Rsync.net Warrant Canary • Hacker News Board

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#11

Post by whughes » Mon, Jul 13, 2009, 7:48 PM UTC

dexen wrote: post #6

Looks like a pretty decent law hack to me; they are going to comply with the warrant and just not update a particular file anymore. Still, I assume a skilled lawyer would be able to convince a judge that the net effect is that users effectively obtain information about rsync.net being served a warrant quite closely around some specific date, and thus the service broke the law anyway (assuming secret warrants are lawf…

How long would it take the lawyer to make his case? All rsync.net needs is to skip one day and it's too late. If rsync.net can stall a bit or find a way to fight it, then it's over.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#12

Post by slackerIII » Mon, Jul 13, 2009, 7:56 PM UTC

dexen wrote: post #6

Looks like a pretty decent law hack to me; they are going to comply with the warrant and just not update a particular file anymore. Still, I assume a skilled lawyer would be able to convince a judge that the net effect is that users effectively obtain information about rsync.net being served a warrant quite closely around some specific date, and thus the service broke the law anyway (assuming secret warrants are lawf…

I'm not even sure you would need a skilled lawyer. Judges tend to be fairly smart. The law isn't a computer program, mindlessly followed by automatons on the bench. Intent matters, and I wouldn't be surprised if a judge considered this exactly the same as issuing a press release.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#13

Post by hvs » Mon, Jul 13, 2009, 7:57 PM UTC

dkarl wrote: post #8

dexen wrote: post #6

Looks like a pretty decent law hack to me; they are going to comply with the warrant and just not update a particular file anymore. Still, I assume a skilled lawyer would be able to convince a judge that the net effect is that users effectively obtain information about rsync.net being served a warrant quite closely around some specific date, and thus the service broke the law anyway (assuming secret warrants are lawf…

It seems transparently, wishful-thinkingly illegal. If everyone can find out when a warrant was served by watching what rsync.net says, then how can rsync.net claim they kept the existence of the warrant secret?

I'm not sure that the government can legally force you to lie, though. Anyway, I'm sure the authors of the law didn't consider this possibility (they are politicians after all) so it would ultimately be decided by a judge. I would bet 50/50 on the result.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#14

Post by pronoiac » Mon, Jul 13, 2009, 7:59 PM UTC

Heh. This is likely based on similar technically legal signs: http://www.librarian.net/technicality.html

This has been around around a year: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2ygi6/warrant_c...

Edit: HTML. Another edit: reddit.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#15

Post by Periodic » Mon, Jul 13, 2009, 8:00 PM UTC

whughes wrote: post #11

dexen wrote: post #6

Looks like a pretty decent law hack to me; they are going to comply with the warrant and just not update a particular file anymore. Still, I assume a skilled lawyer would be able to convince a judge that the net effect is that users effectively obtain information about rsync.net being served a warrant quite closely around some specific date, and thus the service broke the law anyway (assuming secret warrants are lawf…

How long would it take the lawyer to make his case? All rsync.net needs is to skip one day and it's too late. If rsync.net can stall a bit or find a way to fight it, then it's over.

Knowing the way bureaucracies work, they wouldn't manage to get the order to force them to update the canary until a few days later, at which point it would be too late.

All they need to do is buy themselves one day, and have a track record of not being late with the updates.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#16

Post by mjgoins » Mon, Jul 13, 2009, 8:04 PM UTC

bcl wrote: post #3

Looks good. gpg: Signature made Mon Jul 13 08:44:56 2009 PDT using DSA key ID 7D6F806C gpg: Good signature from "rsync.net "

You realize that unless you have a trust path via keys that you've signed (preferably by meeting the people holding them) that that verification isn't verifying much, right?

It's pretty easy to create a key that has that key id (since it's only the last few hex digits of the full 40 digit fingerprint) and the user id is freeform.

If you don't believe it's easy to pick your own key id, check the keyservers for the number of keys with DEADBEEF as their key id ;)

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#17

Post by tc » Mon, Jul 13, 2009, 8:09 PM UTC

dkarl wrote: post #8

dexen wrote: post #6

Looks like a pretty decent law hack to me; they are going to comply with the warrant and just not update a particular file anymore. Still, I assume a skilled lawyer would be able to convince a judge that the net effect is that users effectively obtain information about rsync.net being served a warrant quite closely around some specific date, and thus the service broke the law anyway (assuming secret warrants are lawf…

It seems transparently, wishful-thinkingly illegal. If everyone can find out when a warrant was served by watching what rsync.net says, then how can rsync.net claim they kept the existence of the warrant secret?

The law takes the idea of forcing a person to speak much more seriously than the idea of forcing him to remain silent, particularly if you would be forcing him to make a knowingly false declaration. I can't think of an instance off-hand where a US judge has forced a civilian by injunction to make a known-false public statement.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#18

Post by dkarl » Mon, Jul 13, 2009, 8:11 PM UTC

hvs wrote: post #13

dkarl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems transparently, wishful-thinkingly illegal. If everyone can find out when a warrant was served by watching what rsync.net says, then how can rsync.net claim they kept the existence of the warrant secret?

I'm not sure that the government can legally force you to lie, though. Anyway, I'm sure the authors of the law didn't consider this possibility (they are politicians after all) so it would ultimately be decided by a judge. I would bet 50/50 on the result.

There's nothing really novel here, though, except a little bit of cryptography to prevent the government from faking the messages, and the authors of the law were almost certainly not politicians. As far as I'm aware, laws are normally drafted by the people who want them passed -- lobbyists, usually, but in this case I would guess the law was written by DOJ or FBI lawyers.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#19

Post by sachinag » Mon, Jul 13, 2009, 8:15 PM UTC

dexen wrote: post #6

Looks like a pretty decent law hack to me; they are going to comply with the warrant and just not update a particular file anymore. Still, I assume a skilled lawyer would be able to convince a judge that the net effect is that users effectively obtain information about rsync.net being served a warrant quite closely around some specific date, and thus the service broke the law anyway (assuming secret warrants are lawf…

This is no different than libraries having a sign up that says "The FBI has not been here" and taking it down after they have (second sign): http://www.librarian.net/technicality.html

My understanding is that most observers believe that the sign is legal.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#20

Post by defen » Mon, Jul 13, 2009, 8:32 PM UTC

> In opening remarks, a Democratic senator emphasized Judge Sonia Sotomayor's upbringing, while a Republican senator expressed concerns about activism on the bench.

I don't know, that probably could have been written a week ago. Should we be worried?

:-P