Hum. Would there be value in a (TOR?) service whereby, if the key is beaten out of someone (whether that key leads to the real data or not), then a flag is sent up somewhere saying, "If you are reading this then the key for Data X has been beaten out of me, or they are attempting to beat it out of me." This nice thing about TOR-stored data and services is that it would be well-nigh impossible for interrrogators to know in advance that they won't be making the canary sing. In fact, depending on the nature of the data stored, it could be set up to be irretrievable without a message going off. -TD
From: Steve Schear <s.schear@comcast.net> To: cypherpunks@jfet.org Subject: Re: ISPs providing "warrant canaries" Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 13:30:53 -0700
At 06:44 AM 5/16/2006, Jason Arnaute wrote:
Someone wrote here in the recent past about libraries bypassing secret warrants by updating their boards every X days/months with a "nobody has served us a secret warrant" type message.
That might have been me. I did post about apparently legal ways to circumvent such secret warrants but I did not use a BB method but rather provide a service where clients can request if a warrant has been served on the library or ISP for their account or any account. The service provider is free to reply if no warrant has been received but is muzzled if one has. This failure to reply, which is not a positive action, is what reveals the warrant. rsync's approach appears consistent with mine.
Steve