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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

#241

Post by speeder »

t3nary wrote: post #229
MoreTuple wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they operate in Brazil? They apparently have no offices there and are only available over the internet (as is true of all websites throughout most of the world.) How can anyone expect to hold what amounts to a random IP address on the internet responsible for anything?

Their apps are in the Brazilian app stores

My apps are in the Danish Google Play and Apple App Store...

I never been there, I don't read or write danish, I never interacted with danish government, or met any danish person.

If the dane government wanted something from me, and sent a letter to some random person, written in danish, even if it reaches me, I wouldn't understand it anyway.

Thus, having app in some other country store doesn't prove much, except that you clicked "publish" somewhere on Google or Apple uploading interfaces.

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

#242

Post by fredguth »

Netcob wrote: post #239
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…

To repeat what everyone else has said: The data doesn't exist on whatsapp's servers. Now I know the law's position is basically "do what we say or we'll punish you until you comply - and we'll simply ignore you until you figure out a way to do so". Obviously that's literally impossible for data that doesn't exist anymore, but of course it's technically possible to comply with these laws in the future. And I think tha…

> If your position is unpopular with your friends, then it's because you think the law is more important than the entire society it's supposed to protect.

Totally agree. This is unfortunately a very authoritarian world of view that is not uncommon.

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

#243

Post by cmurf »

robbiemitchell wrote: post #199
curiouscats wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies can be punished for failure to obey laws. If a company didn't bother to retain records on who bought something they are now required to recall due to safety failures I can't imagine any country would say that is ok. They would be punished. I don't happen to think the law mentioned is a good one. And I have no idea how the law is actually worded. Depending on how it is worded maybe it is ok to just not keep…

So if a judge demanded a telco hand over an audio recording of any specific conversation, they must comply -- even though calls are not recorded and stored? If a judge demanded the postal service hand over an image of every envelope processed, it must comply -- even though no such images exist? Where does it end?

USPS does do that. It's considered metadata.

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

#244

Post by brazildewhatsap »

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…

I am Brazilian as well and feel the same way. Laws are laws. We can change them if we don't like them, but defying and ignoring them is the wrong course of action.

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

#245

Post by kuschku »

spullara wrote: post #172
Fargren wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If WhatsApp is unable to comply with Brazilian law, should it be allowed to operate in Brazil? I think this is a bad law by the way. Hopefully the clearly negative impact it is having will lead to it's reform.

It seems to me that they did comply with Brazilian law. They handed over all the conversations they had — zero. Is there a law that says they have to record all the conversations?

They didn’t – they didn’t hand over the IP addresses that were requested.

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

#246

Post by smegel »

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…

> Whatsapp is "too big to fail"

What a terrible analogy.

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

#247

Post by kuschku »

speeder wrote: post #241
t3nary wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their apps are in the Brazilian app stores

My apps are in the Danish Google Play and Apple App Store... I never been there, I don't read or write danish, I never interacted with danish government, or met any danish person. If the dane government wanted something from me, and sent a letter to some random person, written in danish, even if it reaches me, I wouldn't understand it anyway. Thus, having app in some other country store doesn't prove much, except tha…

> except that you clicked "publish" somewhere on Google or Apple uploading interfaces.

At which point you agree to adhere to their laws and regulations.

A famous example of someone operating legally under local law, but who got prosecuted for having merely a website accessible in another country, was Kim Dotcom.

That’s the current state of international law, either lobby to change it, or accept it, but don't ignore it.

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

#248

Post by ZenoArrow »

soapdog wrote: post #164
samstave wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you very much for the information. I stated something without the whole picture, and a lot of people replied. I will stand by my comment that Brazil is rather technologically advanced with respect to how net-savvy their population is. I wrongly stated that Brazil is 3rd-world... And as another user points out, Brazil "meerly" suffers from deep corruption. However, in my defense, I shall contend that the simple…

Favelas are a world fenomenon. We call them by various names, chantytowns, slums, whenever there is a long-term concentration of low-income classes without access to infrastructure but requiring living quarters near middle and upper income classes due to work reasons these tend to appear. Check out recent documentaries on Favelas, it will probably surprise you in both positive notes and also on horrible notes as well…

> "No one knows a way out of this mess."

Create and promote news outlets that represent the interests of the people. This also gives a platform for non-corrupt people to run for office. That's one potential solution I've found for the problems in my own country. Do you think it would help in Brazil?

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

#249

Post by Spivak »

MrMullen wrote: post #126
free2rhyme214 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh ffs, here we go again.

Yes, the signal protocol and signal's implementation are both open source, but you have no way to actually verify that WA has actually implemented the protocol correctly and securely. Sure you could do some basic packet analysis but this wouldn't tell you about the presence of any remotely triggered backdoors.

The only way for you as a user to actually verify the security is by reading the source and compiling the software yourself, or reading the source and verifying the signature via reproducible builds.

I really don't understand the business decision process here. If they just copied Signal with OSS/FOSS code and reproducible builds they would just win outright and tech people wouldn't have anything to complain about. The value of the service is the network anyway -- why care so much about the client?

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

#250

Post by batbomb »

cantrevealname wrote: post #236
btreesOfSpring wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shou…

> This ruling makes end-to-end encryption illegal where, a service provider at no time holds the keys The Big Company (like WhatsApp, Google, Apple) is always the easy target for subpoenas, judicial orders, and National Security Letters when it comes to encrypted transmissions. Here's an idea for a legal maneuver to take Big Company out of the picture: Suppose crypto was handled by an open source 3rd-party program th…

Supposedly Whatsapp has less than 100 employees.
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