Maybe I am not correctly envisioning your usecase, but it seems like we have fairly similar problems from your description and these all help me to achieve my goals pretty much every week over and over again.
Apologies if I misunderstood the challenges you are dealing with.
FileRun looks promising. It looks like I'd have to develop the composite object feature, but there's enough already here to make that a less-time consuming task.
you know you are in trouble when we start having electron shortages resulting in not enough electrons to erase flash chips so we can program in the large bank balances :-)
Save people like me a trip to the Google:
NSL = A national security letter (NSL) is an administrative subpoena issued by the United States federal government to gather information for national security purposes. NSLs do not require prior approval from a judge.
Not only do NSLs not require approval from a judge, they also include a very intimidating gag order that prevents you from discussing the issue with anyone else (including even your own family).
One of the big problems with NSLs is that you can't let anyone know that you've received or acted on one, so there's very little accountability.
Hence the recent trend of some companies including a warrant canary on their websites, under the assumption that a NSL can't prevent you from _not_ saying something (e.g. deleting the canary).
I think deleting something would be considered an active action. The trick with a canary is that you're choosing not to do something, so it can't compel you to act (as compared to, for example, telling you you can't delete the canary).
So for it to work, you need to issue a statement every month that says you haven't been issued a NSL, and then simply not issue a statement the month you finally were issued a NSL. That would then require the government to actually compel speech (compel you to post a new notice saying you didn't receive a canary).
Of course, the above should make it blatantly obvious how absolutely absurd the blanket gag order on NSLs are.
It's not necessarily deleting anything. Reddit states in its transparency reports that it has not received any NSLs. The idea is that if they ever received one they would simply omit that clause from the next report (not remove it from prior ones).
Interestingly, if you accept that code can be copyrighted, and that only things that are expressions (speech) are eligible for copyright ("A copyrighted work must be an original work of authorship which is fixed in a tangible medium of expression"), then code == speech.
So, by compelling Apple to code something that doesn't exist, the government would indeed actually be compelling speech.
Court processes involve compelled speech all the time. Heck, compelling witness testimony, which is one of the most well-established parts of the court process, is nothing but compelling speech.
So, I'm not sure what the value is of a clever argument that compelling Apple to comply with the order here is "compelling speech" is supposed to be (likewise, the upthread one about NSL canaries.)
Fair points that I concede. I'll note I also forgot the nuance mentioned by morsch (that a canary is compelling a lie, which is potentially different).
On a separate note though, I've always thought it would be interesting to see a member of Congress be issued a NSL and then have them read it on the floor of the House/Senate (since they have parliamentary immunity for anything they say on the floor of the House or Senate).
Compelling speech is a thing that happens under certain circumstances. E.g. subpoenas, witnesses in court. Though those are clearly different from a canary, not least because producing such a canary would not just be compelling speech, but compelling a lie.
Nicholas Merrill famously fought a 11 year legal battle (and finally won) the right to reveal all aspects of a National Security Letter (NSL) served to him. Almost all such letters are accompanied by a complete gag order.
It was Nicholas Merrill from a little ISP called Calyx Internet Access that famously challenged the NSL process.
LavaBit's Lamar Levinson is assumed to be under a gag order from some request he was given by the US government, of which he declined by way of folding his company and claiming that he could not comply moving forward if he was no longer the middleman of some form of communications.
I know it requires Tim Cook to be willing to martyr himself, but do we really see Obama whisking the CEO of Apple Computer off to Guantanamo or some supermax prison?
I'd maybe call the bluff, and take my political stand.
Cook wouldn't have to go that far. The court order specified Apple, not Tim Cook personally. He can simply resign instead of following the court order. For that matter, so can the engineers that Apple would need to work on this project.
Employee A doesn't have to actually quit, they just have to credibly threaten to. Say, by signing an open letter that says that they'd quit before helping backdoor the iPhone. Apple can then claim that they cannot bring together a team that is willing and able to backdoor that iPhone.
