rubber hose canaries

[Tyler Durden]

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 at comcast.net>
>To: cypherpunks at 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