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Silent Circle removes warrant canary

• curried_haskell 10y ago
  I love how when a canary goes down, everyone's arguing about what it means. Of course if the company received an NSL they won't confirm it and will lie about the canary to protect their business. Why should we take their statements at face value? The canary is gone. They have received an NSL. If we don't assume this, then what the fuck was the point of the canary in the first place?
• 2close4comfort 10y ago
  After the departure of Mr Callas this probably further proof of the decline in Silent Circle more than anything. Too bad...it showed promise. Probably too close DC to really affect change.
  • nickpsecurity 10y ago
    It had friggin Navy SEALs in it's advertisements. They know what we need because they were in the field and needed secure comms. Help run the business, too. All that told me is anyone concerned about Five Eyes surveillance better run.
    • dexterdog 10y ago
      The founder and original CEO was a SEAL.
      • nickpsecurity 10y ago
        Didn't know that. Icing on the cake of my claim. Not even me having anything against SEAL's: two in my family with one decorated. I just have to assume their loyalty will lead them to side with military or intelligence over Constitutional principles. It would be different if code was all open, jurisdiction + servers non-US, and review by mutually-suspicious parties. Then I could focus on product more than the subversion risk of people or country involved. Lacking any of these, there's residual risk.
        • dexterdog 10y ago
          I actually know him through a close personal friend. He's not the type to trust the government for anything which is why he created the product in the first place. That being said, he's not longer calling the shots so who knows now?
          • nickpsecurity 10y ago
            If so, then good for him. We cant verify it. If true, I respect the combo of SEAL and serving Constitution with privacy tech. Regarding calling shots, yeah who knows. Just reinforces worries in this space though. Uncertainty that is.
        • woodman 10y ago
          Imagine a long hallway segmented with closed doors, where each door represents a decision made during a mission. As you continue walking down the hallway, opening doors, the morality of each decision becomes more difficult to square with your original frame of reference. Finally you encounter a door that you decide to leave shut. That is roughly how it works, self selection. The SF groups that, to put it charitably, operate under legally ambiguous circumstances are people who know each other really well, and they only invite in those who are a known quantity. There isn't any kind of laboratory-prisoner-execution/choose-the-red-pill sort of test, the evaluation occurs continuously in the daily performance of one's duties. SEAL teams are, relatively speaking, high profile SF - and therefor much less likely to be tasked with strictly illegal and morally objectionable missions. I have a lot more trust in someone who has SEAL team affiliation towards the end of their military service. They've walked the hall and stopped opening doors pretty early on, so they're a well measured quantity. Also, it is my experience that veterans with combat action ribbons are far less likely to mindlessly appeal to state authority or be swayed by utilitarian justifications. Of the dozen guys I've kept in touch with, most are libertarians and a few are anarchists. I guess seeing the ugliest side of the state will flip a switch :)
          • nickpsecurity 10y ago
            Interesting points. Your view on the evaluation process matches my observations of them and their organizations. The only problem is, with that background, what happens to average one when Uncle Sam needs them to kick open another door to protect America or other SEALs? And promises that backdoor will only be used by our spooks with no damage to American or other users? I know that some would say no. I don't know how to tell ahead of time. It's a hard, general problem that's all probabilities and personality. Yet, with them, it's even harder.
• bitxbitxbitcoin 10y ago
  After the last missed warrant canary update, some internal decision was probably made to scrap the warrant canary altogether. Big mistake.
• jakobdabo 10y ago
  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 any NSL
  • CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
    Why monthly and not daily? Or hourly?
    • jakobdabo 10y ago
      I haven't put much thought into it, I guess it could be daily but hourly is overkill I think. Actually, this is an interesting startup idea - warrant canary as a service, with an API.
      • kbenson 10y ago
        I think the point is that at some level of granularity, it's an announcement that you are currently working with the authorities, which is expressly forbidden in the NSL. There's some point at which a court will decide that you aren't complying, and stepping over that point is bad for your business. Since that point is very fuzzy, it's a dangerous thing to play around with.
