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

111–120 of 197 posts

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#111

Post by jsprogrammer »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #74
rsync wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." The entire basis of the warrant canary is that it's not simply asking me to stop doing something , but rather, a judge would have to order me to make false public statements. That's a…

> Can the government compel my speech ? Can the government compel me to make false statements ? These are interesting questions, but I'm not at all sure the answer is not 'yes' to both of them, under the right circumstances. The Fifth Amendment would not seem to imply (there's no criminal proceeding, and not necessarily any risk of self-incrimination) and the First Amendment, while applicable, would not necessarily p…

Freedom of speech entails the freedom to speak only your mind. No one has a valid claim to compel your speech.

What sufficiently dire circumstance can there be where a government would have the right to compel speech?

I think the 13th amendment would come into play here as well.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#112

Post by StavrosK »

paavokoya wrote: post #108

I'm not sure what usefulness removing the warrant canary would be without receiving an NSL.. Are you suggesting that your company acts in bad practice regarding warrant canaries? You really shouldn't be playing PR for your company unless that's your job.

Alright, I'll leave the thread.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#113

Post by burkaman »

matthewmarkus wrote: post #97
burkaman wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It still clearly violates the spirit of the law. I guess in this case the government could argue that your attorney represents you; you're still effectively making a disclosure. I think it would be pretty much unheard of for a law firm to unilaterally announce a new client, so it's not like you could claim you didn't know it would happen, or it was out of your hands.

I just don't think it makes sense to look for a loophole here. That's not really how the legal system works, especially in these kinds of national security cases. If you make some conscious decision at some point that ends up informing people of a NSL, that's disclosure. There's no way around it. Setting up a system beforehand probably makes things worse, since you're proving that you fully understand the purpose of your actions and the spirit of the law.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#114

Post by voxic11 »

794CD01 wrote: post #82
rsync wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." The entire basis of the warrant canary is that it's not simply asking me to stop doing something , but rather, a judge would have to order me to make false public statements. That's a…

You have put yourself in a situation where you need to make false statements in order to comply with the law. If you create a deathtrap where you control a deadmans switch that prevents it from killing me, that doesn't absolve you of murder simply because the cause of my death is inaction rather than action.

Good thing he isn't murdering anyone then.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#115

Post by linkregister »

DavideNL wrote: post #57
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 th…

Which countries in the world don't have legally possible gag orders?

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#116

Post by cocotino »

StavrosK wrote: post #112
paavokoya wrote: post #108

I'm not sure what usefulness removing the warrant canary would be without receiving an NSL.. Are you suggesting that your company acts in bad practice regarding warrant canaries? You really shouldn't be playing PR for your company unless that's your job.

Alright, I'll leave the thread.

Is your resumé ready?

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#117

Post by hippich »

StavrosK wrote: post #104

I work for silent circle, as a backend developer. I speak for myself, and not the company. As far as I know (and, sure, I may not know, although if someone wanted something from the server I'm one of a few guys that could get it), we haven't received any letters. What makes me even more confident, though, is the fact that there really isn't much data to give. All we have is some ciphertexts for attachments, and messa…

canary could also mean that starting now company begun gathering information for giving it away to NSA :)

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#118

Post by dexterdog »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #35
dexterdog wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder and original CEO was a SEAL.

Didn't know that. Icing on the cake of my claim. Not even me having anything against SEAL's: two in my family with one decorated. I just have to assume their loyalty will lead them to side with military or intelligence over Constitutional principles. It would be different if code was all open, jurisdiction + servers non-US, and review by mutually-suspicious parties. Then I could focus on product more than the subvers…

I actually know him through a close personal friend. He's not the type to trust the government for anything which is why he created the product in the first place. That being said, he's not longer calling the shots so who knows now?

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#119

Post by matthewmarkus »

burkaman wrote: post #113
matthewmarkus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It still clearly violates the spirit of the law. I guess in this case the government could argue that your attorney represents you; you're still effectively making a disclosure. I think it would be pretty much unheard of for a law firm to unilaterally announce a new client, so it's not like you could claim you didn't know it would happen, or it was out of your hands. I just don't think it makes sense to look for a lo…

Well, I guess at some level, I think NSLs violate the spirit of the law. Thus, it is worth examining the issue.

I particularly like the above structure because it separates the hiring of the firm from the disclosure of the NSL to the firm. In fact, you might choose to never actually disclose the NSL to the hired firm! Since the firm doesn't necessarily know the reason they're being engaged, they're not making a disclosure either.

I imagine an organization like the EFF could make it a policy to publicly disclose when they've been hired or terminated by a client.

I find it all very interesting...

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#120

Post by Osiris »

StavrosK wrote: post #104

I work for silent circle, as a backend developer. I speak for myself, and not the company. As far as I know (and, sure, I may not know, although if someone wanted something from the server I'm one of a few guys that could get it), we haven't received any letters. What makes me even more confident, though, is the fact that there really isn't much data to give. All we have is some ciphertexts for attachments, and messa…

Couldn't an NSL force the company to start retaining that information though? You may not have past data but you can certainly collect future information.
Post reply on HN