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Yeah, but it hasn't been tested in court ("Are there any cases upholding warrant canaries? Not yet. EFF believes that warrant canaries are legal, and the govern

Yeah, but it hasn't been tested in court ("Are there any cases upholding warrant canaries? Not yet. EFF believes that warrant canaries are legal, and the government should not be able to compel a lie."), and EFF almost has an interest to give not-your-lawyer advice persuading people to use canaries so that they can fight it in court. Moxie Marlinspike reports that lawyers have advised him it's not legal: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/whispersystems.org/issues/34 https://github.com/WhisperSystems/whispersystems.org/issues/...

vessenes 11y ago
Well, I will say that Moxie's needs and risk profile is very different than (presumably yours) or mine; he will be coming at most imaginable court proceedings accused of helping terrorists or at least money-launderers. A warrant canary in that case looks bad; why would any lawyer tell him to do such a thing? It just increases their own risk if they say "that's fine", and then it turns out to hurt. This isn't the same situation that Apple has; while I bet the motions would be filed under seal, I don't believe it would create significant liability for Apple to have a warrant canary, and then remove it after the canary 'dies'. In fact, in 2014, Apple's canary did 'die', with no further comment, and no public disclosure that their were material difficulties with the canary. Apple seems to have been working to enhance security on their devices since then. I would take from this that they didn't receive giant, secret penalties from their canary.
- scintill76 11y ago
  Apple has pretty much already been accused of helping pedophiles and drug dealers by FBI & Friends' public whinings about encryption over the past year or so, such as[0]. I thought you were saying EFF's assumption that a court cannot compel a canary to be maintained, would also prevent a court from compelling a software update targeting a certain user. Anyway, I believe we can't trust either a canary or software, because either can probably be compelled. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/23/i-helped-save-a-kidnapped-man-from-murder-with-apples-new-encryption-rules-we-never-wouldve-found-him/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/23/...

vessenes 11y ago

Well, I will say that Moxie's needs and risk profile is very different than (presumably yours) or mine; he will be coming at most imaginable court proceedings accused of helping terrorists or at least money-launderers. A warrant canary in that case looks bad; why would any lawyer tell him to do such a thing? It just increases their own risk if they say "that's fine", and then it turns out to hurt. This isn't the same situation that Apple has; while I bet the motions would be filed under seal, I don't believe it would create significant liability for Apple to have a warrant canary, and then remove it after the canary 'dies'. In fact, in 2014, Apple's canary did 'die', with no further comment, and no public disclosure that their were material difficulties with the canary. Apple seems to have been working to enhance security on their devices since then. I would take from this that they didn't receive giant, secret penalties from their canary.

scintill76 11y ago
Apple has pretty much already been accused of helping pedophiles and drug dealers by FBI & Friends' public whinings about encryption over the past year or so, such as[0]. I thought you were saying EFF's assumption that a court cannot compel a canary to be maintained, would also prevent a court from compelling a software update targeting a certain user. Anyway, I believe we can't trust either a canary or software, because either can probably be compelled. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/23/i-helped-save-a-kidnapped-man-from-murder-with-apples-new-encryption-rules-we-never-wouldve-found-him/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/23/...