8 ms·

For those who aren't familiar, a NSL Canary is like a Warrant Canary, but for National Security Letters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary https://e

For those who aren't familiar, a NSL Canary is like a Warrant Canary, but for National Security Letters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary Australia just outlawed warrant canaries. Scary times.

darklajid 10y ago
I like the section from Moxie in that article. Did anyone check if this is lawful to begin with? I mean, if you can't tell that you were asked for private data, can you 'tell' by now saying that you weren't asked for private data? Just to be safe: Any NSL is crap. Braindead. I'm not trying to support that BS. This is among the worst possible ideas a government can come up with and belongs in the realm of (referring to recent posts) Turkey at the moment. But IF they exist for some reason, is a canary really working? Isn't this just another 'The government cannot crack my password' argument, missing the lead pipe way..?
- shalmanese 10y ago
  This seems like one of those better to ask for forgiveness than permission kind of things. What NSLs thrive on the most is lack of attention. Anything that brings more high profile is something the NSA would prefer to avoid, lest case law gets more clarified around them.
- snowpanda 10y ago
  If you follow the source there's a section stating that according to EFF having a warrant canary should not be a problem: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/whispersystems.org/issues/34 https://github.com/WhisperSystems/whispersystems.org/issues/... What EFF wrote says more to me than Moxie saying 'every lawyer I've spoken to'. Which lawyers? In what context? What was said?
  - ChristianBundy 10y ago
    > Which lawyers? In what context? What was said? Sounds like we need a lawyer canary. /s
Aelinsaar 10y ago
Ridiculous times too, when all of this gathering of data is predicated on a flawed assumption that it won't just be creating more noise in the attempts to predict terrorism. We've switched from one wasteful, illegal, and noisy method (kidnapping and torture) to invading privacy. I'd love to see efficacy proven, just once.
- linkregister 10y ago
  Isn't an NSL by definition a non-noisy, targeted method? I'm going off of the widely known methodology for getting data from a U.S. company, FAA 702, popularly known as "PRISM". Do you have any links describing NSLs being part of a noisy, dragnet operation?
  - Aelinsaar 10y ago
    No, I'm working under the assumption that the NSL was a first step in mass collection.
paavokoya 10y ago
I remember several mods of r/darknetmarkets posting that they received NSL's forwarded from actual reddit admins.. Not sure if that post is still available though.
- kevinnk 10y ago
  Are you referring to https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/30tudk/psa_5_reddit_accounts_subpoenaed_by_ice/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/30tudk/psa_... ? That was a normal subpoena (without a gag order), not a NSL.
  - gwern 10y ago
    Yes, but they still could have been accompanied by gag orders despite not being a NSL. There are several categories of administrative subpoenas which can have them, and which could have been plausibly used in my case - the financial ones, for example, due to the Bitcoin/money laundering nexus.
avz 10y ago
> Australia just outlawed warrant canaries. Scary times. Assuming you accept the need for the non-disclosure requirements in some court orders and administrative subpoenas, wouldn't the decision to allow canaries be a legal mistake in the first place? (Albeit AFAIK one also made by the US Department of Justice) The argument for the legality of canaries would have to rely on the distinction between the affirmative and negative disclosure. But it is very easy to imagine a service that scrapes sites with canaries and publishes an affirmative list of those which took theirs down recently (or in a given time interval). This completely subverts the argument. Is it perhaps yet another case where the legal minds failed to account for the current (actually... two decades old) state of technology? Am I missing something?
- jessaustin 10y ago
  But it is very easy to imagine a service that scrapes sites with canaries and publishes an affirmative list of those which took theirs down recently (or in a given time interval). https://canarywatch.org/ https://canarywatch.org/
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - e12e 10y ago
    Shouldn't that Reddit canary be dead, though? https://canarywatch.org/reddit/ https://canarywatch.org/reddit/
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      I see this language at that location: Reddit released its transparency report for 2015 and the warrant canary language was missing. Maybe that's an edit after your post. I agree that a silhouette of an expired canary lying on its back, wings spread awkwardly, tongue sticking out, eyes crossed, would make this communication more effective.
      - 10y ago
vacri 10y ago
> Australia just outlawed warrant canaries. Scary times. Outlawing warrant canaries per se is not scary at all. They're a method of communicating information that has been deemed to be forbidden, so it's just a way of preventing the rules-lawyering method of still conveying that info. The overreach of such things in the first place is the scary part, not the stuff around canaries themselves. The focus should be on getting rid of the overreach of these things, not on preserving a loophole.
- SilasX 10y ago
  Agree 100%: "You mean I can't circumvent the plain meaning of a court order through information-theoretic trickery? Truly, fascism is upon us."
  - TillE 10y ago
    There is no "court order". That's the whole point of a warrant canary. A fact is asserted when there is absolutely nothing preventing you from asserting that fact. Do you want to restrict everyone's speech just in case, or force them to lie? Those are the choices.
    - SilasX 10y ago
      The warrant comes with an order prohibiting you from communicating its presence. That prohibits any means, no matter how cleverly informed by information theory, from communicating that information. It only forces them to lie if they deliberately take means to force themselves into a lie. "I have not received any warrants that I'm legally allowed to discuss with you."
      - Dylan16807 10y ago
        Forcing people to lie is bad.
      - Houshalter 10y ago
        It doesn't need to "trickery". It could be as simple as someone asking if you've received any warrants, and just not answering. The government shouldn't have the ability to compel people to lie, that's the issue. As far as I know they don't have that ability, and there is nothing illegal about this.
tomlongson 10y ago
Reddit should remove the π symbol on their website, as if Pi itself disappeared. "We can't talk about Pi."
- tomrod 10y ago
  Or bleem [0] [0] http://www.strangehorizons.com/2000/20001120/secret_number.shtml http://www.strangehorizons.com/2000/20001120/secret_number.s...
ori_b 10y ago
To be fair, I've always thought that warrant canaries were extremely questionable legally. If the government can legally say "You're not allowed to spill the beans about this", then using a warrant canary is directly subverting that order. As a result, I always assumed that anyone that had a warrant canary in place would get a court order to keep it up regardless. I would be shocked if they stood up in court, and I don't find the outlawing of it any more disturbing than allowing secret warrants in the first place. (Although secret warrants are pretty damn disturbing.)
- koenigdavidmj 10y ago
  Theoretically an order compelling speech, especially false speech, scares courts more than prohibiting speech in certain circumstances, which happens frequently.
  - AdamJacobMuller 10y ago
    Is it merely theoretical? I read a bunch of opinions on the subject last year that definitely left the impression that there was some precedent here.
- mirimir 10y ago
  Sure, they can force you to keep the old one up. But can they force you to put up a new one?
- lerpa 10y ago
  I may be wrong but in the Australian case it seems journalists are forbidden from creating a canary in the first place, they cannot say they did or did not receive a gag order. That's what I got from what I've read but not sure. If the issue was being forced to continue with the canary then there is a solution for that just use as a canary, before you received any order: We have received a gag order! And when you do receive a gag order what are they going to do? Make you remove that? Keeping it seems as a direct violation of that order.
cyphar 10y ago
> Australia just outlawed warrant canaries. Scary times. Australia outlawed warrant canaries for journalism warrants (warrants for journalists when they investigate someone). I'm fairly sure that law doesn't apply to all other kinds of warrants.

