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posted by martyb on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:40PM   Printer-friendly
from the shhhhhhhhh dept.

Over on Ars Technica :

The Seychelles-based VPN provider Proxy.sh has withdrawn an exit node from its warrant canary -- a statement certifying that "to the date of publication, no warrants, searches, or seizures that have not been reported in our Transparency Report, have actually taken place."

The blog post in question simply states: "We would like to inform our users that we do not wish any longer to mention France 8 (85.236.153.236) in our warrant canary until further notice." The statement implies that the France 8 node has been subject to a warrant, but that a gag order forbids Proxy.sh from revealing that fact directly. It is not clear who served the warrant, and for obvious reasons, Proxy.sh is unable to say.

However, the TorrentFreak site obtained the following comment from Proxy.sh: "We recommend our users to no longer connect to it. We are striving to do whatever it takes to include that node into our warrant canary again."

Proxy.sh went on to say: "The warrant canary has been particularly designed to make sure we could still move without being legally able to answer questions in a more detailed manner. We are happy to see it put to use after all and that our users are made aware of it."

Another site, VPNCompare.co.uk, which seems to have been the first to notice the withdrawal of the warrant canary, pointed out that despite Proxy.sh's warning, "The France 8 server coupled with their French servers in general continue to be some of the most utilised of their network."


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  • (Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:48PM

    by Subsentient (1111) on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:48PM (#367086) Homepage Journal

    I think that's a pretty solid indicator that they have indeed received a gag order. In fact, their nearly-direct disclosing of that could get them in trouble. I think Australia has already outlawed warrant canaries, not sure about us in the USA.

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:19PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:19PM (#367109)

      I think Australia has already outlawed warrant canaries

      On what grounds?!

      Oh right, this is Australia. If we have freedom of speech problems over here, they're usually nothing compared to abroad.

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:30PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:30PM (#367262)

      How do you outlaw warrant canaries? Doesn't that basically amount to the government forcing you to lie?

      The Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] page is pretty interesting. The US DoJ apparently has stated that they're legal as long as they're passive. I especially like the one implemented by some company where it has to be cryptographically signed by three different, geographically-dispersed entities every 6 months. Regardless of legality, that would be pretty impossible for an authoritarian government like Australia's to override, since there's no way they can get someone in some other country to GPG sign something involuntarily.

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:54PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 28 2016, @02:54PM (#367089) Journal

    Why is it illegal for the Mafia to tell you to keep your mouth shut - but gubbermint can do it? "If you tell anyone what you've seen and heard here today, your family will suffer, and no one will ever find your body!"

    • (Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:08PM

      by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:08PM (#367099)

      Pretty simple: the government makes the laws, the mafia dodges them.

      Oh and by the way, the word you're looking for to express "mafia-style governance" is "dictatorship".

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:56PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:56PM (#367123)

        Oh and by the way, the word you're looking for to express "mafia-style governance" is "dictatorship".

        No, its "totalitarianism" or "police state". A dictatorship means a single person rules over the country, typically a despot.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:56PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:56PM (#367215)

        "dictatorship"

        Actually the term we're looking for is: Potatorship. Rule by Potatoes: We are ruled by "Freedom Fries" here in "Burgerstan". All of our political parties are different eyes of the same potato, and politicians must only be able to count up to potato. This must be what it was like in Rome before the fall. Everyone knows there's insane amounts of corruption and not only ignoring the will of the people but actively working against them for the benefit of only foreign governments and the elites they pay off. Corruption from within is the cancer which always destroys nations.

        It's funny when you think about Rome falling. There must have been people just like you and me who know what's going on but are powerless to stop it. The Romans had Bread and Circuses, we have Potatoes and Sportsball. Few care about the true history of national politics. [youtube.com] So, it's high time to learn how to Ride the Tiger. [wikipedia.org]

        • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 28 2016, @11:11PM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday June 28 2016, @11:11PM (#367324) Journal

          Potatorship. Rule by Potatoes: We are ruled by "Freedom Fries" here in "Burgerstan". All of our political parties are different eyes of the same potato, and politicians must only be able to count up to potato.

          Will have to add this to "Dumbocracy" in the SoylentDictionary.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:11PM (#367103)

      Well, mafia money goes into the economy, mafia methods get applied into the economy, and wealth controls politics. So government style becomes mafia style.

      I mean if you were a mafia don would you not diversify and apply your know how in safest endeavours? Money has become a globally effective weapon with surgical precision and lag measured in milliseconds...

      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:12PM

        by Bot (3902) on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:12PM (#367104) Journal

        .shhh

        --
        Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:27PM (#367116)

      Why is it illegal for the Mafia to tell you to keep your mouth shut - but gubbermint can do it? "If you tell anyone what you've seen and heard here today, your family will suffer, and no one will ever find your body!"

      Seriously? Are you seriously asking this? You could just as easily ask why is it that parents can see their children naked, but people raise a fuss when strangers go around and peep on naked children. Why can a court sentence people to go to a locked room for months and years at a time, but when you do it it's called "kidnapping?"

      Different people in different roles have different rights and different responsibilities.

