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Silent Circle removes warrant canary

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Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't necessarily agree with your reasoning; however, it looks like one's right to counsel is restricted if one is not charged with a crime: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/352/330/ (1957) Further, it seems that Miranda only applies to custodial interrogations. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/384/436/ (1966) I do think that if one is charged or restrained that the process might work. Of cour…

Why would it work? You think if you told the judge "nothing I can do, it says right here in my employee handbook that I'm not allowed to seek legal counsel without a public bidding period" they would say "wow, you really outsmarted us this time, nice job"? If part of your job involves breaking the law, then the law compels you to not do your job. It seems like you're trying to hack in a domain that can't really be ha…

I have no idea if it would work. As you state, it isn't very well-defined. I imagine it would eventually depend on a clarification of the phrase "your choice."

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#102
post #81
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the government compel me to make false statements ? In what scenario would the government need to compel you to make false statements? The law is already that if you receive a NSL, then you are not allowed to divulge that you've received one. If you do, then you may be prosecuted for breaking the law. In the scenario involving warrant canaries, the only difference between just outright saying you've received an N…

The way I understand this, the canary will not be removed, it will just stop being updated. All it says is that, as of the date of the canary, no NSLs have been served. If you know the organization posts a new one monthly and you see it skipped a month, well you draw your own conclusions.

> well you draw your own conclusions.

Yes, that's the point: If someone tells you not to provide the information needed to draw those conclusions, there may be consequences for providing that information.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#103
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…

> These are interesting questions, but I'm not at all sure the answer is not 'yes' to both of them, under the right circumstances.

That may be true, but it would remove any moral ambiguity for me and make it easy for me to stick to my principle. If a judge orders me to make a false public statement, I'll disobey, and accept the consequences. No further justification is needed.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#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 messages aren't retained, even encrypted (why would they)?

We don't even log IPs or other personal information, so I'm not sure what usefulness an NSL would serve.

Anyway, this is not an official company stance, I just wanted to comment about my personal experience because I see some speculation here.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#105

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…

hmmm, but surely if you are going to go to the trouble of keeping up a warrant canary, you're not going to accidentally take it down?

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#106
post #85

Members of the US military swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, including domestic ones. Just because your family members might be oathbreakers doesn't mean everyone in the military is.

Whoa, that's harsh. Actually, military abandoned one of ours leaving them to die despite excellent, decorated performance. Had to get home on his own who knows how through the Middle East. Others came and went the ordinary ways. Different soldiers in the family have different perspectives on the military. None are affecting what I'm saying except as anecdotal support about how loyal soldiers are to military during their terms & maintaining close relationships afterward in many cases.

Far as Constitution, soldiers all do swear it as they're told to. Some mean it, some don't. Yet, the liars that got more soldiers killed in Iraq than 9/11 are still alive and free despite all those soldiers' oaths about domestic enemies. Many soldiers continue to serve under these corrupt politicians and even hit new targets on basis of their word. More importantly here, the military and civilians working in the mass collection programs are all working hard at eliminating Constitutional freedoms in terms of 4th and 5th Amendment while watching their leaders lie under oath about it. Can count who came forward on one hand out of thousands to who knows how many. That's saying something.

The disconnect between that and you're statement is that you're ignoring that each member of the military has their own view of what doing their duty is which is usually highly biased. Most of them at least start with the one instilled in them by American culture (pro-military mostly) and military indoctrination. Guess what the military indoctrination didn't teach them? That secretive organizations in the military and intelligence sector are spying on all Americans' data feeding stuff to law enforcement and other groups that has nothing to do with terrorism despite what the law said about that. That they need to oppose or take out those organizations. Instead, they're told to believe and do what they're told by such groups even if it supports illegal SIGINT efforts. Most do at least for the duration of their service. Many will think of fellow soldiers as an extended family of sorts afterward.

So, believing the loyalty of military personnel is to the military is a suitable default. Unless we get hundreds of new leakers soon and all kinds of soldiers storming Washington for sole purpose of getting rid of corrupt politicians that have them killed for selfish gain. I don't see either. Most of them must be on military and politicians' sides in practice. Or just apathetic, which is its own danger.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#107

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…

hmmm, but surely if you are going to go to the trouble of keeping up a warrant canary, you're not going to accidentally take it down?

Are you talking about this instance, or the previous one where it failed to be updated?

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#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.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#109

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 original proposal for how to do warrant canaries is pretty valid (Steve Schear) -- basically they'd be a paid service, sort of like a bug bounty, and multiple canaries, very specific. They would be a revenue center, too.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/cypherpunks-lne-archive/...

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