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Was it by mistake? The warrant canary is back: https://spideroak.com/canary https://spideroak.com/canary Edit: it seems they had removed it on purpose and adde

Was it by mistake? The warrant canary is back: https://spideroak.com/canary https://spideroak.com/canary Edit: it seems they had removed it on purpose and added it back to elaborate on the decision and that it wasn't removed to signal something --- seemingly: "So after thinking about this ... we have decided to move away from ... canaries and instead publish a ... report located at ..."

philipov 8y ago
Doesn't matter. The moment the canary died, they became a compromised agent whose further statements are to be interpreted as being manipulated by secret court order. If your canary dies, you can buy a new one, but you still have deadly gas in your mine. You can't trust the words or actions of someone who just declared they have been compromised.
- fauigerzigerk 8y ago
  >Doesn't matter. The moment the canary died, they became a compromised agent whose further statements are to be interpreted as being manipulated by secret court order. I don't think you can draw that conclusion. As I understand it, the NSL can only compell them to shut up about it, but it cannot compell them to dish out arbitrary lies and false justifications for taking the canary down.
  - philipov 8y ago
    We can and should draw that conclusion. Anything less compromises the canary system. I'm not going to bet my security on someone who frivolously shouts fire in a crowded theater, even if they later say they were only kidding.
    - fauigerzigerk 8y ago
      You can of course do whatever you want as a consequence of what they are saying or doing. What I'm saying is that it doesn't logically follow from the legal situation that their "further statements are to be interpreted as being manipulated by secret court order". The FBI cannot arbitrarily manipulate SpiderOak's further statements.
      - philipov 8y ago
        Whether or not they are actually being manipulated is not important. They should be treated as if they are. the logical flow is: 1: "I declare that if this canary is removed for any reason, it is to be assumed that I have been served an NSL and I may no longer be trusted" 2: Canary is removed. 3: You are no longer trusted. 4: Further statements are made, but they can not be trusted. QED
        fauigerzigerk 8y ago
        You are drawing conclusions from a false premise. They never declared that if the warrant canary dies they can no longer be trusted in anything they say or do ever again. We know exactly what they can and cannot legally say or do once an NSL has been served. Therefore we also know that they cannot be legally compelled to make false statements.
        philipov 8y ago
        You're right, it's more likely they are putting out the statement because they don't want their business to be ruined by having admitted to receiving an NSL. There are many ways someone can be coerced, and I don't need to guess the one in play here to discount their further excuses out of hand. At the point at which the canary is removed, their untrustworthiness is tautological; there is no combination of truth values which result in them being considered trustworthy. That is the feature of canaries that makes them respected, and the need for such features is why secret courts are so corrosive to our society.
        dnbgfher 8y ago
        While I agree the canary should be considered dead on principle, I don't find this particular argument very convincing. I think the main point here needs to be that the entire notion of a canary only works if we can count on them being killed only for the purpose they were created. If it becomes acceptable to kill canaries because the signers are tired of signing them then we have a bit of a problem. Now, for this specific case... It sounds like you are arguing that a NSL has compelled them to make false statements. This seems fairly unlikely given what we know about the current legal situation. The idea that they may be lying for the sake of their business is more convincing. However, if they are lying for whatever reason, why not just continue to sign the canary? The only plausible reason to do this is some sort of malicious compliance with a sloppily worded order compelling them to lie. It would make no sense for them to decide to lie for the sake of the business and then do all of this instead of just signing the canary. If they have received a NSL this basically leaves two sequences of events, both of which contain some rather unlikely events. If I had to bet, I'd probably bet against them having received a NSL. However, the canary should still be considered dead. They literally killed the canary. Their reasoning provided for it is really quite bad. Basically they ask users to trust their unsigned website because users already trust their (closed source) code. So they have either received a much more powerful NSL than thought legally possible, or are doing the worlds worst job of lying about not receiving a NSL, or they have not received a NSL and view a regular page on their website as a suitable alternative to their previous solution which involved three people in three different countries signing the canaries with keys stored on air-gapped computers. If you are counting on them for security, none of options are good.
    - java-man 8y ago
      you should never base your decision on something published on the web site. you should rather base your decision on review of open source code, and on-device key management. right?
  - DennisP 8y ago
    Since none of this has been tested in court, the subsequent statements could be insurance on their part to avoid a bad outcome. Conceivably a prosecutor could argue that by removing the canary, they've published one bit of information in violation of the gag order. By publishing a bunch of excuses for their action, they give a jury reason to disagree.
    - fauigerzigerk 8y ago
      That's a possibility, but it seems rather contrived. Maybe the FBI threatened to challange their canary in the courts unless they came up with some sort of credible excuse for killing it.
- shakestheclown 8y ago
  I'm sure canaries died of natural causes in the mines occasionally...
  - coryfklein 8y ago
    And when they did, miners rightly evacuated the area until the canary's cause of death could be confirmed.

