[XCSSA] WARRANT Canaries, Any Useful Experience

[xcssa@xcssa.org]

Dear All:

Ok, looking for group experience and thoughts here.

My appologies, but a little background and Fear 
Uncertainty and Doubt to highlight my sensitivities 
on this issue ...

Having been a ID theft victim in the early 1980s,
and then becoming a victim of the vicissitudes of 
a local district attny who thought six of us with 
the same 1-st and last name should all be equally 
guilty (he was trying to score some free news for
his re-election campaign), I am more than just a 
little shy about private ID traffiking and government 
criminal negligence with personal data.  My university 
leaked data on all six of the guys with my 1st and 
last name -- and we all sat in the hot seat until 
"justice" was "served" and the ID theving party
was vetted (turns out he was a campus cop).

Doing  nothing wrong, shouldn't have anything to fear?  
I found out that who decides what is "nothing" and what 
is "wrong" makes all the difference.  Guilt is just a 
matter of persistent, dilligent prosecutorial zealotry.
Churn the evidence long enough, use "legal" process 
as torture and sweat the suspects for awhile, and the 
innocent become guilty looking -- and get your DA 
re-elected to public office.

Feeling naked with your "innocent" web site?  What
about planted data/planted pages?  Sure you authored
them all?  Got one-way, time stamped hashes on them all?

Ok, with all that FUD background being said, question:

  What is the group experience with web site/web storage 
  "warrant canaries" like this one:
 
 http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt

In case the site is down, or removed, here is cut
and paste.

Thanks for all *RATIONAL* *THOUGHTFUL* experiences
and tradeoffs.  I will take my answer via the mail-list.

Best wishes to all.

---------------- begin clip text  -------------------
rsync.net Warrant Canary

Existing and proposed laws, especially as relate to the US Patriot Act, etc.,
provide
for secret warrants, searches and seizures of data, such as library records.

Some such laws provide for criminal penalties for revealing the warrant,
search or seizure,
disallowing the disclosure of events that would materially affect the users of
a service
such as rsync.net.

rsync.net and its principals and employees will in fact comply with such
warrants and their
provisions for secrecy.

rsync.net will also make available, weekly, a "warrant canary" in the form of
a cryptographically
signed message containing the following:

- a declaration that, up to that point, no warrants have been served, nor have
any searches
or seizures taken place

- a cut and paste headline from a major news source, establishing date

Special note should be taken if these messages ever cease being updated, or
are removed from this page.



The current message is here:


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

2006-08-13
No warrants have ever been served to rsync.net, or rsync.net principals or
employees.
No searches or seizures of any kind have ever been performed on rsync.net assets.

(from cnn.com)

Sunday, August 13, 2006; Posted: 10:41 a.m. EDT (14:41 GMT)

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- The Israeli Cabinet Sunday approved a U.N. cease-fire
resolution
aimed at stopping the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that has raged for
more than a month.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (FreeBSD)

iD8DBQFE30CCBzwoLX1vgGwRAnLaAJ4/M0oePJsDfJck9CYIY4CpoEE1RQCfZcYP
NrEHAkUa8YCQMtBM2gdRuVQ=
=HpPm
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


The primary rsync.net public key is here:

http://www.rsync.net/resources/pubkey.txt


Notes:

This scheme is not infallible.  Although signing the declaration makes it
impossible for a third party to produce arbitrary declarations,
it does not prevent them from using force to coerce rsync.net to produce false
declarations.

The news clip in the signed message serves to demonstrate that that update
could not have been created prior to that date.  It shows that
a series of these updates were not created in advance and posted on this page.

------------- end clip ----------------------