once you do get NSL's etc you must take them down or be at risk of non compilance?

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#52

Post by mikeash »

dawnerd wrote: post #29
mikeash wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the apparent standard practice of just saying "We haven't received a letter" and then removing it if one is received makes no sense to me. Much better to have something you regularly update, and then stop updating it. The government could nab you for deleting something, but they might have trouble forcing you to update your declaration with false information.

Agreed. Although I wonder if removing cron or similar to update the date would be the same as removing the message legally speaking. I doubt these companies would have someone go in every day and bump the date. Then again that might be a good thing to outsource.

I don't think automating it would be a good idea. I'd say update it monthly or quarterly (so it's not too burdensome) and do it entirely by hand. Then when you receive a letter, just cease to do that.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#53

Post by anonbanker »

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…

burning karma as breadcrumbs to a fantastic idea.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#54

Post by jfoutz »

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…

Two things,

1, you keep attempting to make my argument a straw man escalating the emotional impact of the consequences. First it's prison, now it's a bullet in the head. No one is claiming physical violence by the government other than you.

2, It's impossible to provide. Any case that lost would be secret due to national security reasons. You assert that this hasn't happened. Fine, believe what you wish. I assert that we don't know if it has happened or not. Because, again, we'd only know if the defendant "won".

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#55

Post by burkaman »

matthewmarkus wrote: post #50
burkaman wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?!

I don't know, but even if you retain that right, it seems almost obvious that you don't have the right to publicly bid for counsel. Presumably the gag order would extend to any lawyer you contact.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#56

Post by [deleted] »

logicallee wrote: post #26
Retric wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great way to end up in prison. That said, civil disobedience has been used in the past to great effect.

>That's a great way to end up in prison easy there, cowboy, this isn't East Germany just yet. I think American authorities can tell the difference between what they do and the Stasi. As in, I actually, literally think they can tell the difference. Nobody will be ending up in prison for posting the above. Seriously. Show me a judge who'll do that. You don't get a 4-year philosophy degree before getting a JD in America…

[deleted]

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#57

Post by DavideNL »

zekevermillion wrote: post #5

I'm not sure warrant canaries are particularly useful anymore. Yes, it's nice to know when a company has received a secret order or request for cooperation. However, any company that stores user information is going to receive such an order or request at some point, it's practically inevitable. Furthermore, one can never be assured that a canary is entirely reliable as a signal -- just look at the other comments with…

> I'm not sure warrant canaries are particularly useful anymore > However, any company that stores user information is going to receive such an order or request at some point, it's practically inevitable.

I assume you are talking about the U.S. only ?

There are many other countries in the world, where gag-orders are not legally possible, or not as common as in the U.S. I would say warrant canaries are still useful there.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#58

Post by tedunangst »

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…

"We did not, at 2:43pm on the 17th of July, receive a request for any information related to the account identified as jakobdabo." (Request actually received at 2:44pm.) That'll trick 'em for sure!

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#59

Post by cordite »

btreecat wrote: post #48
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.

It appears to be off by default.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#60

Post by logicallee »

jacquesm wrote: post #45
logicallee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Fine. Here is the onus on me to show this:

“Warrant canaries have never been tested in court, but no case law suggests that they are in any way illegal,” says Nate Cardozo of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “In fact, existing law suggests that if a court were to examine a prohibition on warrant canaries, it would likely conclude that any such prohibition would run afoul of the First Amendment, even in the case of NSL and FISA requests.”

Source: https://gigaom.com/2014/10/10/are-warrant-canaries-legal-twi...

Now the onus is on anyone who disagrees with my referenced link, to show otherwise. Personally, I am fine with following the legal reading and guidance of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and you should be too.

The Warrant Canary article Wikipedia says, summarizing its three references: "Warrant canaries have been found to be legal by the United States Justice Department, so long as they are passive in their notifications."

Please link to any court cases to the contrary.

Post reply on HN