      If you really want to it's possible to go into a real rabbit hole of political theory. But I assume your quick quip doesn't really want that. A more simple answer would be for a representative democracy, the government derives its mandate from the people and is acting on behalf of them (as opposed to criminals who are action on their own behalf and don't mind hurting others). If it takes bad actions, ultimately it is the people imposing bad things on themselves, like how you have the freedom to give all your money away to a stranger if you want to.

      In a more dictatorship situation it's quite simply "because nobody else can stop them." In this case you can draw a more strong parallel to organized crime, but generally speaking a government does more to make society function than simple criminals (e.g. build and maintain roads) and thus have more legitimacy in their imposition of will on others.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:30PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:30PM (#367118) Journal

        "because nobody else can stop them."

        You were pretty verbose, but you did answer the question.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @12:34AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 29 2016, @12:34AM (#367345)

        If it takes bad actions, ultimately it is the people imposing bad things on themselves, like how you have the freedom to give all your money away to a stranger if you want to.

        Bullshit. That applies if a country has a functioning representative democracy, which the US doesn't. No system that so strongly encourages people to vote for 'the lesser evil' can be called even remotely democratic. No system that is so rigged against third parties can possibly be called democratic. No system that allows people to only vote for a single candidate or party can be called truly democratic; that is a voting system of the stone ages. And let's not forget, a lot of people voted against the current politicians, so when you say "it's the people imposing bad things on themselves", I would ask, 'Which people and how numerous are they?'

        Besides, limiting freedom of speech like this is never legitimate, especially not in the US, and regardless of what nonsensical interpretations of the constitution our authoritarian courts use.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:43PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @06:43PM (#367209)

      >Why is it illegal for the Mafia to tell you to keep your mouth shut - but gubbermint can do it? "If you tell anyone what you've seen and heard here today, your family will suffer, and no one will ever find your body!"

      The government represents the will of the people - the will of women.

      The mafia represents the will of some mmmmmmaaalalllleeeesssss.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:48PM (#367268)

        The internet us getting flooded with shit lime this. Going 180 degrees the other way doesn't work out too well, the more common phrase is reverse-racism.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:03PM (#367252)

      Because the government has marketed the idea (and succeeded in brainwashing the governed) that the state is more important than everything else. Think 'officer of the state' and 'police officer' and how the governed behave in front of such a person.

      --

      The authority of the State can never be an end in itself; for, if that were so, any kind of tyranny would be inviolable and sacred.

      If a government uses the instruments of power in its hands for the purpose of leading a people to ruin, then rebellion is not only the right but also the duty of every individual citizen.

      -- Chapter III

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Bot on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:14PM

    by Bot (3902) on Tuesday June 28 2016, @03:14PM (#367108) Journal

    FRANCE 8 SURRENDERS!!!

    --
    Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @04:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2016, @04:11PM (#367126)

    that despite Proxy.sh's warning, "The France 8 server coupled with their French servers in general continue to be some of the most utilised of their network."

    no shit. you think people just go check the canary status every time they connect to the internet? how about notifying them by email that the canary status page has changed/been updated. nothing illegal about that, i'm guessing.

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:35PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday June 28 2016, @08:35PM (#367264)

      You're most likely wrong. According to the Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] on warrant canaries, the US DoJ says they're legal as long as they're passive. Sending out emails is not passive by any measure. The whole point of the warrant canary is that you only update it as long as you haven't been served a secret warrant. If you stop updating it, then it's assumed you have been. The only way to get actual notifications about this is for some third party to monitor these canaries and then notify people about the change. There's some site called Canary Watch which does just this.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Tuesday June 28 2016, @11:23PM

        by MostCynical (2589) on Tuesday June 28 2016, @11:23PM (#367328) Journal

        "Attention: Canary Watch is no longer being maintained, and the links listed have not been updated past the last checked date. Please read our blog post for more info."

        https://canarywatch.org/ [canarywatch.org]

        --
        "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
      • (Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 29 2016, @12:42AM

        by edIII (791) on Wednesday June 29 2016, @12:42AM (#367347)

        Way too complicated. Simply subscribing to the warrant canary and automatically downloading a manifest file is sufficient. All the clients need to do is pull a file every X number of days.

        In fact, calling it a Warrant Canary was too inflammatory. It should of just been called the "Security MOTD". It's not abnormal to see the MOTD every single time you use a service. I see MOTDs sometimes hundreds of times in a day. Stack a visual change log on top of it where missing items are extremely conspicuous, which again is a normal activity in Linux/BSD, and end users can easily see changes in the MOTD.

        At the end of the day the game here is to deny information from the technology provider to the end user, and the government lost because it cannot compel anyone to lie. Once you cannot force a lie, you've also lost the ability to completely control the information flowing between the two parties.

        Any further attempts to kill this activity will only serve to refine the methods in which we communicate this information. Another poster had the idea about cross-signing it across multiple geographically and politically disparate signers to prevent anyone from having sufficient control over it.

        --
        Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
  • (Score: 2) by Gravis on Wednesday June 29 2016, @04:09PM

    by Gravis (4596) on Wednesday June 29 2016, @04:09PM (#367625)

    the warrant canary is a passive form of information which means it's absence indicates it's been triggered. this is the same as a canary bird in a mine standing upright until it gets a wiff of CO2 and dies. in a mine you check the bird, the bird does not say, "tweet! i'm dead!" which is what this blog post is doing. i'm against these bullshit NSLs but it's likely that they are violating the gag order by pointing this out.