Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't tell which side you think I'm on :D
I'll give you points for the well concealed snark.
Except you downvoted it ;)
Silent Circle removes warrant canary
91–100 of 197 posts
Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary
#92This is kind of off topic, but afaik, warrant canaries have never been tested in court.
It seems very unlikely, given the pervasiveness of NSLs that all orgs still using canaries have never received an NSL. Has anyone collected a list of all the companies with canaries?
Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary
#93Earlier 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…
What if you told everyone that you would probably retain a specific lawyer if you were served a warrant such as this. If your company retains that specific council and makes a post on your website I don't see how that can be misconstrued as a warrant canary.
The law says you can't disclose that you received a letter, and in this context making a post on your website would clearly be a disclosure. You would be required to simply hire the lawyer without making an announcement.
Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary
#94Earlier 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…
What if you told everyone that you would probably retain a specific lawyer if you were served a warrant such as this. If your company retains that specific council and makes a post on your website I don't see how that can be misconstrued as a warrant canary.
Nice! That's very simple and elegant.
Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know how it suddenly became "your argument" the "first it's prison" isn't a straw man I introduced - I literally replied to someone who wrote: >That's a great way to end up in prison And I asked them to have a bit of perspective and not go off the deep end. You replied saying "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…
Ah, but I used Aaron Swartz as a concrete example, for emotional impact. Hemingway would be another good example. Where as you are asserting full conspiracy nut with a bullet in the head. I get it, you're an absence of evidence is evidence of absence guy. That's fine. We're prohibited from actually going and looking, so i think there's no way to tell one way or the other. I don't think you can assign zero probability…
> I know it's bad form to talk about downvotes. logicallee has good points, i happen to disagree. Don't fall into the trap of downvoting them because you viscerally disagree with their opinion.
Seriously, of all the downvote abuse I've seen on HN, I think this is the worst. It's because of stuff like this that I think downvoting should be abolished. Stuff that breaks the rules should be flagged, and false flaggers should lose the privilege, and everything else should stand or fall on its own merit, according to the reader's judgment.
I miss the old (old) Slashdot meta-moderation system. If someone moderated a comment "Troll" merely because they disagreed with it, a meta-moderator (chosen at random from accounts with good karma) could fix it, anonymously. And if an account abused moderation, they could simply lose the privilege. And, of course, participants in a conversation couldn't moderate (still the case, I think). I still don't understand why Slashdot dumped that system, because it's the best I've ever seen anywhere on the Internet.
Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary
#96Current 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…
What about something simple, like saying, "If we ever receive an NSL, we will change the background color of our web site."
Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if you told everyone that you would probably retain a specific lawyer if you were served a warrant such as this. If your company retains that specific council and makes a post on your website I don't see how that can be misconstrued as a warrant canary.
The law says you can't disclose that you received a letter, and in this context making a post on your website would clearly be a disclosure. You would be required to simply hire the lawyer without making an announcement.
How about company Y declares they may hire law firm X if they receive a NSL and law firm X subsequently releases a press release stating that they've been hired by company Y?
Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure some people did. Probably the same number of people who started using them because the canaries were there. However, that doesn't mean users haven't changed their behaviour in response to warrant canaries. It's just not a lot of people, and it isn't clear we want it to be that way either. We don't want there to be a disincentive for companies creating them.
To continue this line of thinking, the case can be made that warrant canaries could be used to flush out a subset of users from a service, among whom are those that would be considered "interesting" by intelligence agencies.
Well, the most hard core of those would probably not be drawn in by canaries or would proceed to fill the channel with disinformation in response to changes.
Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary
#99Earlier 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…
What about something simple, like saying, "If we ever receive an NSL, we will change the background color of our web site."
That seems like a "disclosure" as defined by the NSL.
Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary
#100I'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…
> 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.
"Warning. Warning. Your user information may have been passed on to "
Ok now what?