Comment by downandout
12 years ago
If the software is automatically set to report that the provider has not received a warrant, then when it receives an order, it must undertake an action to tell the software not to post that it hasn't received an order. A judge would likely rule that this action is a violation of any confidentiality provisions, since the intent of the system is clearly laid out in advance. It's no different than working out a specific hand signal in advance to notify someone of trouble - flashing that signal is a violation.
just going wild here, but what if say, i create a license agreement with a third-party such that anytime data is retrieved from my backend system, it trips a wire, and this third party will receive the notification that this wire is tripped.
When the NSL comes, this system will disclose information, violating the NSL. So you are compelled by law to remove the trip wire. The third party periodically requests data from me, and notices the wire didn't trip.
What law was broken by the above scenario?
Well, that actually may fly (arguably). The difference between that and the "warrant canary" is that you are not specifically taking an action in response to the NSL that is designed to notify another person in violation of the order/letter. What you are talking about is more of an intrusion detection system.