SpiderOak removes its warrant canary

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/94nspi/spideroak_cans_its_warrant_canary_suffers/

by dannyw • 8 years ago

235 93 8 years ago

reddit.com

Lazare3• 8 years ago

I've had some mixed feelings about SpiderOak in the past, but at least they did this right.

Props to them for making a canary and then following through on it.

maxerickson3• 8 years ago

Or it doesn't mean anything. Who knows, that's the beauty of it.

Cthulhu_• 8 years ago

Well no, it means that either they've been compromised and thus shouldn't be trusted anymore, or they forgot (?) to update their canary which means they shouldn't be trusted anymore.

Don't "who knows?" on this subject, it makes you look like a government shill trying to lull privacy conscious people into indifference.

peterkelly• 8 years ago

If it's gone, it means that have received a warrant.

That's the whole point of the warrant canary.

forkerenok2• 8 years ago

I think nobody really needs to know exactly what's happening to make the right decision.

People that are serious about opsec/etc. will read this (fuzzy/distorted) signal and jump ship. They will not be dwelling on the nature of this signal.

Lazare3• 8 years ago

SpiderOak basically said "if we do this, you should stop using us" (well, if you care about warrant canaries). And then they did it.

It doesn't mean that they received a warrant, but it does mean SpiderOak is telling you not to use them, and I think that when a service tell you that, for whatever reason, it means quite a lot. :)

(Even if, as you suggest further down, they received legal advice that warrant canaries were a bad idea and they needed to take it down, the way they handled the entire process makes it clear that they aren't taking this seriously. Posting a warrant canary, updating it regularly, and then taking it down while not telling the real (legit) reason is reckless at best, and in my view is basically the worst way they could handle it.)

Whatever a realistic estimation of SpiderOak's security was before this news, I think it has to be strictly lower now, right?

(Mind you...on further reflection I'm not convinced the transparency report is any more - or less - meaningful than the canary. The theory behind both is that the government cannot compel false speech. If that's true, then both are equally protective; if it's false, both are equally pointless. SpiderOak did say "if we stop updating this stop using us", and then they stopped updating it, but...then they published a transparency report saying "0 NSLs". So...maybe they're just really awful at communication.)

jokoon• 8 years ago

If you look at the comment they debate that a candy can mean the service is not as secure as it was, like truecrypt did use its canary.

barking4• 8 years ago

I think you're wrong about Truecrypt, it's still safe but just won't ever be updated.

https://www.grc.com/misc/truecrypt/truecrypt.htm

dogma1138• 8 years ago

With the level of uncertainty and the suspicious circumstances behind the author you can’t really consider it’s safe to use considering the threat model.

cyphar3• 8 years ago

I get their point, but just as it might be "foolish" to assume that software which was audited is no longer secure just because the developers have stopped working on it, it is also "foolish" to use cryptographic software that is not being worked on actively by experts. And since TrueCrypt is proprietary, people should not be using it anyway (not because you cannot read or modify the source code but because the license itself is "full of traps" according to the fedora-legal team[1])-- Linux's dm-crypt can decrypt TrueCrypt volumes (though it's read-only from memory) if you need legacy support.

[1] https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/distributions/2008-Oc...

DanBC• 8 years ago

Truecrypt may be secure, but linking to GRC is going to persuade me that it isn't.

mannykannot• 8 years ago

If the meaning of the removal of a warrant canary is debatable, it has not done its job very well. Presumably, there are people who would prefer that whatever the removal implies does not become the widely accepted view, and one tactic they could use, against it so becoming, is to raise doubts about what its removal does mean.

fjsousa• 8 years ago

I've been using spideroak and encryptr for a while and I'm assuming the data stored by them up until now is secure given that it was a zero knowledge service. Any opinions on this?

ablation• 8 years ago

Give that it looks like the canary just did its job, it would be prudent to assume SpiderOak is now compromised in some way. Therefore, it's probably safer to assume that all data stored on it up to this point is also somehow compromised too.

throwaway9d0291• 8 years ago

Unless you manually manage your keys, it's only zero knowledge if you never log into their website or use their Android app, either of which gets your key onto their servers.

rocqua4• 8 years ago

That would depend on whether you trust that they are zero-knowledge. It is certainly possible to build a client that works like that, but their client wasn't open source, so there is no way to confirm this.

