Github: https://github.com/WardPearce/Purplix.io
View our canary: https://purplix.io/c/purplix.io/3ZjhTlZRWv8iqa6sn9yJ3TRiIkVbwITOOlwLjJD36jQ
What is Purplix Canary?
Purplix Canary is a free & open source warrant canary tool what helps you to build trust with your users.
It allows you to inform users cryptographically if your site has been compromised, seized or raided by anyone.
How does it work?
Site verification
Purplix uses DNS records to verify the domain the canary is for, giving your users confidence they are trusting the right people.
Canary signatures
Each domain is associated with a unique key pair. The private key is generated locally and securely stored within the owner's keychain. When a user visits a canary from a specific domain for the first time, their private key is used to sign the public key. This signed version of the public key is then automatically employed for subsequent visits, effectively mitigating man-in-the-middle attacks and ensuring the trustworthiness of canary statements from the respective domain.
Files
Canaries can include signed documents to help users further understand a situation.
Notifications
Users are automatically notified on the event of a new statement being published.
Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that warrent canaries were a broken concept. Anyone with the power to submit a warrant to a company also has the ability to prevent the company from triggering their canary.
The idea is that there is no such action as “triggering the canary” that the government can stop them from taking. Instead they refrain from updating it, thus alerting people that something has occurred. However, since the point of a canary is that not updating it raises concerns, I’m not sure how this service makes any sense (alerts on new canaries?).
The idea is that there is a big difference between the government saying “don’t tell anyone about this” and saying “you must make a false statement (the canary) every X amount of time indefinitely.” In the past courts in the US have taken a fairly dim view of the government trying to compel speech. There are some example cases at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compelled_speech#United_States.
Also to note, that Purplix does warn users to assume the site has been compromised if the latest statement has expired.
That actually could be useful, by having a completely external company send a notification without action by the company receiving the warrant, it may be possible to circumvent the prohibition on alerting users.