Veuwer secretly changes it's canary message. ( conspiracy )

submitted by Stavon

Two days ago, hidden in a commit along a bugfix, there was a change in the Veuwer transparency report canary page. It did make it a lot more specific. No explanation given.

This means: There have possibly been secret takedown requests. There might be gag orders or "other requests for user information" which are not labeled 'classified'.

before: 

            No takedown requests, secret or otherwise.<br />
            No requests for user information, secret or otherwise.

after: 

            No takedown requests.<br />
            No requests for user information.
            No gag orders, National Security Letters, orders under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or any other classified requests for user information.

Icy-Defiance

Yo, Veuwer creator here. The canary was changed because it was recommended that I make it more explicit, so I adapted the one from reddit's transparency report. Maybe I should have waited for the next month to make a change, but meh, I can promise I've had no Veuwer related contact with any representatives of any government. I'm not big enough yet for governments to give a shit about me.

Starting next month I'll probably save transparency reports as a .txt file instead of being part of the site's code, so any changes made to them will be more obvious. Plus GitHub helps, as shown by this post.

I can answer any questions here if you want.

Astrojardin

I think everyone will just be happy to know that Veuwer didn't secretly get jacked by the government.

kendamagendale

This seems like a net positive?

What type of request do you think this wouldn't cover?

It seems like they were just expanding the canary to cover more possibilities?

SharonLeeFan

They removed the phrase, "secret or otherwise".

Mumberthrax

what are the implications of removing that clause? isn't it redundant already?

Zen0

The more popular and expansive something becomes, the more ideas are shared, the more ideas are shared, the more people those ideas reach, the more people that are capable of being reached, the more dangerous it becomes for the power that be.

I'm sure the intelligence agencies are attempting to cover their bases and establish control. The ability to seize vast amounts of information at a moment's notice is their source of power. To limit that puts them in jeopardy. They will not allow that to happen. This is most likely only the beginning.

Stavon

Every pic shared on Veuwer is public, It's what intelligence agencies like most. I can't think of agencies having enough resources to influence really small image hosters. I really don't have a clue here, but it smells fishy.

Stavon

Sorry for the typo in thetitle