However, if you trust them on the canary, why distrust them on the claim their service was zero-knowledge. It might make sense if they are 'amoral enough' to lie about being zero-knowledge, but 'moral enough' to admit to being served a warrant. I think space for that level of morality exists, but is small. The other issue would be if they weren't zero-knowledge through an unintended bug.

I can't really give a definitive judgement.

onetimemanytime• 8 years ago

Any ideas on how many people in the company would know about it? If it's quite a few, one would take the chance on writing anon to a tech writer /activist. But that too is easier said than done...FBI would not be happy and they have a lot of cards in their hand.

sinstein• 8 years ago

Can someone explain what a Warrant Canary is and why it needs to be removed?

From my understanding, a Warrant Canary is a provision to disclose subpoena(s) that a company is not allowed to disclose and now SpiderOak is shutting down that provision?

wccrawford• 8 years ago

Canaries were used in coal mines to detect deadly gas. If your canary dies, it means you might have a problem.

A warrant canary dies when a warrant is served. If a company has a statement that says "We have not been served a warrant as of X date" and they update it monthly, then they suddenly stop updating it or remove that statement, the canary has died. They might have been served with a warrant.

It's also possible that the canary died of natural causes, of course. It could be that a lawyer told them it was a bad idea, or maybe a shift in management removed it. But there's no way to know.

kilotaras• 8 years ago

To expand on this.

This is done as it is usually presumed the government can legally force your silence, but can't force you to say something (e.g we hadn't received secret warrant, last updated: Aug, 08)

tutts• 8 years ago

Miners used to bring canary birds with them when mining. If they hit poisonous gas, the canary would die before the miners, alerting them to the gas.

The government can issue secret warrants to companies that they are not allowed to disclose, requiring them to hand over customer data. A warrant canary is a periodical statement from a company that they have not received such a warrant. The idea is that if they do receive a warrant, they will stop publishing the warrant, and the court can't compel them to.

rocqua4• 8 years ago

A warrant canary states "We have not complied with any subpoenas that disclosed user data". All that has to happen upon complying with a warrant that requires user data is to remove / not republish the canary.

The idea being that a gag order cannot force you to speak, only prohibit you from speaking. Thus, a gag-order cannot force you to continue publishing a canary. Often, canaries have an 'expiry date' after which they will be republished. This is to avoid 'removing a document' as being interpreted as speech, and thus prohibited by gag order.

Now spideroak had a canary with an expiration of 1 aug. They did not republish; and 3 days later, gave an explanation why. In this explanation they state they will switch to a slightly different, non-cryptographically signed document that is much like a warrant canary. The 3 day gap is most notable here. Spideroak states that the cryptographic signing wasn't useful because you need to trust the signers, who are the same people that publish on the website.

KenanSulayman• 8 years ago

Was it by mistake? The warrant canary is back: https://spideroak.com/canary

Edit: it seems they had removed it on purpose and added it back to elaborate on the decision and that it wasn't removed to signal something --- seemingly: "So after thinking about this ... we have decided to move away from ... canaries and instead publish a ... report located at ..."

philipov8• 8 years ago

Doesn't matter. The moment the canary died, they became a compromised agent whose further statements are to be interpreted as being manipulated by secret court order.

If your canary dies, you can buy a new one, but you still have deadly gas in your mine. You can't trust the words or actions of someone who just declared they have been compromised.

fauigerzigerk4• 8 years ago

Doesn't matter. The moment the canary died, they became a compromised agent whose further statements are to be interpreted as being manipulated by secret court order.

I don't think you can draw that conclusion. As I understand it, the NSL can only compell them to shut up about it, but it cannot compell them to dish out arbitrary lies and false justifications for taking the canary down.

shakestheclown• 8 years ago

I'm sure canaries died of natural causes in the mines occasionally...

newscracker2• 8 years ago

SpiderOak tweeted three days ago [1] that it's replacing the warrant canary with a transparency report that'd be updated every six months.

