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

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

#301

Post by cantrevealname »

JDazzle wrote: post #295
cantrevealname wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can believe them [WhatsApp] when they say they don't keep data. If that's true, I'm in awe of their integrity. Skype on the other hand now has complete disregard for user privacy. Skype stores your voice mails and video messages forever[1]. This is something that they started doing 2-3 years ago and few people seem to be aware of it. It's amazing how low Skype fallen from its early days when it was considered a b…

I thought Skype only stores the last 30 days of data on their servers, while it will store every piece of data received on your local computer indefinitely (unless you delete it, of course).

No. I personally have a video message that is almost 3 years old that I've tried to delete multiple times over the years and it still shows up if I do a fresh install of Skype on a new computer.

Very old voice messages are also accessible even if "deleted".

Text chats do seem to disappear, but at this point I don't believe anything Skype says. I figure they keep the chats forever as well.

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

#302

Post by Grollicus »

gambiting wrote: post #273
kuschku wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 i…

>>At which point you agree to adhere to their laws and regulations. Uhm nope. If my app(published on Apple Store/Google Play) violated a law in Saudi Arabia and they sent me a letter requesting me to appear and subject myself to 100 lashes for violating their law, I would very promptly disregard said letter, to put it politely.

You might do this and then you get convicted in absentia, Saudi Arabia will send a request for extradiction, your country will say no, done. Except: better not travel to Saudi Arabia or any other country that will extradict. Also Saudi Arabia will propably ban your App, which is what is happening in Brasil.

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

#303

Post by rgo »

My sister worked closely with many of the parties involved in the "Marco Civil", Brazil's brilliant Internet Bill of Rights. Two years later, I feel much of her work was in vain. No significant legislation was enacted from it and lately judges are trying to circumvent common sense by brute force. Now over 100M people are unable to use their communication platform of choice for 72h. In the meanwhile, congressmen are busy impeaching the president and calling it an act of god, probably as a device to expiate their own sins. It would make a good argument for a Game of Thrones clone series, some would say. And my sister, she's been out of the job since last January. She was let go when local NGOs ran out of money for fighting for an open internet. It seems freedom is the first thing that runs out in a recession. Scarcity is a bitch.

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

#304

Post by rglullis »

robbiemitchell wrote: post #291
rglullis wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To become a telco, in the first place you need to comply with all of the laws to be allowed to operate. In the case of the US, this is CALEA, and every phone company should be able to provide a backdoor that allows the agencies to follow court orders and tap phones. Brazil has similar laws for the phone networks. The problem with the attitude of the Brazilian courts in regards to Whatsapp is that they are not a telco…

It's not about providing a backdoor, it's about retroactively having recorded all conversations demanded by a judge.

Like I said, the Brazilian code about Internet communications (Marco Civil) establishes that all companies must retain all data for one year.

This was passed in 2014, so the main allegation from the Brazilian courts is that Whatsapp should have this data, anyway. There is nothing "retroactive" there.

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

#305

Post by noarchy »

brazildewhatsap wrote: post #244
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.

>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.

This almost sounds like fundamentalist religion, to say the law is that sacrosanct. Some bad laws have historically been overcome precisely by people ignoring them, rendering them effectively unenforceable.

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

#306

Post by gtirloni »

icebraining wrote: post #290
LoSboccacc wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doesn't law there mandate retaining of all communications for service providers? if that's the case, as hinted by other people, and whatsapp has been found in violation of that requirement, then blocking it seems the correct course of action (given the judge cannot change nor ignore the law) the big IF is what the Brazilian communication law mandates to companies providing a service on their territory.

doesn't law there mandate retaining of all communications for service providers? From what I can tell (I can read Portuguese, but I'm not versed in Brazilian law), that's only for ISPs.

ISPs have to maintain access records for an year. Application providers for six months [1]

http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2011-2014/2014/lei/... (subsection III, article 15).

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

#307

Post by lucb1e »

jaflo wrote: post #110
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.

While it is true that Telegram's clients are open-sourced, their server-side code is not. So we don't know how information is stored on the server (I do not think that it is encrypted).

Closed source servers are no problem in verifying E2E encryption if the client is open source. Whatsapp's issue is that the clients are closed source. Telegram's issue is that it's optional to encrypt your messages. That's the long and short of this whole Whatsapp versus Telegram discussion.

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

#308

Post by coliveira »

rmsaksida wrote: post #288
coliveira wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people that say there is no coup going on are people supporting the coup. Please get informed about this discussion.

The impeachment process is strictly following the Constitution and being closely monitored by the Supreme Court. The majority of the Brazilian population, the majority of deputies and the majority of senators support it. The majority of foreign watchers consider it a legitimate process. It is not a coup by any stretch of the imagination.

A valid impeachment needs to follow from legitimate charges of wrongdoing according to the constitution. The charges against the president have not been ruled as crimes, unlike what happened for example to Mr. Collor de Mello in the 90s. The charges are merely accusations, which need to be proved beyond doubt. Therefore, the whole process is illegal. The congress and the majority of the country are betting on the fact that the charges will be considered as real crimes by the supreme court, but there is a lot of questions if this will eventually happen (contrary to what the media is promoting). The government, on the other hand, is pretty sure that there is no crime involved. Because of the shaky ground of the whole process, a large number of jurists consider the whole thing to be a coup.

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

#309

Post by Grollicus »

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?

In Germany you get recompensation for that. Also one might argue if they don't like the laws they shouldn't access the market.
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