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Comment by mperham | Hacker News Reader

Feds: "Continue to update the canary or you disclosed the secret warrant and we throw you in prison."

Yes, but note that this is updated not just on our website, but on the storage arrays themselves - some of which are in Zurich and Hong Kong.

So the above scenario is a possibility, but then imagine the followup:

Feds to Zurich Canton: Tell swiss national X to update the warrant canary or ...

We have it spread out geographically for a reason.

If one government were to come knocking, could they order you to lie to other arms of your own business, so that they continue to update the canary because they don't know that a warrant was served?

Perhaps that's impractical, but I'm thinking about what would be needed to 'beat' the warrant canary system.

The storage arrays' access could be limited such that administrative accounts can only be used locally at a datacenter. Then, acting on the warrant would require telling an employee in Zurich to conduct any necessary action.

You'll be forced to tell your overseas colleagues that you have received no such warrants, and they should update the canary to reflect that. Unless your architecture is set up so they would somehow immediately become aware of these warrants, there's no way they're even going to know they exist.

Legal "hacks" like this rarely work.

Do you have any examples of them not working?

Well, the first thing I could think of was this gem: http://www.loweringthebar.net/2013/01/can-you-carpool-with-a...

Not the most perfect example, but it goes to show what happens when someone unfamiliar with the law makes "logical" (to them) assumptions about loopholes that exist. That blog is a treasure trove of gems like the above.

Courts tend to look at results.

If you have been ordered not to communicate X, and you communicate X, then you are in violation of whatever statute or court order was in place.

You might want to have your legal counsel look at the various reported cases involving asset protection trusts in the Cook Islands. In a situation such as yours I can easily see you cooling your heels in Federal prison on contempt of court charges. Your defense ("I cannot be held in contempt because it is impossible for me to comply" or perhaps "I told them to do it, but you know those silly Swiss, they ignored me") is unlikely to make a District Court judge happy. And I'm talking about REAL judges in REAL courts. I'm not talking about this Star Chamber bullshit that we live with now in the Land of the Free.

But you've probably looked at this and decided it is defensible.

How do I check the canary on a storage array?

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