This is what the tweet said/says: [1]

"We just released our most recent transparency report, available at https://spideroak.com/transparency/ . This will replace our #warrantcanary. The final version of the canary is available at https://spideroak.com/canary . The transparency report will be updated every six months."

The transparency report, updated a few days ago this month, shows zeros for every kind of request, which means there haven't been any kind of court orders for information from February to August 2018. [2]

Are there still reasons to be concerned? I don't understand how they can list NSLs in the transparency report, since those are the ones with the gag orders necessitating legally confounding workarounds like a warrant canary.

[1] https://twitter.com/SpiderOak/status/1025488889564327936

[2] https://spideroak.com/transparency/

dannyw2• 8 years ago

Before you receive a NSL, you do not have any gag orders. It is the gag order that prevents publication; not the law.

So you can legally say you’ve received no NSLs; until you get a NSL.

otp1242• 8 years ago

My understanding is they are served simultaneously, so you do not have that luxury.

newscracker2• 8 years ago

Right. That was my understanding too. But they’d have to remove that NSL section if they receive an NSL (assuming their honesty or desire to be so is not in question here) — as Lazare explained in another comment here. That’s almost the same as the canary, without the signing.

forkerenok2• 8 years ago

My hunch is that they were indeed served with an NSL. The transparency report bullshit is an extra thing they've done to have mercy of NSA or whatever at the expense of confusing (quite) a few people (people mentioned that canary practice wasn't confirmed as illegal or legal by any court proceeding).

One thing to realise is that they (AFAIR) never said they'd quit the business if they ever get served with an NSL.

Lazare3• 8 years ago

I don't understand how they can list NSLs in the transparency report

Correct. You can list the ones you don't have, but not the ones you do. So to a first approximation, the transparency report will always say "0".

Now, the theory behind a warrant canary is that the government can compel your silence but (maybe!) it cannot compel you to make false statements. And if that applies to NSLs and gag orders, and thus makes warrant canaries valid, it might apply to the transparency report too.

And in that case maybe we can take the "0" at face value, and we can assume that they haven't received an NSL, but if they do they'll just silently drop that section from the transparency report. (Their warrant canary had some cryptographic signatures, but as far as I know, that's totally irrelevant. If a court decides to compel you to lie and say you haven't received a NSL when you have, then they can compel you to sign the canary too. If they opt not to compel speech, then they won't compel a false transparency report. The crypto is window dressing.)

But while on paper it looks to me like the transparency report is probably just as meaningful as the canary, the ham-handed way they've announced it leaves me suspicious.

thfuran• 8 years ago

I don't think there's any way to change from having a warrant canary to not having the warrant canary, even if your new approach nominally conveys the same information, that isn't rather suspicious.

qmarchi• 8 years ago

Just to add on, the compelling of speech is made more difficult by the fact that the signing keys were held by people of three different nationalities, in three different countries.

The US Government can't force someone to do something if they aren't a US citizen and not on their territory. Their best option is extradition, but that would raise more eyebrows than they'd want.

Doxin• 8 years ago

Isn't the point of the crypto on the warrant canary for the case where your servers get seized?

Confiks• 8 years ago

I don't know anything about SpiderOak, except occasionally having browsed their front page, but they do seem to have some clue about security and secure software. If that is true, they must have known from the outset that once you decide to install a canary, you cannot discontinue it except to signal that it has died.

That canary has now died. It did so along with a statement [1][2] that signing a canary every 6 months with an airgapped computer is too impractical, which isn't very plausible as this is a perfectly schedulable event which will take at most an hour for every person involved, twice a year. I suppose they sign their (APT, RPM) releases in the same way (please ask them; seems answerable). Additionally, they were three days late with their statement about moving away from the canary, which is otherwise irresponsibly late for an event that can completely erode trust in them as a security company.

The irony is that their conclusion in [1] that the "canary’s effectiveness as a tool has been questioned, the usage of it at other companies is not consistent, and verifying it and keeping track of it is complicated for users" is spot on; the confusion that can be created about whether the canary is dead or merely deprecated, that after it has died once it cannot be reinstated, and that the only recourse for users is to move away from the service, makes it a pretty useless signal to act upon.

