Warrant Canary
Existing and proposed laws, especially as relate to the US Patriot Act, etc., provide for secret warrants, searches and seizures of data, such as library records.
Some such laws provide for criminal penalties for revealing the warrant, search or seizure, disallowing the disclosure of events that would materially affect the users of a service such as rsync.net.
rsync.net and its principals and employees will in fact comply with such warrants and their provisions for secrecy.
rsync.net will also make available, weekly, a “warrant canary” in the form of a cryptographically signed message containing the following:
- a declaration that, up to that point, no warrants have been served, nor have any searches or seizures taken place
- a cut and paste headline from a major news source, establishing date
Special note should be taken if these messages ever cease being updated, or are removed from this page.
I found this on rsync.net and thought it was a pretty cool idea. Three questions:
- Is weekly often enough?
- Could the US government legally (I assume these guys are in the US) force them to sign a new canary?
- Regardless of legality (since when has that stopped us?), would the government compel them to sign a new canary? (In that case that it is legal for them to do so, are the legal requirements for such a compulsion low enough to make it likely that the government would compel them to sign and publish?)
I have to say, I’m really quite impressed at the services and “philosophy” of rsync.net. I’ve read people that recommended their services before, though I hadn’t looked at them myself. I’d have to check out their pricing, but I’d say I’ll definitely keep these guys in my Rolodex.
(Poor Rolodex people.)