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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

#561

Post by simonh »

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…

There's absolutely nothing special in this case because WhatsApp happens to be operating on the internet. Suppose they were a mail order company based in Brazil but serving customers internationally by post. If a US judge issued a court order in the US requiring the company to hand over business records stored on paper in Barzil, he would have no jurisdiction whatsoever. Brazilian law protecting the privacy of information stored in Brazil would prevail. there would be no controversy about this.

The fact that WhatsApp's info is stored on servers rather than paper records is irrelevant. The jurisdiction in which the records reside applies. Although the fact that their servers don't even store the information requested anyway should be.

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

#562

Post by simonh »

dmix wrote: post #216

For the record, WhatsApp has had end-to-end encryption enabled for Android Android since 2014. And 92.4% of smartphones in Brazil use Android: http://www.statista.com/statistics/245189/market-share-of-mo... So it is very unlikely they have any plaintext data for the users in question. Especially if the investigation happened recently since the roll-out of E2E on all devices. Additionally, it's possible WhatsApp did n…

WhatsApp have said they don't store the messages anyway, whether they were sent in plain text or not.

Also any such records would be stored on servers in the US, not Brazil, so would be subject to US law. The Brazillian judge should be entering a request with the US DOJ but is either too much of an idiot or too busy doing political grandstanding with stupid futile gestures like this.

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

#563

Post by simonh »

Freak_NL wrote: post #507
escape_goat wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact, it's kind of insensitive for foreigners to suggest that a judge of a sovereign nation must consider US law in his rulings. My apologies, but I think that if you re-read what was written, you will find that this was not suggested. The comment was written in response to one that came to the conclusion that this "was all [WhatsApp's] fault." It is suggesting that WhatsApp is not at fault, is probably strictly…

Huge international US-based companies tend to comply with EU laws just fine (or at least participate in the judicial process) if they are doing business there. Whatsapp can choose to assign resources to this issue, or it can ignore it and let it solve itself. If Whatsapp thinks that Brazil is an interesting market for whatever it is selling (what are they selling?) or if it is good for PR then they may choose to seek…

> Huge international US-based companies tend to comply with EU laws just fine

When they are operating their business within the EU, yes. For example US companies operating servers in the EU must comply with EU data protection laws regarding information on those servers. This situation is analogous. WhatsApp's servers are in the US so US law applies. If the servers were in the EU then EU law would apply, not Brazilian law.

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

#564

Post by aedron »

white-flame wrote: post #543
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…

If it was a small company based out of Iceland, or South Africa, or Singapore, it would still be in the same legal situation. The company (assuming just a single incorporation presence) is under the laws of the country it's from, and Joe Random user from across the internet is internationally accessing it. National law cannot enforce anything on organizations not within the national jurisdiction, without internationa…

That is false, at least in the example of online retail. If you sell stuff to someone in another country, online or not, you are bound by the consumer protection laws of that country. So someone in Scandinavia has two years of warranty on a laptop bought on dell.com, vs. one year for an American making the same purchase.

I don't think it makes a difference whether what you are offering is physical or not, your service is bound by the laws in whichever country the exchange takes place. Of course enforcement might be an issue, which is exactly why the Brazilian judge did what he did, when Whatsapp failed to abide by Brazilian law.

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

#565

Post by rmc »

simonh wrote: post #561
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…

There's absolutely nothing special in this case because WhatsApp happens to be operating on the internet. Suppose they were a mail order company based in Brazil but serving customers internationally by post. If a US judge issued a court order in the US requiring the company to hand over business records stored on paper in Barzil, he would have no jurisdiction whatsoever. Brazilian law protecting the privacy of inform…

> Suppose they were a mail order company based in Brazil but serving customers internationally by post. If a US judge issued a court order in the US requiring the company to hand over business records stored on paper in Barzil, he would have no jurisdiction whatsoever.

Fair point. But to continue that analogy, the US judge is quite free to ban the commercial operation of that Brazilian company in the USA. Which is exactly what happens, and is happening here.

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

#566

Post by School-Cotton »

powera wrote: post #218
soapdog wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am saying this because people do take offense on the 3rd world monicker. In many fields that term is considered offensive when used in public discourse. This is not a joke. What a group perceives as normal speech may be a term that in other circles is considered bad and better terms and classifications might be in place

You can't just declare a common word to be offensive and get offended when people use it in a normal context and expect to have a reasonable conversation.

You don't know many 21st century identity-politics leftists, I guess. Try visiting Seattle :)

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

#567

Post by rmc »

ricksplat wrote: post #536
mirimir wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For everyone to act as they see fit, I believe.

You mean as a Freeman of the Land? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemen_on_the_land As an ideological position it has some interesting points to make, but in a contemporary legal setting it's difficult to find footing. My personal position is informed by Hobbes ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(book) ) in that we have to make compromise with our individual liberty to bring about a greater good. > "No arts;…

> in a contemporary legal setting it's difficult to find footing.

Freemnan-on-the-land is totaly quackery in a comptemporary legal setting. It's like homeopathy, but for laws. It's Creationism, it's snake oil. Fundamentally it presumes/assumes that laws work differently from how the organs of the state think they work.

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

#568

Post by School-Cotton »

twoarray wrote: post #50
samstave wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost like Brazil is the most technologically advanced poor-3rd-world-nation I know from my brief time at Facebook, they use Brazil user-searches in their intro classes to tableau reporting on users' graphs - "show me everyone in Brazil who is 18 years old and posted about subject-X"

Your comment was filled with the typical Valley arrogance and ignorance with anything outside of SoMa. Not only is Brazil not a poor-3rd-world-nation, but other similar developing nations are by far more "technologically advanced" (e.g. China, India).

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about if you think China, Brazil, and India are all at similar levels of development.

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

#569

Post by aedron »

gambiting wrote: post #547
kuschku wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling apps is like selling any other product. I can’t sell medical marihuana in most states of the US – and I don’t go and try, and then complain about getting arrested. Instead, if I wanted to start a business doing that, I’d check out where it would be legal, and in which ways, and sell my product in those markets. Why do you assume you can sell your product in markets without having checked the legality, and the…

Hmmmm your example isn't exactly valid. If I was selling something on ebay out of EU, and you ordered something from me to US, I would almost definitely not get in trouble for sending it to you, unless it was an item which has export restrictions from my country. Or to go back to my example of Saudi Arabia - if someone from Saudi Arabia bought something from me I would definitely absolutely not bother to check if wha…

If you sell in another country you are subject to their laws, an obvious example is consumer protection laws. This is a fact. Whether or not you are going to follow any rulings made against you is another matter, in that case all the country can do is try to block you in whichever way they can (like Brazil just did) and possibly prosecute you in absentia.

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

#570

Post by kawera »

mirimir wrote: post #492
kawera wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What if you hit it via some VPN service?

I can reach them through a VPN, no problem at all to communicate with people outside of Brazil or with those connected through a VPN.

OT: Intrigued and tempted by ivpn.net but the about page don't give me enough info to decide (no team, no physical address...) Where can I read more?

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