[133147] in North American Network Operators' Group
Warrant Canaries
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael DeMan)
Sun Dec 5 07:20:13 2010
From: Michael DeMan <nanog@deman.com>
In-Reply-To: <25995632.600.1291525588303.JavaMail.root@benjamin.baylink.com>
Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2010 04:20:00 -0800
To: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Dec 4, 2010, at 9:06 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
> ---- Original Message -----
>> From: "Adrian Chadd" <adrian@creative.net.au>
>>=20
>> On Sat, Dec 04, 2010, Ken Chase wrote:
>>> And if they come and ask the same but without a court order is a bit
>>> trickier and more confusing, and this list is a good place to track =
the
>>> frequency of and responce to that kind of request.
>>=20
>> Except of course when you're "asked" not to share what has occured
>> with anyone. I hear that kind of thing happens today.
>=20
> It does. Hence, the Warrant Canary:
>=20
> =
http://blog.kozubik.com/john_kozubik/2010/08/the-warrant-canary-in-2010-an=
d-beyond.html
>=20
> Cheers,
> -- jra
>=20
Actually, my intuition is that warrant canaries are not a workable =
solution either. I would presume that a violation of a 'secret' court =
order or national security letter where you are expressly ordered not to =
divulge the fact that you have received it could be violated either by =
any 'action' or 'inaction'. So the 'inaction' of not updating the =
warrant canary would be a violation.
The interesting thing of course is that to avoid the 'inaction', and =
your regular process is to say update the warrant canary daily, you =
would be placed in the position where the government was asking you to =
lie to the public at large?
I have wondered about this for quite a while - has anybody on the list =
ever talked with an attorney with specific expertise in this area of law =
about this? I am not expecting formal legal advice by any means, just =
curious if anybody has done any research on this topic and could share =
what they discovered.
- Mike
P.S. - Intent here is not to drag out the wikileaks thread, but rather =
start a new thread on the more general topic of legal/policies and =
warrant canaries, which although not a purely technical discussions =
seems more on-topic for the nanog list. My apologies in advance if it =
is OT.
