5 ms·

Proof that a warrant canary is useless.

by Esau 10y ago

_delirium 10y ago
It seems to me that it did its job here. The only thing a warrant canary claims to be able to do is to make people aware that a warrant was served on a provider, even when a gag order prevents the provider explicitly saying so. The warrant canary at riseup disappeared, which did have the effect of making people aware of that fact. Now it turned out that the warrant was just for some malware-extortion ring, not due to a crackdown on political dissidents, so arguably a "false positive" from the perspective of what most people using riseup for its stated purpose care about. But the warrant canary didn't claim to make those kinds of fine-grained distinctions in the first place. It claimed that it would let you know when there was an unannounced warrant, and it succeeded in doing so.
- nebabyte 10y ago
  > Now it turned out that the warrant was just for some malware-extortion ring, not due to a crackdown on political dissidents, so arguably a "false positive" from the perspective of what most people using riseup for its stated purpose care about Except that now that it's gone there's nothing to say that people who were previously held at bay by the canary [side note: hah] moved in right after it disappeared. Thus I agree; a WC should be seen as nothing more than a "probably not" to a "maybe/assume so".
mirimir 10y ago
Not at all! Riseup's response to questioning about failure to update the canary was: listen to the hummingbird, whose wings you cannot see, listen to the hummingbird, don't listen to me. #LeonardCohen That is, "yes, there's a gag order".
- tankered 10y ago
  That wasn't an official riseup response to the failure to update the canary statement. That was a tribute to Leonard Cohen. It seems many people on twitter thought this was a hidden message, but Riseup said it wasn't.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Well, of course they said that it wasn't! They were subject to a bloody gag order. It certainly makes sense now, doesn't it?
    - tankered 10y ago
      It doesn't seem to make sense that riseup would deliberately violate the gag order in some clever and difficult to understand reference to a song. When you are subject to a gag order, you don't try to get around it by quoting lyrics.
      - mirimir 10y ago
        Yes, of course. It was just a joke.
r0muald 10y ago
Uh? > There was a “gag order” that prevented us from disclosing even the existence of these warrants until now. This was also the reason why we could not update our “Canary” Seems the exact purpose it was intended for. And they discuss at length why that canary was too broad and how the new one is better.

Proof that a warrant canary is useless.

by Esau 10y ago

Proof that a warrant canary is useless.

It seems to me that it did its job here. The only thing a warrant canary claims to be able to do is to make people aware that a warrant was served on a provider, even when a gag order prevents the provider explicitly saying so. The warrant canary at riseup disappeared, which did have the effect of making people aware of that fact. Now it turned out that the warrant was just for some malware-extortion ring, not due to a crackdown on political dissidents, so arguably a "false positive" from the perspective of what most people using riseup for its stated purpose care about. But the warrant canary didn't claim to make those kinds of fine-grained distinctions in the first place. It claimed that it would let you know when there was an unannounced warrant, and it succeeded in doing so.

nebabyte 10y ago
> Now it turned out that the warrant was just for some malware-extortion ring, not due to a crackdown on political dissidents, so arguably a "false positive" from the perspective of what most people using riseup for its stated purpose care about Except that now that it's gone there's nothing to say that people who were previously held at bay by the canary [side note: hah] moved in right after it disappeared. Thus I agree; a WC should be seen as nothing more than a "probably not" to a "maybe/assume so".

mirimir 10y ago

Not at all! Riseup's response to questioning about failure to update the canary was: listen to the hummingbird, whose wings you cannot see, listen to the hummingbird, don't listen to me. #LeonardCohen That is, "yes, there's a gag order".

tankered 10y ago
That wasn't an official riseup response to the failure to update the canary statement. That was a tribute to Leonard Cohen. It seems many people on twitter thought this was a hidden message, but Riseup said it wasn't.
- mirimir 10y ago
  Well, of course they said that it wasn't! They were subject to a bloody gag order. It certainly makes sense now, doesn't it?
  - tankered 10y ago
    It doesn't seem to make sense that riseup would deliberately violate the gag order in some clever and difficult to understand reference to a song. When you are subject to a gag order, you don't try to get around it by quoting lyrics.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      Yes, of course. It was just a joke.

r0muald 10y ago

Uh? > There was a “gag order” that prevented us from disclosing even the existence of these warrants until now. This was also the reason why we could not update our “Canary” Seems the exact purpose it was intended for. And they discuss at length why that canary was too broad and how the new one is better.