[NegativeK]

There should probably be case law before anyone actually believes in warrant canaries.

'If it's illegal to advertise that you've received a court order of some kind, it's illegal to intentionally and knowingly take any action that has the effect of advertising the receipt of that order. A judge can't force you to do anything, but every lawyer I've spoken to has indicated that having a "canary" you remove or choose not to update would likely have the same legal consequences as simply posting something that explicitly says you've received something. If any lawyers have a different legal interpretation, I'd love to hear it.' --Moxie Marlinspike

[powersnail]

What happens when someone asks you whether you have received a court order of some kind? Are you compelled by court to lie about it?

[TheRealPomax]

Why would someone have to lie? They can just say "We can't comment on that" without providing an answer. And then customers can go "sounds pretty suspicious, time to switch VPN services".

[powersnail]

That’s kinda my point. A canary removes all the middle ground between a yes and no. Which means no comment = yes.

The parent comment implies that in such a case “no comment” is not compliant with the law, as it informs the inquirer.

Hence the only way to comply is to answer “no”, which is a lie.

[TheRealPomax]

Except "no comment" is not a yes. It's a "whether we do or don't, you are not part of that process and not privy to that information either way".

[powersnail]

The point of the canary, is to turn any non-answer into a practical, or at least a tentative, "yes". If you no longer see an explicit "no", it means "yes".

[TheRealPomax]

So the point of the canary is to turn a proper response into something that's flat out wrong? That seems incredibly counter-productive.

[Jerrrry]

"We must comply with legal subpoenas in the jurisdiction in which we operate,"

[NegativeK]

I'd hire a lawyer that knows how to deal with them and knows how to say no comment.

I've always felt that the warrant canary is a nerd's gotcha designed to get out of a sketchy legal process (NSLs) and that judges would be very unsympathetic. But IANAL.

[powersnail]

At least from my perspective, it is not just a "gotcha" problem or whatever feelings it conjures up in a judge's mind.

When a company, who already has a canary in place, receives this kind of warrants, what _can_ the company practically do to comply with non-disclosure? It seems that lying is now the only option left, if the company must explicitly post a "no, we didn't receive such a warrant".