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WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge

theintercept.com

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Re: WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge

#121

Post by return0 »

wslh wrote: post #108
soneca wrote: post #64

I'm here to defend the judge's ruling, a position very unpopular among all my friends here in Brazil. Brazilian law regarding regarding privacy of users of internet services is very recent and clear: if a judge order the company to share a specific user data, the company must comply. You can disagree with the law, but the law is there. Now, the judge ordered Whatsapp to share a particular user conversation (a suspect…

> You can disagree with the law, but the law is there. There is something called Civil disobedience ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience ) and surely if you analyze every law system it contradicts itself.

So, Facebook, a participant in PRISM, is now conducting civil disobedience. Totally believable.

Re: WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge

#123

Post by btreesOfSpring »

soneca wrote: post #64

I'm here to defend the judge's ruling, a position very unpopular among all my friends here in Brazil. Brazilian law regarding regarding privacy of users of internet services is very recent and clear: if a judge order the company to share a specific user data, the company must comply. You can disagree with the law, but the law is there. Now, the judge ordered Whatsapp to share a particular user conversation (a suspect…

This ruling makes end-to-end encryption illegal where, a service provider at no time holds the keys to decrypt messages between communicating parties. This is a protocol decision and since the Snowden revelations, a point of concern for civil libertarians. The Apple v FBI debate is a child of these exact concerns. The idea that governments want to legislate unfettered access to private communications and devices should be met with skepticism and public scrutiny that this Brazilian case will hopefully provide.

Re: WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge

#124

Post by soapdog »

School-Cotton wrote: post #96
soapdog wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samstave, Just a bit of nitpick to save you some trouble in the future. Brazil is not poor. Brazil is the seventh world economy, if you count the number of nations in north america and europe, being the seventh world economy is a great deal. Also the division in 1st world and 3rd world is schewed upon today. Its akin to saying the N-word. There are much better, non-pejorative terms to be used. Brazil is a part of the…

Total GDP (that is, not per capita) is completely irrelevant in determining whether a country is poor. The GDP of Africa is higher than that of Brazil. Does that mean if all the countries in Africa decided to merge into one country tomorrow, it would suddenly not be considered poor? Of course not. HDI (Human Development Index) and GDP per capita are both much better measurements of how "rich" a country is than raw GD…

I completely agree with you. HDI is a much better index and measurement. This is actually what we use in social programs here.

The GDP comment I made is that this is not a "poor country", it is instead a country full of wealth inequality and self-perpetuating bad distribution of opportunities where poor people are being kept poor due to having no access to infrastructure and opportunities.

It is a very complex situation and all expressions such as "poor-3rd-world" or "seventh gdp economy" are all reductionist and shallow compared to what is really happening.

Re: WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge

#125

Post by neerdowell »

soneca wrote: post #106
Others wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, as it says in the article, WhatsApp just doesn't have the data the judge wants it to turn over. How does it make sense to punish a company for not doing something that it physically cannot do?

I think this statement weird. End-to-end encryption is very recent, the data asked by the judge is for communication made before this feature roll-out. So I'm assuming Whatsapp do have the information for these two particular cases. But I could be wrong. Anyway, maybe they are just using it for PR support on their position against the court decision, betting that all of that Telegram new users will come back to Whats…

End-to-end encryption for Android to Android conversations has been in place since November 2014: https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/

Re: WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge

#126

Post by MrMullen »

free2rhyme214 wrote: post #99
twoarray wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed Telegram is not more secure than WhatsApp, but I usually take into account the position of each company and how that affects my particular use case.

Telegram secure chats are more secure than Whatsapp's recent encryption because the code is open source.

Whatapp's uses the Signal Protocol Java, which is open source.

https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-Whitepap...

https://github.com/WhisperSystems/libsignal-protocol-java

Re: WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge

#127

Post by saint_fiasco »

soneca wrote: post #106
Others wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, as it says in the article, WhatsApp just doesn't have the data the judge wants it to turn over. How does it make sense to punish a company for not doing something that it physically cannot do?

I think this statement weird. End-to-end encryption is very recent, the data asked by the judge is for communication made before this feature roll-out. So I'm assuming Whatsapp do have the information for these two particular cases. But I could be wrong. Anyway, maybe they are just using it for PR support on their position against the court decision, betting that all of that Telegram new users will come back to Whats…

When I buy a new cell phone my Whatsapp conversation history is lost but my Facebook message history is not. It's likely that Whatsapp discards the messages from their servers immediately after they confirm it has arrived to destination (the two check marks).

If the communication was made a long time ago, Whatsapp may no longer have it, encrypted or not.

Re: WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge

#128

Post by envy2 »

soneca wrote: post #106
Others wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, as it says in the article, WhatsApp just doesn't have the data the judge wants it to turn over. How does it make sense to punish a company for not doing something that it physically cannot do?

I think this statement weird. End-to-end encryption is very recent, the data asked by the judge is for communication made before this feature roll-out. So I'm assuming Whatsapp do have the information for these two particular cases. But I could be wrong. Anyway, maybe they are just using it for PR support on their position against the court decision, betting that all of that Telegram new users will come back to Whats…

WhatsApp publicly stated[1] in testimony before the Brazilian Congressional Committee on Cyber Crimes in December 2015 that they do not, and have not ever, retained the content of communications—regardless of E2E or not. Apparently, WhatsApp only retains messages until they are delivered.

[1] http://www2.camara.leg.br/atividade-legislativa/comissoes/co...

Re: WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge

#129

Post by uremog »

meira wrote: post #46
myth_drannon wrote: post #3

Unlike in N. America, in Brazil a lot of businesses depend on WhatsApp. You can talk with your doctor, call a plumber, claim insurance. On billboards no one puts a website address or an email, just phone number and WhatsUp. That's an economy cripling move and it's shocking how one judge can do it.

More important. Why aren't congressmen creating rules to prevent these monopolies ?

I'm not sure what law you can make to change people's favorite choice of Instant Messenger.

Re: WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge

#130

Post by CiPHPerCoder »

ww520 wrote: post #120
latj wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the most important part of the story. Facebook and Whatsapp are not ignoring the request. They have said that it is impossible for them to provide the information requested.

That's the problem with all these judicial orders. They think it's a flip of the switch to comply. Why don't the courts provide the money to build the services and infrastructure to comply with the order?

That would require a backdoor that didn't exist at the time and that WhatsApp doesn't want to create.
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