When you break down the process of having a private company comply with an order to create a particular piece of software, there's many failure points.
The counter from the governmental side is "we will give your company massive fines until and unless your company complies".
As a note, the actual text of the court order (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2714001-SB-Shooter-O...) explicitly says that Apple can appeal it on grounds that it is an unreasonable request. Uncooperative engineers can make it an unreasonable request, and have the legal right to be as uncooperative as they want to be in this case. And, they're on the same side as the CEO of Apple ethically, so it isn't career suicide.
> > The counter from the governmental side is "we will give your company massive fines until and unless your company complies".
> At which point is becomes worth it for Apple to pay an engineer to do the job. I doubt it wouldn't take much of a bonus to get someone to do it.
What happens if Apple says they aren't paying these unjust fines? Theoretically, court order, law, or what-have-you, Apple can just straight refuse to participate (and hopefully other big tech companies would follow suit).
Sure the gov't can make arrests, threats, seize assets -- but in the end, the gov't still don't get what they want (but they do get a ton of very, very bad PR in the process). At a point, the gov't would have to stop -- destroying the world's most valuable company, and one of America's sweetheart companies, all over this... wouldn't play out well.
> What happens if Apple says they aren't paying these unjust fines?
Then they'll be subject to additional penalties, seizure of property, etc., and quite possibly shareholder lawsuits stemming from the decision to incur those losses.
> Sure the gov't can make arrests, threats, seize assets -- but in the end, the gov't still don't get what they want
Maybe, given the recent discussion of mandatory limits on encrypted communication services without up-front backdoors, what the government wants is a clear demonstration that the operation of those services interferes with evidence and intelligence gathering in terrorism cases to build the case for new laws restricting the operations of such services.
Yeah, I mean it seems like the other commenter is implying that, at the end of the day, the government can't actually do anything to a big company. Clearly that's not true. The Us government has completely broken up companies, which is a heck of a lot more intrusive than forcing them to decrypt phones.
> implying that, at the end of the day, the government can't actually do anything to a big company
I wasn't trying to imply this at all - of course the government can destroy companies.
What I was implying is that, given the past few years of heightened public awareness of domestic government programs and efforts, perhaps this time public pressure would be exerted on the government to lay off the issue. Apple is one of the most loved companies in the country, people would be very interested in knowing why it's suddenly being torn down.
It would be quite unfair for anyone to expect martyrdom of Tim Cook, however, the action taken could send a very powerful message. Apple is one of the most loved companies in the US, if Cook and gang put the foot down firmly, surely the public struggle would generate immense discussion.
People would want to know why their favorite company was drawing a hard line, hopefully lead to a more educated debate.
We couldn't possibly expect this to take place as it would imply huge fallout for Apple. The only real course of action is to keep up the public debate in a loud way.
If an order is directed to Apple, and Apple fails to comply, the court can order sanctions against Apple for contempt.
The authorities don't have to "come for" any person (they might follow up with orders directed at particular persons, in which case those persons would be at risk of personal sanctions, as well.)
It's not just bay area. I'm in Boston, and around here everyone under 30 seems to know of (and mostly use) Venmo, and many technically inclined older folk.
Interested to hear why you think it's unimpressive. It just works, and it adds a fun, social element to payments without being creepy or annoying about it.
The key to the product is the strength of the network. They got all the major banks and CC providers to sign onto the platform, which was unprecedented. So from that standpoint, it's a fantastic product.
I don't think it's bad at all. You're right that it does exactly what it says it does and that's cool, but that doesn't make it impressive.
It's not particularly well designed, I don't know why there's a social dimension to it, etc. I don't think every product needs to be impressive and I don't mean it as a dig on Venmo. Just that if there IS a way to fill this niche in an "impressive" way, Venmo isn't it.
Edit: Actually Square Cash is pretty damn impressive. Emailing cash instantly with no need for accounts? That's baller.
