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Comment by bitdestroyer | Hacker News Reader

> 0-249 National Security Orders Received

> 0-249 Affected Accounts

So, I would assume it's fairly safe to say they got 249 NSLs or am I missing something about how people are using ranges to go about skirting this ridiculous law? Obviously it could be within that range, but that's an oddly specific number.

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Read the linked PDF (http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/4222014127160422403...). They are only allowed to report the number in bands of 250.

Figures, the one link I didn't click... Thanks!

Is this something added specifically to prevent warrant canaries?

You wanna be the guy that gets to try that out in court? If it even goes to court?

I read that as: "We can't disclose the exact number. The possible bins are: 0-249, 250-499, 500-749, 750-999, ... This year, the number is in the bin 0-249." (not an actual quote)

Source from 2014 (p. 3): http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/4222014127160422403...

Edit: Just realized this is linked above, apologies

Github doesn't get to choose the ranges, that was the range they were allowed to disclose.

> 'If one of these requests comes with a gag order—and they usually do'

(emphasis mine)

We can probably assume that the number is >0 rather than >=0.

The fact that they mentioned this type of order at all would seem to indicate that they've received >0 of them.

It scares me that we have to read into a paragraph like that so much.

Nostalgic. I grew up in a country behind the Iron Curtain and reading between the lines was a skill.

Now if you decide to stay in the US your offspring will have the opportunity to develop the same skill!

Perhaps he hasn't moved, he just considers himself 'in front' of the Iron Curtain now.

Perhaps he is a proper canuck by now ;)

It's annoying that the bins are like this, instead of 0, 1-250, 251-500, etc...

The minimum band size is 250, so the 0 bucket would be too small. This is the best they can do without the feds bringing down the hammer.

As a computer type person I'd like them to keep 250 bands and go with [-125,124], [125,374], but I guess the real world gets in the way.

If they could do that, they should "coincidentally" define their bands to be centred around the actual value.

"We can't say we received 84 requests this year. We can only tell you it was in the band [-166, 84]"...

What if I created a band containing 0 and some urealistically high numbers? For example what if my band would include [0,1M-1M+248]. Everyone knows that 1M+ is unrealistic, so...

I believe the judge would say something that translates roughly to "don't be a wiseass". That, and the guidelines in the above-linked pdf specify bands of either 0-999 or 0-249.

The legal memo specifically proscribes a 2-year delay on reporting that the number has moved between 0 and >= 1.

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