Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data • Hacker News Board

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#421

Post by novaleaf » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

For anyone like me who didnt know about the case, this info is burried half way down the article:

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Smollett reported that two men attacked him near his high-rise apartment in the Streeterville neighborhood on a frigid night last Jan. 29, slipping a noose around his neck and shouting racist and homophobic slurs. Jussie Smollett files counterclaim against Chicago saying prosecution was malicious »

Smollett’s manager — whose Google account information has also been ordered turned over — called 911 to report the attack and met responding officers in the lobby of Smollett’s building. He can be seen on body camera footage reaching toward Smollett to grab the noose around his neck with disdain. “The reason I’m calling (police) is because of this s--- ,” he said.

But Smollett eventually turned from victim to suspect after an intense investigation by Chicago police detectives who used two brothers’ cellphone records, internet search history and text messages to corroborate their story that the actor paid them $3,500 to stage the attack.

Prosecutors alleged that Smollett staged the attack because he was unhappy with the “Empire” studio’s response to a threatening letter he received at work a week earlier. Chicago police took it a step further, accusing Smollett of faking the letter as well.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#422

Post by buboard » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #410

buboard wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could at least encrypt it, storing the key in the user’s devices.

That damages the user-friendliness of their offering, because users with that configuration are always one misplaced key away from losing everything with no way for Google to recover it for them (and yes, users will absolutely blame the company for this failure mode, and companies that do not offer this failure mode tend to succeed in the marketplace).

since the option is not available, we ll never know if users prefer it

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#423

Post by GhettoMaestro » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

harry8 wrote: post #109

ryanmccullagh wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s clear you have no idea what this actor did. He staged a hate crime in Chicago and the main cook county attorney dropped the case after CPD proved it was fake. With your radical views, where do you draw the line? Will you vote to protect criminals, child abusers, rapist? All in an effort for “privacy”?

It's clear you have made up your mind without the facts. Note the Tribune's reticence to come to that conclusion based on the actual evidence? I have zero opinion about it. Separate to that this comment has absolutely nothing whatever to do with the parent comment, whether you agree with the parent or not. Rights should exist for everyone, not just everyone you happen to like. Whether this warrant has gone too far as…

Yeah it isn't that complicated. This guy is a low-quality actor who staged a racially-motivated attack to gain press.

Any attempt to play up the "man we really don't know what happened!" angle is pure mis-direction and mental masturbation.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#424

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

ksdale wrote: post #405

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that very much depends on why you believe the warrant process exists in the first place. I honestly don't know that much about the historical context of search warrants. Do they exist because philosophers of old believed in a right to privacy as an end unto itself? Or do they exist for some more practical reason, like because they were used for extra legal retaliation against enemies of the state, or for inti…

I think you are spot on with your reasons for why these things actually do exist, but I think there is definitely an argument to be made for why they should actually protect privacy instead of merely inhibiting the government. My version of the argument goes something like this: It's often said that drivers (in the US anyway) are constantly violating minor traffic laws, and that if the police want to pull someone ove…

All of what you said is perfectly valid. That being said, I think it's probable that if we perfectly enforced traffic laws, two things would happen:

1. People would start to build in tolerances instead. The speed limit is 35? Ok, I'll drive between 25 and 30. People would not just say, "Welp, I guess I'm gonna get $200 tickets constantly!" There would be a (very) short adjustment period, and then people would just treat limits as the actual limits.

2. The limits would be changed to actually reflect the unsafe limit.

I don't think either of these are bad outcomes. In fact, I think the world where we perfectly enforce the law and also adjust the law to reflect the actual needs of the citizens is far better than the one we live in today. It is a much better world than the one in which certain real crimes go unpunished due to privacy, all other things being equal.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#425

Post by shadowgovt » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #422

shadowgovt wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That damages the user-friendliness of their offering, because users with that configuration are always one misplaced key away from losing everything with no way for Google to recover it for them (and yes, users will absolutely blame the company for this failure mode, and companies that do not offer this failure mode tend to succeed in the marketplace).

since the option is not available, we ll never know if users prefer it

Systems providing such services exist; they aren't as popular.

https://tresorit.com/, for example, may be a useful litmus test to monitor for this use case. They've had to implement soft deletion because "The option to recover files has been among the top feature requests we’ve heard from our users and customers" (https://tresorit.com/blog/file-restore-launch/).

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#426

Post by buboard » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #425

buboard wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

since the option is not available, we ll never know if users prefer it

Systems providing such services exist; they aren't as popular. https://tresorit.com/ , for example, may be a useful litmus test to monitor for this use case. They've had to implement soft deletion because "The option to recover files has been among the top feature requests we’ve heard from our users and customers" ( https://tresorit.com/blog/file-restore-launch/ ).

google should offer this option everywhere

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#427

Post by shadowgovt » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #426

shadowgovt wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Systems providing such services exist; they aren't as popular. https://tresorit.com/ , for example, may be a useful litmus test to monitor for this use case. They've had to implement soft deletion because "The option to recover files has been among the top feature requests we’ve heard from our users and customers" ( https://tresorit.com/blog/file-restore-launch/ ).

google should offer this option everywhere

See my original statement; they're offering an easy-to-use system, and handing out foot-guns to users is the opposite of that goal. "Should" implies a forcing function that doesn't exist.

There are foot-gun manufacturers if people want an alternative.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#428

Post by munk-a » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 7:25 PM UTC

greglindahl wrote: post #34

doodliego wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a court-authorized search warrant authorized by a aitting judge. It doesn't get any more legal than that, and it's Google or any other company's legal duty to comply.

It certainly can get more legal than that -- Google (or the target, if they somehow found out) could appeal against the warrant, which would result in another round in the courts.

More optimally Google could decline to collect this information and would thereby be immune to any such requests.

When it comes to Gmail they could take an approach like password managers where the user's password is instrumental to decrypt the data and Google lacks any manner to circumvent the encryption - they just choose not to.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#429

Post by soulofmischief » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 7:45 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #108

throwno wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if it comes out that he was coordinating with the Harris campaign to help get her anti-lynching bill passed which had been dead before the incident due to extremely low rates of lynching in modern America? They attended protests together and were at least familiar if not friends.

Whose safety is threatened by that law?

Without knowing the specifics of the bill in question, we shouldn't speculate.

Re: Judge orders Google to turn over a full year of actor’s data

#430

Post by afiori » Thu, Jan 09, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

salawat wrote: post #409

skrowl wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the correct answer. Often times warrants ask for the moon and stars. You can only hand over what you actually have.

That is a waste of or an invalid warrant then, as the correct response to a warrant for something you don't have isn't everything you do have, but the null set. That's still problematic though, because with clever orchestration of multiple warrants, you essentially figure out the "shape" of hidden information anyway, until you can get the request just right. The idea though is that a judge should get tired of signing…

A warrant for all the data you have about a person activity in 2019 is perfectly covered by giving only December data if that is all you have. A warrant obviously needs to be a bit larger in scope than needed, at the very least by requiring data that is relevant to the data you are interested in.