        • nickpsecurity 10y ago
          Exactly. They could even order you to keep updating it. In the Lavabit case, the FBI asked and judge agreed to compel Levison's silence + lies if they got the key with reason being his business wouldnt suffer if customers were lied to about their privacy. That argument and a judge agreeing with it are worth remembering in discussions like these.
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
• zekevermillion 10y ago
  I'm not sure warrant canaries are particularly useful anymore. Yes, it's nice to know when a company has received a secret order or request for cooperation. However, any company that stores user information is going to receive such an order or request at some point, it's practically inevitable. Furthermore, one can never be assured that a canary is entirely reliable as a signal -- just look at the other comments with conjecture as to why a canary might be removed. Thus I would conclude that the use of a warrant canary should not be taken as conveying any useful information about a company, or not any more useful information that a mere marketing statement that they are sympathetic with user privacy concerns.
  • pavel_lishin 10y ago
    > Furthermore, one can never be assured that a canary is entirely reliable as a signal -- just look at the other comments with conjecture as to why a canary might be removed. I would treat the removal of a canary as I would a fire alarm. Sure, it's possible that it's a business decision, just like it's possible that the fire alarm is a false alarm. But I'd rather make the assumption that is most likely to protect me.
    • zekevermillion 10y ago
      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.
      • pavel_lishin 10y ago
        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.
        • zekevermillion 10y ago
          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.
• swordswinger12 10y ago
  I have an honest, and probably dumb, question: how do warrant canaries actually avoid the prohibition against disclosing the receipt of a national security letter? Like, how is taking down a warrant canary legally dissimilar from just tweeting "we got an NSL"? If it semantically "means" the same thing, then why is one illegal and one legal?
  • joekrill 10y ago
    I think the idea is that a warrant canary is regularly updated. And the fact that it is NOT updated would be an indicator that a warrant (or whatever) has been served. So it's the INACTION that triggers it, not an actual action (like tweeting).
    • ocdtrekkie 10y ago
      I suppose for that you would need to say "We have not received a letter as of $date" and then stop updating that date. The current notion, adding a line you'd remove if you did receive one, may be still an action, if it's part of your default reporting. But I don't believe warrant canaries "actually work" in practice.
      • mikeash 10y ago
        Yes, the apparent standard practice of just saying "We haven't received a letter" and then removing it if one is received makes no sense to me. Much better to have something you regularly update, and then stop updating it. The government could nab you for deleting something, but they might have trouble forcing you to update your declaration with false information.
        • dawnerd 10y ago
          Agreed. Although I wonder if removing cron or similar to update the date would be the same as removing the message legally speaking. I doubt these companies would have someone go in every day and bump the date. Then again that might be a good thing to outsource.
• AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
  Warrant canaries have outlived their usefulness. Did anyone stop using Reddit when they removed theirs? Or Apple products, when they removed theirs?
  • anonbanker 10y ago
    Sadly, you're correct, but not for the reason you mean. People don't care about their rights anymore, having traded them in for convenience. Because "war". EDIT: maybe the downvoters could respond with how I'm wrong?
  • cbsmith 10y ago
    I'm sure some people did. Probably the same number of people who started using them because the canaries were there. However, that doesn't mean users haven't changed their behaviour in response to warrant canaries. It's just not a lot of people, and it isn't clear we want it to be that way either. We don't want there to be a disincentive for companies creating them.
    • knowaveragejoe 10y ago
      To continue this line of thinking, the case can be made that warrant canaries could be used to flush out a subset of users from a service, among whom are those that would be considered "interesting" by intelligence agencies.
      • cbsmith 10y ago
        I mean... realistically, what is the point of using a service because of a canary if you didn't think about what your plan would be if the canary disappeared?
      • cbsmith 10y ago
        Well, the most hard core of those would probably not be drawn in by canaries or would proceed to fill the channel with disinformation in response to changes.
  • 10y ago
• Sir_Substance 10y ago
  >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.
  • ghurtado 10y ago
    > 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)?
    • knowaveragejoe 10y ago
      Yes, it's called participating in a cirlejerk.