darklajid 10y ago

I like the section from Moxie in that article. Did anyone check if this is lawful to begin with? I mean, if you can't tell that you were asked for private data, can you 'tell' by now saying that you weren't asked for private data? Just to be safe: Any NSL is crap. Braindead. I'm not trying to support that BS. This is among the worst possible ideas a government can come up with and belongs in the realm of (referring to recent posts) Turkey at the moment. But IF they exist for some reason, is a canary really working? Isn't this just another 'The government cannot crack my password' argument, missing the lead pipe way..?

shalmanese 10y ago
This seems like one of those better to ask for forgiveness than permission kind of things. What NSLs thrive on the most is lack of attention. Anything that brings more high profile is something the NSA would prefer to avoid, lest case law gets more clarified around them.
snowpanda 10y ago
If you follow the source there's a section stating that according to EFF having a warrant canary should not be a problem: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/whispersystems.org/issues/34 https://github.com/WhisperSystems/whispersystems.org/issues/... What EFF wrote says more to me than Moxie saying 'every lawyer I've spoken to'. Which lawyers? In what context? What was said?
- ChristianBundy 10y ago
  > Which lawyers? In what context? What was said? Sounds like we need a lawyer canary. /s

Aelinsaar 10y ago

Ridiculous times too, when all of this gathering of data is predicated on a flawed assumption that it won't just be creating more noise in the attempts to predict terrorism. We've switched from one wasteful, illegal, and noisy method (kidnapping and torture) to invading privacy. I'd love to see efficacy proven, just once.

linkregister 10y ago
Isn't an NSL by definition a non-noisy, targeted method? I'm going off of the widely known methodology for getting data from a U.S. company, FAA 702, popularly known as "PRISM". Do you have any links describing NSLs being part of a noisy, dragnet operation?
- Aelinsaar 10y ago
  No, I'm working under the assumption that the NSL was a first step in mass collection.

paavokoya 10y ago

I remember several mods of r/darknetmarkets posting that they received NSL's forwarded from actual reddit admins.. Not sure if that post is still available though.

