Warrant Canaries

[Andrew]

Alfie John:
> 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