      • Sir_Substance 10y ago
        I can't tell which side you think I'm on :D
        • knowaveragejoe 10y ago
          I'll give you points for the well concealed snark.
          • Sir_Substance 10y ago
            Except you downvoted it ;)
  • dang 10y ago
    We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12038870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12038870 and marked it off-topic.
• anonbanker 10y ago
  Bail. We need to crash the company in order to give these guys plausible deniability when they do not cooperate. The company will die, but another will be created. Their freedom is on the line. Abandon ship, citizens. Your Bill of Rights commands you.
• cordite 10y ago
  I've been using Silent Circle's black phone 2 for almost a year now, and it is a rather terrible experience. They are ahead on app-specific permission denials, but they have hardly any sense of decent QA for their SilentOS. Previous updates had power regressions where the phone would be dead from a full charge within 8 hours. Took 3 months for them to fix that. Most recent update no longer has a functioning headphone jack, and will forget all bluetooth paired devices on reboot. It also is crashing after 15 minutes of map usage as it seems to overheat. Perhaps they may do better in the future, but I won't be staying with their product and services for much longer. That said, it seems like the explicit update-system they run for their own software and the operating system would lessen the likelihood of an on-demand compromise from a state agent to an individual's device. Though it's not like the individual can do anything besides trust that the signed packages are authentic.
  • btreecat 10y ago
    >It also is crashing after 15 minutes of map usage as it seems to overheat. So it might be worth checking in "Developer options" if "Force GPU Rendering" is checked. If it is, try un-checking it and seeing if it keeps your phone a little cooler.
    • cordite 10y ago
      It appears to be off by default.
      • btreecat 10y ago
        Dag. I know one of the few issues I have with my LG G4 was it getting hot when it was set to force GPU rendering. Hopefully an update should take care of it.
  • fredgrott 10y ago
    its tricky to do what they do with the limits they have on resources..they had tried to get me on board in 2010 as android dev..but I bailed after determining that they would just not come close to the resources to actually pull it off with a level high quality needed....mobile OSes are harder to fork than desktop OSes
• bogomipz 10y ago
  Can someone explain how a canary is implemented in software exactly?
  • medecau 10y ago
    Did you receive a National Security Letter? No? Okay, I'll update the date. Canary date is updated. Yes? Okay, see you in the after-life I guess. Canary update process dies.
    • bogomipz 10y ago
      Thanks
  • rdl 10y ago
    Generally you DON'T want to implement it in software; you want to make it a manual/human-in-the-loop process, ideally involving an offline signature key.
• 794CD01 10y ago
  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.
  • nickpsecurity 10y ago
    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.
• codezero 10y ago
  This is kind of off topic, but afaik, warrant canaries have never been tested in court. It seems very unlikely, given the pervasiveness of NSLs that all orgs still using canaries have never received an NSL. Has anyone collected a list of all the companies with canaries?
• StavrosK 10y ago
  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.
  • llamataboot 10y ago
    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?
    • StavrosK 10y ago
      Are you talking about this instance, or the previous one where it failed to be updated?
  • hippich 10y ago
    canary could also mean that starting now company begun gathering information for giving it away to NSA :)
  • Osiris 10y ago
    Couldn't an NSL force the company to start retaining that information though? You may not have past data but you can certainly collect future information.
    • hendersoon 10y ago
      Yes, they can try to compel you to do literally anything. Remember they tried to get Lavabit's SSL certs. Either you comply or fight it in secret court.
• paavokoya 10y ago
  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.
  • StavrosK 10y ago
    Alright, I'll leave the thread.
    • cocotino 10y ago
      Is your resumé ready?
      • tptacek 10y ago
        God I hope so. It's a pretty fun time to be Stavros and on the market looking for crypto work.
        • JshWright 10y ago
          I'd hire him... Oh wait... I already did... I'd hire him twice!
        • StavrosK 10y ago
          Thanks, Thomas. It was pretty disheartening to read that reply, especially since people can get into trouble for sharing their experiences. That said, I've done it before here, and SC management saw it, and they thanked me for being honest and speaking up, so I was generally fairly encouraged to do that in the past.
