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:
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a declaration that, up to that point, no warrants have been served, nor have any searches or seizures taken place
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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: SHA256
2024-01-08
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, including:
ALL San Diego locations ALL Denver locations ALL Zurich locations ALL Hong Kong locations ALL Fremont locations
( from http://www.reuters.com )
Biden administration to unveil contractor rule set to upend gig economy
Moon lander problem threatens mission after Vulcan rocket makes successful debut
Beckenbauer revolutionised game and became icon of German sporting success)
Spurs 115, Cavaliers 117 Hawks 110, Magic 117
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.18 (FreeBSD)
iEYEAREIAAYFAmWceF8ACgkQBzwoLX1vgGyjAgCffCEAilX5M6WY4SnxLJOF5J5f rSYAn14WCiZKbj+fKaqEpj4ThDWEOysB =256H -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
https://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.
Honestly, I think it’s a lot more complicated than that. Yes it’s possible that someone could be compelled to update a warrant canary, but it’s infinitely more likely that they’re simply coerced, like their lawyer tells them to.
EFFs Canary Watch project found that warrant canaries were a flawed principle for a number of other reasons.
Regardless, it remains mildly interesting.