On 4/1/15, rysiek wrote:

Dnia poniedziałek, 30 marca 2015 16:48:57 Lodewijk andré de la porte pisze:

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"Existence or non-existence" - what about "maybe exists" vs "definitely does or does not exist"?

If we all agree that "maybe" means "probably does not exist" and "definitely does or doesn't exist" means you probably do have one, this seems to be no problem.

Ah, modal logic. Hounting me from beyond the gra^Wcollege...

From The Collaborative Cypherpunks Dictionary of Sanity v.0.0.0.001 [cypher]:

Hounting \Hound\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Haunded}; appl. to mental state, part. in hist. context, physchological self-pursuit; existential addictive thought appeal[ing|s] to the liberty cortex; p. pr. & vb. n. {Hounting}.] [F. hanter; of uncertain origin, perh. from an assumed LL. ambitare to go about, fr. L. ambire (see {Ambition}); or cf. Icel. heimta to demand, regain, akin to heim home (see {Home}). [root]36.] [OE. hound, hund, dog, AS. hund; akin to OS. & OFries. hund, D. hond, G. hund, OHG. hunt, Icel. hundr, Dan. & Sw. hund, Goth. hunds, and prob. to Lith. sz?, Ir. & Gael. cu, L. canis, Gr. ?, ?, Skr. [,c]van. [root]229. Cf. {Canine}, {Cynic}, {Kennel}.] A rapping and a tapping and a strumming in the brain, A hounting and a trouncing; Oh! that libertarian strain; [Anon. 2015] [Begging for enhancement by extension.]

Alfie John:

On Mon, Mar 30, 2015, at 10:01 AM, Steven Schear wrote:

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Looks like Australia has banned use of my idea.

http://boingboing.net/2015/03/26/australia-outlaws-warrant-cana.html

If its true that a man's status can be measured by his enemies.. then I've taken a position at the top of the cypherpunks heap :)

How about the reverse? As the point of canaries is to let people know a warrant is in place while thinking that you're not breaking any laws by telling them (good luck), hypothetically why not just be up front and tell people that a warrant is in place via a tor and a hidden service (let's call it WarrantWatch). Each post is a message from an admin of a website saying that a warrant is in place, with the message being signed via the website's TLS private key for verification.

Alfie

So, you're suggesting that instead of going into a legal 'gray area', website operators should simply obviously violate the law and then publish a non-repudiable cryptographic proof of their lawbreaking. Am I missing something here? Is the idea to get everyone flouting the law and thereby render it ineffectual, or is it just April Fools? Andrew

On 4/1/15 5:26 AM, Andrew wrote:

Alfie John:

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On Mon, Mar 30, 2015, at 10:01 AM, Steven Schear wrote:

...

Looks like Australia has banned use of my idea.

http://boingboing.net/2015/03/26/australia-outlaws-warrant-cana.html

If its true that a man's status can be measured by his enemies.. then I've taken a position at the top of the cypherpunks heap :) How about the reverse? As the point of canaries is to let people know a warrant is in place while thinking that you're not breaking any laws by telling them (good luck), hypothetically why not just be up front and tell people that a warrant is in place via a tor and a hidden service (let's call it WarrantWatch). Each post is a message from an admin of a website saying that a warrant is in place, with the message being signed via the website's TLS private key for verification.

Alfie

So, you're suggesting that instead of going into a legal 'gray area', website operators should simply obviously violate the law and then publish a non-repudiable cryptographic proof of their lawbreaking.

Am I missing something here? Is the idea to get everyone flouting the law and thereby render it ineffectual, or is it just April Fools?

Andrew

The point of a warrant canary is to communicate in a legal way something that is illegal for you to communicate directly. That involves something like setting laws against each other in some prioritized way or otherwise splitting hairs so that no one can technically be prosecuted. It is a bit of a legal arms race. You have to find something you cannot be compelled to do or not do. A dead man's switch of some kind where not doing something is ambiguous and unassailable. Can you be required by law to go to Starbucks every morning? To report or not report on Facebook something factual, like you ate Wheaties that morning? You have a headache? Something that is protected by a higher priority law, although if the First Amendment is trumped by these laws that's going to be difficult. Perhaps a group of people probabilistically do or not do something, but any evidence of collusion would be a problem so they would have to act independently. Some mechanism that relies on someone's thoughts might be sacrosanct. Visual dwell, polygraph (not that they work at all), etc. Perhaps every day someone proposes that the warrant canary has triggered, and every day but one someone objects. Is there or is there not a way to do this legally? That seems like a gray area, if the First Amendment is trumped, along with other legal protections that could apply. If there is no way to do this legally, what are the ways to dilute the situation as to be effectively legal, i.e. prosecution would be unlikely or ineffective? Since the First Amendment is strained here, reasonable people could conclude that the conflicting law is unconstitutional. That could lead to a sense of responsibility to do the right thing. sdw

On 04/01/2015 10:34 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte quotes me:

works... IF EVERYONE cooperates to flaunt, flaut, and disregard it. Could you IMAGINE the gubmint trying to take every internet provider and major website operating in the US to court? Shut down Twitter and Yahoo!'s US ops? Really!

...and replies:

Have you heard of "punitive punishment"? Do you know the percentage of people breaking the Computer Fraud Act? What about Copyright? How many people have been selectively convicted of drug use? (bonus points for racial profiling!)

Simply put: oh no, you are so, so very wrong.

Of course I've heard of punitive punishment and CERTAINLY 'selective enforcement', which IS how laws are enforced in my California coastal tourist/college town, but it requires that the non-persecuted internet providers sit idly by while their users are punished. NOT a good way to keep current users or acquire new ones . There have been instances here where the non-persecuted backed the persecuted about local nuisance ordinances leading to their modification or annulment. The non-persecuted (Yuppies with dogs) successfully pressured the city into quitting their selective enforcement of people who WERE being persecuted for their pets downtown by often simply not LOOKING LIKE 'gentry' and confronting the judges with their disgust that such a law as 'no dogs' should exist. It would also be VERY HARD to get jury convictions IF the non-persecuted internet providers scoffed a law en masse with impunity, and gubmint went ahead with persecuting the other cohort without secret star chamber-like trials for the proles. At THAT point the gubmint may have bigger problems than site owners ignoring a ban on Warrant Canaries. "Simply put,": Your way of looking at the issue leads to stasis. Dare to struggle. "You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..." ~John Lennon

On 04/01/2015 05:26 AM, Andrew wrote:

flouting the law and thereby render it ineffectual

works... IF EVERYONE cooperates to flaunt, flaut, and disregard it. Could you IMAGINE the gubmint trying to take every internet provider and major website operating in the US to court? Shut down Twitter and Yahoo!'s US ops? Really! Note that in the wake of the Snowden dox quite a few high profile internet providers and services publicly asked the feds to let them publish what they knew. That ALONE would be in vi-0-lation, wouldn't it?