    • dang 10y ago
      Please don't. People posting about situations they personally know about produce much of the best content on HN. I'm sorry you got attacked for it, but I'm sure that's not representative of the readership here.
  • 10y ago
• ams6110 10y ago
  not related to any warrant for user data which we have not received. Interesting choice of words.
• hendersoon 10y ago
  National security letters can't compel Silent Circle to actually lie. That's key. So we are faced with two possible scenarios. 1) They're telling the truth, didn't get any warrants, and (nearly beyond belief!) decided to retire their warrant canary with a completely silly and unfounded justification, leading clueful observers to believe they're incompetent fools. or 2) They're lying on their own recognizance and are deliberately collaborating with some three-letter agency to compromise their users' privacy, contrary to the very justification for their company's existence and betraying their customers' trust. So. Fools or traitors. Shall we flip a coin? Either way, if you care enough about your privacy to buy a Blackphone in the first place, time to remove the battery and toss it in the bin.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• fatdog 10y ago
  The naivety of warrant canaries shows a kind of desperate denial, especially in the wake of Snowden. Warrant canaries are more about preserving the myth of a principled legal system than a real rebellion against deep state surveillance. I think people cling to the fiction because the alternative is too awful for them to bear. We've gone from denial to a bargaining phase, where we come up with little technicalities that might preserve our beliefs. Next will be anger, and then a polarization of how people act on their eventual acceptance. As someone who has seriously evaluated buying a blackphone and support SC in principle, I couldn't bring myself to do it. It's not just them, they're just the most viable and so they catch all the criticism from nerds like me. I wanted a physical lens cap, hardware switches for all microphones and all radios, a removable microSD key module, an option to use the 2nd sim slot as a custom javacard crypto module, a hypervisor for android versions (which I think they have something like) a key management spec published in BAN logic, and the moon. The moon would do. Basically, I wanted the AR-15 platform of smart phones, where the baseband processor is just the lower receiver. Said nobody who wanted to make money ever. i am not against them, but I do think SC, wickr, whatsapp, firechat, and privacy companies like them need a narrative pivot. The tech will be valuable, but real market fit depends on popular acceptance of a state level threat model - or at least a desire to be seen as against it. Today, it's the electronic equivalent to wearing a motorcycle club patch. Yeah, lots of military and law enforcement and regular folks are in motorcycle clubs, but it's a statement. Privacy apps today are a shibboleth with negative skewed optionality. One of these companies could become the harley davidson of privacy platforms, (whatsapp is close) but that's the upside. An aging rebel brand torn between loyalty and relevance. The user base for these niche, qualitative difference apps is not unlike the story of indie record labels back in the 80s. Outsider identities, alternative social networks with their own shibboleths. If anyone can figure out who ever got rich off goth, the business model for privacy tech might be within reach. For now, privacy is just an effects pedal and some shitty makeup for bland suburban consumer apps. The warrant canary issue is a romantic misunderstanding of law, markets, and politics, and the issue is the least important thing about a company like Silent Circle.
  • headShrinker 10y ago
    > The warrant canary issue is a romantic misunderstanding of law, markets, and politics, and the issue is the least important thing about a company like Silent Circle. Misunderstanding of...? If it disappears it's either 'a business decision and/or NSL or just a NSL. What's the misunderstanding? There are some people who are more relaxed about Trump proclaiming that he "hates protestors'. I am not. When someone says they hate protestors, I set warrant canaries on all my websites. This is a scary time and warrant canaries are literally the least we can do. Furthermore when someone removes a warrant canary then explains it as "a business decision" whatever the actual reason, they have told you the type of company they are; a company that removes warrant canaries.
• dlmetcalf 10y ago
  "not related to any warrant for user data which we have not received" vs "not related to any warrant for user data, which we have not received"
  • dlmetcalf 10y ago
    Not calling it, just pointing that out.
• mirimir 10y ago
  I can't imagine that it costs very much to host a warrant canary. They had one, and took it down. So arguably they've either been pressured, or have decided that it was sending the wrong message about them. "Meh, who cares?" doesn't seem very likely to me, given their history and image.