Dev Update week beginning :safe: 24 november 2014

[ned14]

@chrisfostertv

…and bringing the system in-house would do nothing to change this scenario I expect.

Not if the company remains in the EU, no. I should clarify though that not all EU countries have implemented the Data Retention Directive, and it was recently struck down as illegal by the courts. The UK has been very clear it intends to ignore that ruling. Here in Ireland we never implemented it in the first place, and indeed here we don’t even have a government service capable of taking over servers (lack of technical capacity, there are like two people in the whole police service capable, and we know their names ).

@chrisfostertv

Can you think of a way around this, prior to launch?

Relative to other risks I think this one isn’t worth considering at the time. It’s only a problem once everyone considers SAFE to be a problem. When I hear SAFE on the morning BBC news to the ruling elite, then it’s time to start worrying.

@chrisfostertv

Once launched, can you envisage a native SAFE repo system that could overcome this weakness…it’s a terrible thing to have hanging over the network.

We need to retain the ability to push software updates especially in the early days, but end users can always disable it. Again, relative to risk I wouldn’t worry about it. There are far, far bigger targets than MaidSafe e.g. imagine the Linux kernel getting code introduced into it.

@kirkion

My thought would be to have multiple actors involved, who are all mutually checking each other for transparency and openness. Don’t have it be a “Warrant Canary” per se. Just a set of watchdogs, who are all watching each other for transparency.

All open source code is only as strong as the eyeballs watching it. For example, look at OpenSSL and that (ongoing) travesty of the commons.

@kirkion

If Maidsafe were to be served with an injunction and start to be forced to do objectionable things, they would need to impose a veil of secrecy over the process. If these groups were watching for that, and trumpeted that to the skies, that would be a pretty effective warrant canary, and might also serve some other purposes in terms of promoting long-term openness.

Again, get multiple interest groups, some in the US, some in other places (perhaps countries which are not likely to cooperate with a US or EU extradition order) involved and it becomes very difficult to suborn everyone involved.

So long as the UK keeps the EU Human Rights Legislation (they are trying to opt out), the government cannot compel behaviour which would have material effects, so in other words they cannot get us to continue working on the codebase.

Hence any such takeover would be accompanied by all us going suddenly quiet. Well, except for me, I live in Ireland and I am not employed by MaidSafe, rather my consulting company is. I am therefore bound by Irish law, and British gag orders don’t affect me. Moreover, my government has a very hostile response to any British government trying to impose itself over here :), and of course Ireland is not part of the “5 Eyes” security alliance.

There are therefore plenty of canaries, just they are of the obvious kind rather than images which change colour or flip over quietly etc.

@Al_Kafir

I really can’t envisage DIrvine crumpling so easily given his drive/vision and the potential humanitarian benefits this project could bring - .just can’t see it. I can however imagine him waving from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy alongside Julian Assange…lol…Never Surrender!..FREEDOM!!!Seriously though, if security is a concern, then put the code on a pen drive and I will hide it in a cleverly disguised bean tin safe amongst the other tins in my cupboard.

Agreed. This is all very remote risk stuff. It’s much easier for the government to tap you without ever appearing to do so. Then we don’t know, and therefore don’t get spooked.

And as the Assange thing shows, just because they have the powers in the UK doesn’t mean they use them. We trust our government to not use their powers, and almost always they don’t.

Niall