[1] https://spideroak.com/articles/transparency-report/

[2] https://twitter.com/SpiderOak/status/1025488889564327936

philipov8• 8 years ago

There is no confusion. There is a simple bargain with a canary: no matter what confusion is thrown up by bad actors, once it's activated, you assume the target is compromised.

If they're not really compromised? You don't need to ask that; trust is based on evidence, not some abstract Truth. When the trigger activates, you deprecate trust. It's really that simple.

secfirstmd2• 8 years ago

I wonder why more organisations don't do a globally distributed Canary with people in differing jurisdictions signing it. Not that it is likely to reduce overall liability but surely if it has to signed by someone in US, Switzerland, Hong Kong, South Africa, Lebanon etc then its going to spread the single point of failure?

JumpCrisscross2• 8 years ago

once it's activated, you assume the target is compromised

I don’t think it’s helpful to think in such absolutist terms. Coal mine canaries died of natural causes. A canary is meant to prompt investigation (and heightened vigilence), not conclude it.

secfirstmd2• 8 years ago

Hmmm the language used to justify dropping the Canary sounds very similar to other services which ditched it in the past. Cant remember exactly but IIRC Reddit and Riseup said something like this.

ricardobeat• 8 years ago

Coincidentally, the signing key for their RPM has been changed a few days ago and they recommend you reinstall from a direct download instead.

https://support.spideroak.com/hc/en-us/articles/360009029531...

Vinnl2• 8 years ago

Here's a question that crossed my mind: what if you ignore a gag order? You receive a secret court order to hand over data, and you tell them you're not giving it to them unless you're allowed to tell the world about it.

Will they give you a fine? And what if you don't pay the fine? Will they arrest you? And if they do, how can they prevent people from finding out about it?

rocqua4• 8 years ago

Given that national security letters originate from the patriot act, I presume the consequences are grave. Certainly, jail time seems probable. In general, if a court says do X, and you refuse, that is contempt of court. The court can then decide to fine you, and put you in jail until you are willing to comply.

Given gag-orders, and waving the word 'national security'. I expect the court proceeding dealing with your arrest / punishment would be sealed.

Heck, if certain things are marked as US government secrets and you publish them, that is treason which can be punished by death.

Vinnl2• 8 years ago

I expect the court proceeding dealing with your arrest / punishment would be sealed.

Sure, but at a certain point, surely they will have to come and pick you up? What if there are journalists present who ask that you are being put away for? "We can't tell" surely isn't an answer they won't accept? That's eerily close to arbitrary detention.

e12e• 8 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendition_aircraft

discordance• 8 years ago

Regardless of the stated reason for the canary to be removed, there is a responsibility in deploying a warrant canary that must be upheld. In this case, the canary is dead and the responsibility is now on users to judge what they should make of that.

I, for one, would not use their service going forward.

chmars• 8 years ago

Isn't it anyway safe to assume that Internet providers worldwide have to give access to security services etc. (or are even happy to cooperate without any legal pressure)?

SeanMacConMara• 8 years ago

If your threat model includes any sovereign state's intelligence agency then a warrant canary is worse than useless. Given their other widely abused powers it is likely trivial to force a normal company to continue business as normal and make any statement.

I submit that warrant canaries are at best legally and politically naive virtue signalling and at worst deliberate obfuscation of the actual threat model.

DyslexicAtheist• 8 years ago

don't be mad. This is exactly what a canary is for.

lwhalen• 8 years ago

also note earlier in their feed, a few hours before they announced the death of the canary, they had a 'full system outage due to a poorly communicated maintenance by their ISP'. To me, this screams "Narus box at our edge" or similar shady behavior.

Tharkun• 8 years ago

IIRC their yum repository is having some GPG signing issues as well. This isn't increasing my confidence.

BrandoElFollito• 8 years ago

Why do these companies not make use of international, cross border solutions?

I am bound by the law of France but my associate in the US could not care less and vice versa. If we cross check, say, code daily and I see a discrepancy then I raise an alert on my .fr page, controlled by myself. He would not be involved.

SpiderOak removes its warrant canary

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