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Not sure why were downvoted here. It does seem that there is some plausible deniability about having a picture on your website that may or may not have anything

Not sure why were downvoted here. It does seem that there is some plausible deniability about having a picture on your website that may or may not have anything to do with warrants that could still convey information to those looking for it.

macspoofing 12y ago
Lawyers aren't idiots. Judges aren't idiots. Lawmakers aren't idiots. If a law says you cannot disclose a government request, then trying to get around the injunction by playing games isn't going to do anything for you.
- phkahler 12y ago
  That depends. Using absurdly simple means to point out the absurdity of someone else can be effective. Remember how PGP was printed in book form to circumvent export controls? Or how about DeCSS on a T-shirt? How about those magic flags that encode an illegal number in the hex codes of the colors? No, I think it's worth asking if it is now illegal to put an image of a canary on a web page in Australia. If the answer is "no" that says a lot.
- BonsaiDen 12y ago
  Thing is though, this and stuff like "hand over the keys to that encrypted data" are really easy ways of getting just about everyone into prison. I could for example argue that you, by changing the profile picture on your blog, have used a warrant canary too. Do you have any way of proving that you didn't? You certainly can't argue that you don't need one (this would imply you haven't receive a NSL which would be a warrant canary statement in itself), you can still argue that you haven't used your profile picture as one, but then we're back to square one, with them saying "You have!" If the government wants you in prison, they'll find a way.
  - phkahler 12y ago
    >> If the government wants you in prison, they'll find a way. The issue isn't that they want people in prison. The issue is that they don't want people to know what they're doing, and they're resorting to the threat of prison to keep people quiet. It's actually perfectly reasonable to try to prevent the "bad guys" from knowing what they're up to or what their methods are, but that is getting to be more and more in conflict with peoples desire for transparency and in some cases peoples explicit rights - to free speech and privacy in US for example. This raises an interesting question to me, as I see similarities in many other places where conflicts of different types tend to escalate to absurd levels. Do people just default to yelling louder, pushing harder, more of whatever? Why does this keep happening?

macspoofing 12y ago

Lawyers aren't idiots. Judges aren't idiots. Lawmakers aren't idiots. If a law says you cannot disclose a government request, then trying to get around the injunction by playing games isn't going to do anything for you.

phkahler 12y ago
That depends. Using absurdly simple means to point out the absurdity of someone else can be effective. Remember how PGP was printed in book form to circumvent export controls? Or how about DeCSS on a T-shirt? How about those magic flags that encode an illegal number in the hex codes of the colors? No, I think it's worth asking if it is now illegal to put an image of a canary on a web page in Australia. If the answer is "no" that says a lot.
BonsaiDen 12y ago
Thing is though, this and stuff like "hand over the keys to that encrypted data" are really easy ways of getting just about everyone into prison. I could for example argue that you, by changing the profile picture on your blog, have used a warrant canary too. Do you have any way of proving that you didn't? You certainly can't argue that you don't need one (this would imply you haven't receive a NSL which would be a warrant canary statement in itself), you can still argue that you haven't used your profile picture as one, but then we're back to square one, with them saying "You have!" If the government wants you in prison, they'll find a way.
- phkahler 12y ago
  >> If the government wants you in prison, they'll find a way. The issue isn't that they want people in prison. The issue is that they don't want people to know what they're doing, and they're resorting to the threat of prison to keep people quiet. It's actually perfectly reasonable to try to prevent the "bad guys" from knowing what they're up to or what their methods are, but that is getting to be more and more in conflict with peoples desire for transparency and in some cases peoples explicit rights - to free speech and privacy in US for example. This raises an interesting question to me, as I see similarities in many other places where conflicts of different types tend to escalate to absurd levels. Do people just default to yelling louder, pushing harder, more of whatever? Why does this keep happening?