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How To Foil NSA Sabotage: Use a Dead Man's Switch
mspohr writes "Cory Doctorow has an interesting idea published in today's Guardian on how to approach the problem of NSA 'gag orders' which prevent web sites, etc. from telling anyone that they have been compromised. His idea is to set up a 'dead man' switch where a site would publish a statement that 'We have not been contacted by the government' ... until, of course, they were contacted and compromised. The statement would then disappear since it would no longer be true. He points out a few problems... Not making the statement could be considered a violation of disclosure... but, can the government force you to lie and state that you haven't been contacted when you actually have?"
Rsync.net has been doing this for years; rather than the statement disappearing in case of an NSL being issued, it simply would stop updating. Indeed, their canary text also points out the same possible flaws: "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."
I don't think the intent is to argue that it isn't contravening the intent of the gag order due to a technicality, but rather to set up a constitutional challenge to the gag order. Compelled speech is reviewed at a higher level of scrutiny, so if the gag order actually requires you to affirmatively state things that you neither believe in nor are true, that would be a basis for challenging the gag order. You may still lose, but it would require violating a constitutional rule that thus far has been respected.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Secret? They do that openly. It is common knowledge they can jail you forever without trial or even telling you of what crime you may have violated. And the American public love it because it's "fighting terrorisim".
Secret means it's hidden, All of this is out in the open and publicly accepted.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Wouldn't it be better to always have a message saying that you are collaborating with the NSA / currently being gaged. If that siuation does ever occur, you then remove the message because otherwise you will be breaking the law...
No, we don't "love it", we're appalled, angry, embarrassed and saddened. Trust in government is at an all-time low.
You all seem to miss the important aspects here.
1) Most Americans I talk with, who know about these things happening, hate everything that is going on.
2) But a good number of people aren't paying attention to most of it. My wife, and most of my close family, being among them. And these people don't want to know, because they know they'll get upset and frustrated about it.
3) Among those who know and are disgusted, few complain about it except to friends. Why, because, most of this activity doesn't have an immediate impact on Americans ability to travel "freely", buy food, earn a comfortable living, have spendable money and the ability to spend it mostly how they want, raise a family without major restrictions, go to the church of their own choice, live in any neighborhood they can afford, eat what they what, and have entertainment they want. In other words daily life in the USA is fairly stable and unrestricted. People are comfortable. Until, the activities of the government get so overbearing that life is no longer comfortable, few will be willing to do anything about it.
4) The American Revolution didn't happen because the middle class people weren't comfortable anymore. Life was not really that bad in American Colonies back then. The American Revolution happened because the wealthy were feeling uncomfortable and the Crown was messing with their livlihoods.
Ergo, nothing is going to change, unless:
1) The government actions start having a serious impact on the upper classes, or
2) The government makes life so hard for the average citizen that they have no choice but to revolt. You can complain to your politicians till you're blue in the face and it likely won't change anything, for long. They will relent, for a while, and then try it again when they think you aren't looking. Search your feelings, you know this to be true., or
3) Enough people get fed up and actually start a new political party, that alters the landscape.