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

Rsync.net Warrant Canary

rsync.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 47 posts

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#21

Post by alain94040 »

Funny...

But it probably wouldn't work anyway. If a judge agrees that there is a need for a secret warrant, it's serious enough (aka national security) that the judge will tell you to continue doing business as usual, including posting your weekly canary.

There is no harm to you of posting an incorrect warrant canary and if that's the only objection you have, the judge will be happy to give you immunity on that point.

If you refuse to do so, expect to be held in contempt or similar coercion technique.

Bottom line: it doesn't work. Too bad.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#22

Post by edfgtyhuj »

sachinag wrote: post #19
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.

It was used almost a century ago in England to warn drivers about speed traps.

"It originated at the start of the last century as drivers started to run foul of police speed traps in which officers used a stopwatch to calculate whether or not a car was going too fast. Even then it was illegal to warn motorists about speed traps, but the AA advised its members to stop if a patrolman failed to salute, and the driver would then be given information about "road conditions" ahead."

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#23

Post by jsteele »

defen wrote: post #20

> 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

> I don't know, that probably could have been written a > week ago.

No, it couldn't have, unless you have a time machine and a friend on the NYT's national desk, because it was in the Times today, not last week: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=In+opening+remarks%2C+a+Democratic+sena....

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#24

Post by bcl »

mjgoins wrote: post #16
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 num…

yes. And if I were a customer of theirs I'd work to obtain a more trusted copy of their key. But, FYI, I've had this copy of their key in my keyring for several years, I didn't just pull it off their website today.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#25

Post by iigs »

While I admire the spirit of this, unfortunately I believe it's of limited use: Once word gets out that these guys are LEA "unfriendly", it will start to attract the kinds of people that get LEA attention, and then they'll have to respond to a court order / subpoena / warrant / lawful intercept, and it's all over.

Large ISPs routinely get subpoena requests all the time (i.e. they have teams that do only that). I think rsync.net is setting themselves up for a lot of undesired press when they finally have to do it.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#26

Post by defen »

jsteele wrote: post #23
defen wrote: post #20

> 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

> I don't know, that probably could have been written a > week ago. No, it couldn't have, unless you have a time machine and a friend on the NYT's national desk, because it was in the Times today, not last week: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=In+opening+remarks%2C+a+Democratic+sena... .

It was a joke - my point was that anyone who pays attention to politics would have known that the Democrats would emphasize her upbringing, and Republicans would express concerns about judicial activism.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#27

Post by dkarl »

tc wrote: post #17
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?

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.

Transparently contriving to escalate keeping a secret to making a positive declaration would, I think, not impress a judge very much. After all, it is rsync.net who is intentionally placing themselves in a position where making a false declaration is the only way to comply with the law. The judge does not need to force them to make a statement; he only needs to observe afterwards that they have communicated the fact that they were served with a warrant and thereby failed to comply with their legal obligation to keep the warrant secret. It would be up to rsync.net to argue that they had freed themselves from that obligation by taking these actions.

Frankly, this is the kind of thing a five-year-old would come up with. "Yo, warden, I just created a new religion that says I have to have steak and hookers every day! Respect my religious freedom!" The law isn't that brittle. It's hackable, but you have to respect judges' latitude and legal sense.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#28

Post by dkarl »

Periodic wrote: post #15
whughes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They already have an obligation to keep the warrant secret. If the court rules that they (obviously intentionally) violated that obligation, they will bear the consequences, right? The whole point is to try to avoid legal responsibility. Otherwise they could just post the details of the warrant on their home page.

Re: Rsync.net Warrant Canary

#30

Post by benatkin »

defen wrote: post #26
jsteele wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know, that probably could have been written a > week ago. No, it couldn't have, unless you have a time machine and a friend on the NYT's national desk, because it was in the Times today, not last week: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=In+opening+remarks%2C+a+Democratic+sena... .

It was a joke - my point was that anyone who pays attention to politics would have known that the Democrats would emphasize her upbringing, and Republicans would express concerns about judicial activism.

That reminds me of a podcast by The Economist called "The Week Ahead", where each Friday they try to guess what the major news stories in the next week will be.

I agree with you that they could have found a story that would have been harder to guess.

http://video.economist.com/index.jsp?fr_chl=157a3251a697e23e...

Post reply on HN