kevinnk 10y ago
Are you referring to https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/30tudk/psa_5_reddit_accounts_subpoenaed_by_ice/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/30tudk/psa_... ? That was a normal subpoena (without a gag order), not a NSL.
- gwern 10y ago
  Yes, but they still could have been accompanied by gag orders despite not being a NSL. There are several categories of administrative subpoenas which can have them, and which could have been plausibly used in my case - the financial ones, for example, due to the Bitcoin/money laundering nexus.

avz 10y ago

> Australia just outlawed warrant canaries. Scary times. Assuming you accept the need for the non-disclosure requirements in some court orders and administrative subpoenas, wouldn't the decision to allow canaries be a legal mistake in the first place? (Albeit AFAIK one also made by the US Department of Justice) The argument for the legality of canaries would have to rely on the distinction between the affirmative and negative disclosure. But it is very easy to imagine a service that scrapes sites with canaries and publishes an affirmative list of those which took theirs down recently (or in a given time interval). This completely subverts the argument. Is it perhaps yet another case where the legal minds failed to account for the current (actually... two decades old) state of technology? Am I missing something?

jessaustin 10y ago
But it is very easy to imagine a service that scrapes sites with canaries and publishes an affirmative list of those which took theirs down recently (or in a given time interval). https://canarywatch.org/ https://canarywatch.org/
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- e12e 10y ago
  Shouldn't that Reddit canary be dead, though? https://canarywatch.org/reddit/ https://canarywatch.org/reddit/
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    I see this language at that location: Reddit released its transparency report for 2015 and the warrant canary language was missing. Maybe that's an edit after your post. I agree that a silhouette of an expired canary lying on its back, wings spread awkwardly, tongue sticking out, eyes crossed, would make this communication more effective.
    - 10y ago

vacri 10y ago

> Australia just outlawed warrant canaries. Scary times. Outlawing warrant canaries per se is not scary at all. They're a method of communicating information that has been deemed to be forbidden, so it's just a way of preventing the rules-lawyering method of still conveying that info. The overreach of such things in the first place is the scary part, not the stuff around canaries themselves. The focus should be on getting rid of the overreach of these things, not on preserving a loophole.

SilasX 10y ago
Agree 100%: "You mean I can't circumvent the plain meaning of a court order through information-theoretic trickery? Truly, fascism is upon us."
- TillE 10y ago
  There is no "court order". That's the whole point of a warrant canary. A fact is asserted when there is absolutely nothing preventing you from asserting that fact. Do you want to restrict everyone's speech just in case, or force them to lie? Those are the choices.
  - SilasX 10y ago
    The warrant comes with an order prohibiting you from communicating its presence. That prohibits any means, no matter how cleverly informed by information theory, from communicating that information. It only forces them to lie if they deliberately take means to force themselves into a lie. "I have not received any warrants that I'm legally allowed to discuss with you."
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      Forcing people to lie is bad.
    - Houshalter 10y ago
      It doesn't need to "trickery". It could be as simple as someone asking if you've received any warrants, and just not answering. The government shouldn't have the ability to compel people to lie, that's the issue. As far as I know they don't have that ability, and there is nothing illegal about this.

tomlongson 10y ago

Reddit should remove the π symbol on their website, as if Pi itself disappeared. "We can't talk about Pi."

tomrod 10y ago
Or bleem [0] [0] http://www.strangehorizons.com/2000/20001120/secret_number.shtml http://www.strangehorizons.com/2000/20001120/secret_number.s...

ori_b 10y ago

To be fair, I've always thought that warrant canaries were extremely questionable legally. If the government can legally say "You're not allowed to spill the beans about this", then using a warrant canary is directly subverting that order. As a result, I always assumed that anyone that had a warrant canary in place would get a court order to keep it up regardless. I would be shocked if they stood up in court, and I don't find the outlawing of it any more disturbing than allowing secret warrants in the first place. (Although secret warrants are pretty damn disturbing.)

koenigdavidmj 10y ago
Theoretically an order compelling speech, especially false speech, scares courts more than prohibiting speech in certain circumstances, which happens frequently.
- AdamJacobMuller 10y ago
  Is it merely theoretical? I read a bunch of opinions on the subject last year that definitely left the impression that there was some precedent here.
mirimir 10y ago
Sure, they can force you to keep the old one up. But can they force you to put up a new one?
lerpa 10y ago
I may be wrong but in the Australian case it seems journalists are forbidden from creating a canary in the first place, they cannot say they did or did not receive a gag order. That's what I got from what I've read but not sure. If the issue was being forced to continue with the canary then there is a solution for that just use as a canary, before you received any order: We have received a gag order! And when you do receive a gag order what are they going to do? Make you remove that? Keeping it seems as a direct violation of that order.

cyphar 10y ago

> Australia just outlawed warrant canaries. Scary times. Australia outlawed warrant canaries for journalism warrants (warrants for journalists when they investigate someone). I'm fairly sure that law doesn't apply to all other kinds of warrants.