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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

#511

Post by patall »

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.

I am shocked so many of you agree with this. If it is forbidden to kill people, you have done something very bad and everyone else wants to kill you, they are still not allowed. (They may change the law and kill you then but for now, they are not allowed.) This is called justice.

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

#512

Post by antr »

rplnt wrote: post #501
rmc wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WhatsApp is a US company and... I always feel like many large US tech companies want to have their cake and eat it. They want to be a global company, they want to have 2 billion users, and are valued at having that many users. But when it comes to laws, suddenly they operate under US law alone. I wouldn't mind if they ignored all national laws, and acted like a true global company. But I'm not from the USA (or Braz…

> when it comes to laws, suddenly they operate under US law alone And when it comes to taxes...

... and when it comes to taxes they operate under US law, meaning that if they repatriate any foreign profits, they will have to pay taxes. If they decide not to, like Apple has decided, they won't be liable for any tax payment.

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

#513

Post by fx85ms »

sangnoir wrote: post #146
newman314 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therein lies the rub. What's "legal" does not always mean it's right. To hide behind "it's legal" to me is harmful to humanity as ofttimes the law is behind the curve, we can and should be better.

> Therein lies the rub. What's "legal" does not always mean it's right. > To hide behind "it's legal" to me is harmful to humanity as ofttimes the law is behind the curve, we can and should be better. I'm with you - but acting on your convictions and doing what's right should also mean accepting the consequences of the current laws. I for one am freaked out by a future where Multinationals get to pick and choose whic…

Thank you so much for this! The way Uber cherry picks the laws in the countries or even US states just disgusts me to no end. It would indeed be a scary future if multinational corporations get to infringe on countries' sovereign rights.

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

#514

Post by zyx321 »

zmmmmm wrote: post #433
marcosdumay wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has at least one company in Brazil, and they are providing a service in Brazil that this judge ordered to interrupt. It's perfectly reasonable to forbid access to Brazil for some service that does not follow a Brazilian law. This is bad because of the specific terms of this law, not because of some broad issue.

> providing a service in Brazil I don't know if they have servers in brazil, but if they don't then it seems quite unreasonable to say that they are "providing a service in Brazil". If you run a bookstore in the US and a German comes and buys Nazi material, are you running a store in Germany? If Brazilians are effectively leaving their country to go get stuff from US servers then it's up to the Brazilian government t…

>If you run a bookstore in the US and a German comes and buys Nazi material, are you running a store in Germany?

No, but if she buys via mail order and the package gets confiscated at the border, don't whine about losing business.

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

#515

Post by acchow »

Touche wrote: post #280
acchow wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Whatsapp simply ignored brazilian justice system as if it was above the law. For me, all of this is Whatsapp fault. Whatsapp deletes its messages from its servers after delivery. So it can't even provide the messages even if it wanted to. Also, since end-to-end encryption, the as-yet-undelivered messages sitting on Whatsapp servers are encrypted. Whatsapp has no way to actually read them.

> Whatsapp deletes its messages from its servers after delivery. So it can't even provide the messages even if it wanted to. That's not a valid excuse for any law I'm aware of. It's your responsibility to be aware of, and to comply with, laws in places you do business in. To be clear, this is a terrible law, and I think Whatsapp should absolutely not concede to it. But just so we're clear, "I didn't know any better"…

I think you're confused, but I can't think of any clearer way to explain this to you. I suggest you try to read my post again.

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

#516

Post by rekshaw »

rmc wrote: post #495
envy2 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There seem to be a few problems with this analysis. First, WhatsApp is a US company and has no presence in Brazil. Under many readings of US law (specifically, ECPA), US companies are in fact prohibited from complying with requests from foreign law enforcement for content, except in emergencies. Instead, foreign law enforcement must make a request for assistance to the US DoJ, which will then (eventually, and maybe)…

> WhatsApp is a US company and... I always feel like many large US tech companies want to have their cake and eat it. They want to be a global company, they want to have 2 billion users, and are valued at having that many users. But when it comes to laws, suddenly they operate under US law alone. I wouldn't mind if they ignored all national laws, and acted like a true global company. But I'm not from the USA (or Braz…

completely agree.

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

#520

Post by aurbano »

kawera wrote: post #484
millak wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that a flaw in the service? The ISP/mobile operator is essentially the gatekeeper to the Internet; having them block WhatsApp (or anything else) is just a case of them adding a block rule to their DNS. What would interest me is knowing whether or not access is still blocked if you change your default DNS server to something like 8.8.8.8?

Changing the DNS server has no effect; I use Google's and it's still blocked.

WhatsApp uses IP addresses directly to route the traffic, but you could still use a VPN. The problem is that unless everyone else uses one you won't be able to talk to them...
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