Let's Encrypt Releases Transparency Report -- All Zeroes Across The Board
We've talked a bit about the important security certificate effort being put together by EFF, Mozilla and others, called Let's Encrypt, which will offer free HTTPS security certificates, making it much easier to encrypt the web. They've been busy working on the project which is set to launch in a few months. But first... Let's Encrypt has released its first transparency report. Yes, that's right: before it's launched. As you might expect, there are a lot of zeros here: 
This is actually pretty important for a variety of reasons. First, it clearly acts as something of a warrant canary. And by posting this now, before launch and before there's even been a chance for the government to request information, Let's Encrypt is actually able to say "0." That may seem like a strange thing to say but, with other companies, the government has told them that they're not allowed to claim "0," but can only give ranges -- such as 0 to 999 if they separate out the specific government requests, or 0 to 249 if they lump together different kinds of government orders. Twitter has been fighting back against these kinds of rules, and others have argued that revealing an accurate number should be protected speech under the First Amendment.
Let's Encrypt is, smartly, getting this first report out there -- with all the zeroes -- before the government can swoop in and insist that it has to only display ranges. In other words, this is getting in before any gag order can stop this kind of thing. Smart move. It's also nice to see them break down all of the different possible types of orders, rather than lumping them into more general buckets. That's an important step that it would be nice to see others follow as well.
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This is actually pretty important for a variety of reasons. First, it clearly acts as something of a warrant canary. And by posting this now, before launch and before there's even been a chance for the government to request information, Let's Encrypt is actually able to say "0." That may seem like a strange thing to say but, with other companies, the government has told them that they're not allowed to claim "0," but can only give ranges -- such as 0 to 999 if they separate out the specific government requests, or 0 to 249 if they lump together different kinds of government orders. Twitter has been fighting back against these kinds of rules, and others have argued that revealing an accurate number should be protected speech under the First Amendment. Let's Encrypt is, smartly, getting this first report out there -- with all the zeroes -- before the government can swoop in and insist that it has to only display ranges. In other words, this is getting in before any gag order can stop this kind of thing. Smart move. It's also nice to see them break down all of the different possible types of orders, rather than lumping them into more general buckets. That's an important step that it would be nice to see others follow as well.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story