Really hope E2EE on RCS isn't just Google blowing smoke.
https://9to5google.com/2020/05/26/google-messages-end-to-end...
Clearly not a solution to the current crisis but would be beneficial in future situations.
Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption
331–340 of 367 posts
Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a bad idea to have a relationship with a lawyer. Talk to family/friends/co-workers. Somebody will have a name for you. We made a relationship with one I found through family via estate planning (not his specialty) and land deals (not his specialty). Now I have a name to say out loud when I interact with police. This has happened twice. The OP is right, they'll do everything they can to get you to talk, but u…
> but understand that if a police officer is talking to you, they're digging for information to incriminate you Are you sure you're not exaggerating? I've totally seen incidents where cops were only talking to see if they've even found the right person. They lose interest pretty damn quickly when they realize they're talking to the wrong person (even to the point of rejecting extra evidence you might offer yourself).…
In my experience, no, I am not exaggerating. In my run-ins with police, they had no clear suspect, so everyone was a suspect. In one case, they questioned me, and had me go through a polygraph test. They didn't inform me of my rights to an attorney, because I was not formally arrested. They also did all of this without legal representation or parents (I was 16). They did it just to be able to tell me that I failed, and that I should confess now and they would go easy on me. For a crime I didn't commit. They even lied about what I said at the scene of the crime to say that I contradicted myself, or the responding officer wrote it down wrong.
I do not believe it is a good idea to speak to police unless they have a clear suspect, motive, evidence, and other indicators they are not fishing for you to be the suspect.
I firmly, firmly, firmly believe short-term hassle and a lawyer's bill are much better than the long-term ramifications of an arrest, even if you are not convicted ultimately.
Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the law enforcement is talking to you in the U.S., the only right answer is "I'd prefer to have a laywer here." Not a joke, for real. They are experts at getting you to talk to them even if you know this. They are experts at getting you to say things that incriminate you or your friends -- that you or your friends have done nothing wrong (in your opinion/as far as you know) will not protect you. The only answers y…
I’ve heard this before but here’s my practical problem: I don’t know any lawyers. I have literally no idea who to call in such a situation. Do I have to go find and retain a lawyer beforehand just in case I might need one later?
There are services where you pay a monthly fee ($20 a month in my case), and you get a card with phone numbers for a law firm (actually it's a service that will connect you with a lawyer local to where you are). You get access to a lawyer for a certain amount of time without extra charge, the amount of time increasing the longer you pay for the service. If you get into serious legal trouble you will end up paying for a lawyer anyway, but a service like this will help in those circumstances where a cop wants to question you, and you want to say "I want a lawyer present."
I agree with some of the other commenters that you really should say the word "want", not "wish" or "would like". You need to be clear and emphatic about having a lawyer present.
Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
This tradeoff is arguably a good thing. By using phone numbers as IDs signal can rely on your phone's local contacts (meaning they don't have to send your social graph to their servers). This way they can keep very little metadata on you. There's pretty much nothing for them to turn over except the fact that your phone number has the signal app. Most of the other secure apps could turn over your entire contact list (…
> Most of the other secure apps could turn over your entire contact list (which could be damaging for people in a protest that are being targeted). But that doesn't help much if the entire contact list is a list of trash mail adresses (in the case of Wire) or a list of random IDs (in the case of Threema). And at least Threema does not store any information about your contacts on their servers. Can you obtain a phone…
Is it a list of trash mail addresses by default or is there an assumption that people made trash mail addresses specifically for the app?
If it’s the latter, I suspect that won’t happen in practice for the majority of users.
I haven’t heard of threema, I guess users have to share their IDs manually with each other in that case?
Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a reference for the claim that your full contact list is uploaded to servers? That seems important since their privacy policy says that they only use hashes, and it can’t be dependent on SGX since it runs on non-Intel hardware: https://signal.org/legal/#privacy-policy
The method is explained here: https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/ Yes, it's hashes of phone numbers instead of the phone numbers themselves, but that's a detail. Phone numbers are easy to brute-force especially for people the protesters are worried about, as well as easy to build rainbow tables for.
It's truncated hashes, not full hashes. So you don't see exactly which phone number it is, you get a bucket and the client checks if the full hash is in the bucket. Which is far from perfect, but it's a little better than the full hash.
Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve heard this before but here’s my practical problem: I don’t know any lawyers. I have literally no idea who to call in such a situation. Do I have to go find and retain a lawyer beforehand just in case I might need one later?
There are services where you pay a monthly fee ($20 a month in my case), and you get a card with phone numbers for a law firm (actually it's a service that will connect you with a lawyer local to where you are). You get access to a lawyer for a certain amount of time without extra charge, the amount of time increasing the longer you pay for the service. If you get into serious legal trouble you will end up paying for…
That sounds like exactly what I need. What’s the service called that you use?
Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption
#337I use signal, but am a little bit at unease because it's free. What's in it for the developers? Whatsapp is e2e and all that but the reason it got bought by facebook for an obscene amount of money is what gave me pause
The Signal Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. They're funded by Brian Acton (former co-founder of WhatsApp, net worth ~3 billion), donations, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation. They are not owned by Facebook not sure why you said that.
Was referring to WhatsApp owned by FB not Signal.
Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, if you're ever asked why you're on Signal, just say you wanted to stay in touch with a programmer friend who's not on Facebook/WhatsApp, and they suggested Signal (that is now literally true as well - I suggest you try Signal, friend)
If the law enforcement is talking to you in the U.S., the only right answer is "I'd prefer to have a laywer here." Not a joke, for real. They are experts at getting you to talk to them even if you know this. They are experts at getting you to say things that incriminate you or your friends -- that you or your friends have done nothing wrong (in your opinion/as far as you know) will not protect you. The only answers y…
This is what you should say.
"I am happy to help and will do so as soon as my lawyer gets here."
Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are services where you pay a monthly fee ($20 a month in my case), and you get a card with phone numbers for a law firm (actually it's a service that will connect you with a lawyer local to where you are). You get access to a lawyer for a certain amount of time without extra charge, the amount of time increasing the longer you pay for the service. If you get into serious legal trouble you will end up paying for…
That sounds like exactly what I need. What’s the service called that you use?
It's called LegalShield. The website is here: https://www.legalshield.com
There are others. Do a search for "prepaid legal services". Most of them have similar prices (~$20 a month) and provide similar services (wills, traffic tickets, document review, etc). Like I said, if you get into serious trouble, you will have to pay for a lawyer. This is like insurance. In my opinion, if it helps you avoid saying something stupid to a cop, it's probably worth it.
Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, if you're ever asked why you're on Signal, just say you wanted to stay in touch with a programmer friend who's not on Facebook/WhatsApp, and they suggested Signal (that is now literally true as well - I suggest you try Signal, friend)
FWIW, many of my friends actually could say this, for I am a programmer who's not on Facebook/WhatsApp and recommends Signal. It definitely needs to be more reliable, though. The last time I tried to call someone with Signal instead of just using it for messaging, I got a ringing indication but they heard nothing and then after a few seconds the call showed up as missed, and the same happened the other way around wit…
I’ve had this happen with normal carrier phone calls as well so it appears till be nothing special. Maybe there should be a different tone for “finding device(s) to ring” and “ringing device”.