philipov 8y ago

Doesn't matter. The moment the canary died, they became a compromised agent whose further statements are to be interpreted as being manipulated by secret court order. If your canary dies, you can buy a new one, but you still have deadly gas in your mine. You can't trust the words or actions of someone who just declared they have been compromised.

fauigerzigerk 8y ago
>Doesn't matter. The moment the canary died, they became a compromised agent whose further statements are to be interpreted as being manipulated by secret court order. I don't think you can draw that conclusion. As I understand it, the NSL can only compell them to shut up about it, but it cannot compell them to dish out arbitrary lies and false justifications for taking the canary down.
- philipov 8y ago
  We can and should draw that conclusion. Anything less compromises the canary system. I'm not going to bet my security on someone who frivolously shouts fire in a crowded theater, even if they later say they were only kidding.
  - fauigerzigerk 8y ago
    You can of course do whatever you want as a consequence of what they are saying or doing. What I'm saying is that it doesn't logically follow from the legal situation that their "further statements are to be interpreted as being manipulated by secret court order". The FBI cannot arbitrarily manipulate SpiderOak's further statements.
    - philipov 8y ago
      Whether or not they are actually being manipulated is not important. They should be treated as if they are. the logical flow is: 1: "I declare that if this canary is removed for any reason, it is to be assumed that I have been served an NSL and I may no longer be trusted" 2: Canary is removed. 3: You are no longer trusted. 4: Further statements are made, but they can not be trusted. QED
      - fauigerzigerk 8y ago
        You are drawing conclusions from a false premise. They never declared that if the warrant canary dies they can no longer be trusted in anything they say or do ever again. We know exactly what they can and cannot legally say or do once an NSL has been served. Therefore we also know that they cannot be legally compelled to make false statements.
        philipov 8y ago
        You're right, it's more likely they are putting out the statement because they don't want their business to be ruined by having admitted to receiving an NSL. There are many ways someone can be coerced, and I don't need to guess the one in play here to discount their further excuses out of hand. At the point at which the canary is removed, their untrustworthiness is tautological; there is no combination of truth values which result in them being considered trustworthy. That is the feature of canaries that makes them respected, and the need for such features is why secret courts are so corrosive to our society.
        dnbgfher 8y ago
        While I agree the canary should be considered dead on principle, I don't find this particular argument very convincing. I think the main point here needs to be that the entire notion of a canary only works if we can count on them being killed only for the purpose they were created. If it becomes acceptable to kill canaries because the signers are tired of signing them then we have a bit of a problem. Now, for this specific case... It sounds like you are arguing that a NSL has compelled them to make false statements. This seems fairly unlikely given what we know about the current legal situation. The idea that they may be lying for the sake of their business is more convincing. However, if they are lying for whatever reason, why not just continue to sign the canary? The only plausible reason to do this is some sort of malicious compliance with a sloppily worded order compelling them to lie. It would make no sense for them to decide to lie for the sake of the business and then do all of this instead of just signing the canary. If they have received a NSL this basically leaves two sequences of events, both of which contain some rather unlikely events. If I had to bet, I'd probably bet against them having received a NSL. However, the canary should still be considered dead. They literally killed the canary. Their reasoning provided for it is really quite bad. Basically they ask users to trust their unsigned website because users already trust their (closed source) code. So they have either received a much more powerful NSL than thought legally possible, or are doing the worlds worst job of lying about not receiving a NSL, or they have not received a NSL and view a regular page on their website as a suitable alternative to their previous solution which involved three people in three different countries signing the canaries with keys stored on air-gapped computers. If you are counting on them for security, none of options are good.
  - java-man 8y ago
    you should never base your decision on something published on the web site. you should rather base your decision on review of open source code, and on-device key management. right?
- DennisP 8y ago
  Since none of this has been tested in court, the subsequent statements could be insurance on their part to avoid a bad outcome. Conceivably a prosecutor could argue that by removing the canary, they've published one bit of information in violation of the gag order. By publishing a bunch of excuses for their action, they give a jury reason to disagree.
  - fauigerzigerk 8y ago
    That's a possibility, but it seems rather contrived. Maybe the FBI threatened to challange their canary in the courts unless they came up with some sort of credible excuse for killing it.
shakestheclown 8y ago
I'm sure canaries died of natural causes in the mines occasionally...
- coryfklein 8y ago
  And when they did, miners rightly evacuated the area until the canary's cause of death could be confirmed.