Well isn't a warrant canary that is public knowledge just considered a method of breaking NSL silence? To be safe, a warrant canary would need to be plausibly deniable.
If I were a three letter agency who illegally threatened some crypto developer with unsavory things, willing to send him to Guantanamo or to outright kill him (as some people on HN obviously can imagine very well)... I'd just shrug my shoulders after this highly conspicuous way of shutting down the project and think "well played, Mr. Developer, no hard feelings".
