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Silent Circle removes warrant canary

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Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#61

Post by ghurtado »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #30

>I think American authorities can tell the difference between what they do and the Stasi. Of course they can, they're protecting their nations chosen way of life, while the Stasi were oppressing citizens who dared resist the status quo. The difference is clear.

> The difference is clear.

That's either some fine quality sarcasm, or I'm going to need some help understanding the difference between the two.

Didn't you just describe the same job from two different points of view (opressor vs opressed)?

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#62

Post by [deleted] »

matthewmarkus wrote: post #50
burkaman wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer, but I think you almost definitely can't do that. The law is not an algorithm, at some point a human judge is going to decide if you've broken it. If the law says "you can't tell anyone" and you tell someone, you've broken the law. It doesn't matter if you told someone through the medium of a press release, or a predefined "unrelated (wink)" process.

Well, I know if you're charged, you have a right to be represented by counsel of your choice under the 6th Amendment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistance_of_Counsel_Clause#C... I wonder if that extends to witnesses not charged with a crime in some way. Or can you be denied counsel of your choice under questioning?!

[deleted]

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#63

Post by matthewmarkus »

burkaman wrote: post #55
matthewmarkus wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I know if you're charged, you have a right to be represented by counsel of your choice under the 6th Amendment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistance_of_Counsel_Clause#C... I wonder if that extends to witnesses not charged with a crime in some way. Or can you be denied counsel of your choice under questioning?!

I don't know, but even if you retain that right, it seems almost obvious that you don't have the right to publicly bid for counsel. Presumably the gag order would extend to any lawyer you contact.

Well, if the counsel of your choice was predefined as the one that bid the lowest in an open auction, then why would you lose that right? Could the court further restrict that right down to the specific lawyer they want representing you?

I do agree that the gag order would extend to any lawyer you contacted after the public bidding process concluded.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#64

Post by logicallee »

jfoutz wrote: post #54
logicallee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see a federal court case over publishing "Apr 2016 - " in a context that meant it's a canary. Go ahead and publish it. No one will sue you. Nobody will throw you in prison. Nobody will show up in black cars and take you to an interrogation. Nobody will put a bullet in your head. These questions about warrant canaries have been answered by judges, and not in the way that either I quoted or that you clarifi…

Two things, 1, you keep attempting to make my argument a straw man escalating the emotional impact of the consequences. First it's prison, now it's a bullet in the head. No one is claiming physical violence by the government other than you. 2, It's impossible to provide. Any case that lost would be secret due to national security reasons. You assert that this hasn't happened. Fine, believe what you wish. I assert tha…

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 years. This has played a role in at least one person's suicide." I disagree that that is an outcome that will happen from ceasing to publish a warrant canary.

Nobody is going to do that over someone publishing 'Apr 2016 -'. Period.

And no, it's not impossible to provide evidence of this happening. Snowden leaked the secret program of surveilling hundreds of millions of Americans. You think someone couldn't leak a blog post about getting sued in secret court for publishing a 'Apr 2016 -' warrant canary? Really?

Let's have some perspective here.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#65

Post by waterphone »

matthewmarkus wrote: post #40
jakobdabo wrote: post #4

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…

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…

Not a lawyer, but according to Wikipedia, Ladar Levison ran into issues surrounding lawyer acquisition during the Lavabit case:

> Afterwards, Levison wrote that after being contacted by the FBI, he was subpoenaed to appear in federal court, and was forced to appear without legal representation because it was served on such short notice; in addition, as a third party, he had no right to representation, and was not allowed to ask anyone who was not an attorney to help find him one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#67

Post by rsync »

res0nat0r wrote: post #51
rsync wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rsync.net warrant canary has been issued monthly, with news headlines, for over ten years now.[1][2] We split it for each location - SanDiego/Denver/Zurich/HongKong. Further, the individual location canaries can be retrieved from the actual storage array itself - that is, you can just fetch it via sftp/scp/rsync/whatever from (whatever system your account is on). Finally, our canary is machine readable/parseable…

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. I just don't see a court or a judge upholding a "cute" or "technical" workaround for something like this. Haven't there been rulings in the past where these aren't valid, ie just like th…

"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 tough thing to imagine - certainly on any continued basis.

Even in that situation, how will they force a swiss national to update the swiss location ? There's no jurisdiction there.

I don't see it as a technical workaround at all - it is completely non-technical. Can the government compel my speech ? Can the government compel me to make false statements ?

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#68

Post by zekevermillion »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #42
zekevermillion wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point. I would make that assumption from the beginning though, regardless of whatever the service provider tells me. It's a shame though, as the warrant canary is such an ingenious legal device that I have to admire it even as I doubt its usefulness.

But if you make that assumption from the beginning, you can't use any of those services. It's like assuming that every building you enter is on fire.

You can and (probably) do use many such services, and they're all going to give up your info as soon as any governmental authority asks nicely. It's a trade-off that many of us who aren't Richard Stallman make everyday, for example to use gmail. Or even the postal service. I throw out all kinds of personal mail in my garbage, and if anyone has read it (aside from the occasional raccoon in search of rotting pizza) I would be surprised but not terribly alarmed.

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#69

Post by zardeh »

jakobdabo wrote: post #4

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…

That's illegal

Re: Silent Circle removes warrant canary

#70

Post by jfoutz »

logicallee wrote: post #64
jfoutz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things, 1, you keep attempting to make my argument a straw man escalating the emotional impact of the consequences. First it's prison, now it's a bullet in the head. No one is claiming physical violence by the government other than you. 2, It's impossible to provide. Any case that lost would be secret due to national security reasons. You assert that this hasn't happened. Fine, believe what you wish. I assert tha…

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 to prosecution for "April 2016 -". The whole weev debacle shows there can be a perfect storm of a bad person using something that's not legally rock solid that establishes case law. Apple can afford 1.5 million. Random startup by an ex drug dealer can't. And thus we get new case law.

Anyway. It has been fun to think about.

edit

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.

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