Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theintercept.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 629 posts

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

#521

Post by YokoZar »

serge2k wrote: post #350
gambiting wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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.

They have every right to pull your app, arrest you and prosecute you if you ever do go to their country, and apply to have your extradited under relevant treaties.

I disagree, because I believe human rights exist.

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

#522

Post by sschueller »

ex3ndr wrote: post #452
julioneander wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That app looks really cool! I was looking at the Actor Developer Hub, there is a guide explaining how to install an Actor Server. Does that mean that Actor is decentralized? How does that work?

We are working on it, right now servers are not connected together. We are planning to integrate with Matrix.org.

Any ETA on that? I would be huge.

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

#523

Post by ashitlerferad »

millak wrote: post #482
ashitlerferad wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a flaw in the service if it can be shut down that easily.

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?

Using DNS is the start of the flaw.

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

#524

Post by cyxxon »

piyush_soni wrote: post #493
joshvm wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can believe them when they say they don't keep data. When I got a new phone (the old one broke), I was expecting my conversations to be in the cloud somewhere so that I could recover them. Nope, I lost everything that I hadn't backed up. I don't see what they can gain from storing masses of old chats and then not allowing users to download them onto new devices. If they kept chats to do analytics on, there's no rea…

Digressing from the actual discussion, Whatsapp now allows you to keep a backup of your chats and related media on your Google Drive and then recover it when you move to a new device. Probably applicable only for newer versions of Android (not sure about iOS).

You can backup to (and restore from) iCloud, but then again WhatsApp (the company) does not have the data then.

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

#525

Post by ricksplat »

mirimir wrote: post #502
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…

That makes sense to me. But there really is no international law that's coherent and enforceable. It's a hard problem.

I think given that, it is reasonable for local jurisdictions to act as they see fit.

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

#526

Post by Loque »

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…

Unfortunately I think the Judge does not understand the context here, users of whatsapp will simply use another messaging app - the role of a messaging app is not to store users conversations but relay them.

Any messaging app that actively stores conversations, and then turns them over to anyone when requested will simply not be used by the public (or if it is, it won't be for very long).

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

#527

Post by shultays »

mliker wrote: post #417
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…

storing data for 1 billion users and maintaining consistency is a pain the butt operationally. Whatsapp isn't storing the data. If they are, they're spending hundreds of millions on servers for data they can't monetize easily without alienating all of its users.

It is just text records, I doubt it will take hundreds of millions, even at whatsapp levels

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

#528

Post by zorked »

gtirloni wrote: post #324
HappyTypist wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see telcos choosing to comply with the order instead of fighting back (like Apple) as a sign of fragility.

In countries with fragile democracies (or that have recently come out of a dictatorship, like Brazil since 1985), when people say "institutions are strong/weak" they are talking about Congress, the Legal system, Law Enforcement, etc. They are often trying to say that "the law means something" as opposed to elites/politicians/etc ruling the country as they wish, according to personal interests. Telcos and App provider…

I'm talking about the institutions that defend Brazilians' access to basic communications infrastructure in the face of any random judge trying to rule against mathematics.

Check the US for example, Apple was able to fight the government's request and prevail _before_ the government did anything about it, not after. In Brazil, Tim Cook would have been arrested right away.

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

#529

Post by newjersey »

patall wrote: post #504
nitrogen wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a digital native, I feel like an international Internet is more important than national sovereignty. That is, I don't think the interesting question is whether US or Brazilian law should apply, the question is how to ensure international access to international digital resources.

I may a.gree with that but still, just because you do not like a law you have to comply. You can try to change it but as long as it exists its law for everyone. You cannot say murder should be legal, therefore I am allowed to do it.

> I may a.gree with that but still, just because you do not like a law you have to comply. You can try to change it but as long as it exists its law for everyone. You cannot say murder should be legal, therefore I am allowed to do it.

Bad laws are bad laws. If you can avoid complying with them, you absolutely should.

I wonder if you'd say the same to Gandhi. "The law is for everyone so you can't evade taxes by making your own salt." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March

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

#530

Post by newjersey »

patall wrote: post #506
hrktb wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> otherwise, do not open any office abroad and do what you want. Isn't this a fair position ? Imagine you are a lone dev creating a service that has no specific limitations. You are subject to your countries law, but should also be liable under each single law of every country where your users might happen to be ? It seems to me that countries should have the right to do what they want within their borders (including…

What is your problem here? He does not shut down WhatsApp in total or request info for US user or anything like that, only in Brazil. This does not affect you at all. If they do not obey the law in another country, they do not get access there. Their activities in any other country do not change.

One problem I have is free trade. Can the US just randomly ban one of Brazil's exports? I mean the US likely exports more to Brazil than imports from it but if this weren't the case...
Post reply on HN