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Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

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Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#81

Post by elliekelly »

laurencei wrote: post #22
Vinnl wrote: post #14

For their first subpoena [1], they said: > It originally included a broad gag order that would have prevented us from publishing this notice, but the ACLU represented us in quickly and successfully securing our ability to publish the transcripts below. This subpoena says: > you are asked not to disclose the existence of nature of the subpoena But the post doesn't mention that at all. I wonder how much effort they had…

Does the phrase "you are asked" have a legal bearing though? is it something they can just choose to not follow, since they were not "told" or "instructed"?

I don’t have any experience with Homeland Security investigations but I know when the SEC begins major investigations they’ll often request the subject of the investigation voluntarily waive attorney-client privilege. Who on earth would do that? Well, just about everyone. Of course they can’t force a waiver of privilege but the implication is that things will go much better for you if you do. The investigation (and subsequent punishment) will be much less painful for you. I suspect there’s a similar implication lurking behind this polite ask as well.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#82

Post by Loughla »

mike_d wrote: post #23

The subpoena is from Homeland Security Investigations at LAX airport. They deal specifically with crimes that involve international transport. So this is human trafficking, drug smuggling, money mules, etc. To be honest the rest of it is just standard "we have some phone numbers" boilerplate. Same thing was probably sent to Facebook, Twitter, etc. with the hopes that someone was dumb enough to login and check their m…

>Grand juries historically result in a 95%+ chance of indictment

Is this automatically assumed to be a good thing? If so, why?

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#83

Post by upofadown »

tialaramex wrote: post #65
INTPenis wrote: post #18

OT and tinfoil hat on; there was a strange event last week with users of Signal on the Telia ISP.[1] For about 24 hours no messages could be sent, resulting in a 401 unauthorized error from the server side. Telia is the former state-owned Swedish ISP that is now only half state-owned I believe. They have a bad rep already for sending out extortion letters to torrent users and are almost assumed to be monitoring all u…

As one of the replies in that thread you linked explains, this is TLS encrypted traffic, so Telia can't really do anything to influence what happens here. They don't get to see what the traffic means, and if they change any of it then the connection aborts, which doesn't result in a 401 error it just hangs up abruptly - that's how TLS is designed to work. It is entirely possible that somebody at Signal fat-fingered a…

I could not find the reference to TLS in the replies. Generally Signal does not use TLS for their messaging system, it is instead something home brewed.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#84

Post by [deleted] »

Loughla wrote: post #82
mike_d wrote: post #23

The subpoena is from Homeland Security Investigations at LAX airport. They deal specifically with crimes that involve international transport. So this is human trafficking, drug smuggling, money mules, etc. To be honest the rest of it is just standard "we have some phone numbers" boilerplate. Same thing was probably sent to Facebook, Twitter, etc. with the hopes that someone was dumb enough to login and check their m…

>Grand juries historically result in a 95%+ chance of indictment Is this automatically assumed to be a good thing? If so, why?

[deleted]

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#85

Post by emteycz »

elliekelly wrote: post #81
laurencei wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the phrase "you are asked" have a legal bearing though? is it something they can just choose to not follow, since they were not "told" or "instructed"?

I don’t have any experience with Homeland Security investigations but I know when the SEC begins major investigations they’ll often request the subject of the investigation voluntarily waive attorney-client privilege. Who on earth would do that? Well, just about everyone. Of course they can’t force a waiver of privilege but the implication is that things will go much better for you if you do. The investigation (and s…

That doesn't seem fair or just - not just "very" but "at all"...

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#86

Post by mikro2nd »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #73
mikro2nd wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could, but they evidently don't (stop you from using the service). I have a phone with a very old version of Android such that newer versions of Signal can't be installed. So it carries this really antiquated version of Signal, and, sure! some of the newer features (groups, some of the image handling) don't work. Still works just fine for the core purpose (voice, texts) though. As far as I'm concerned, kudos to…

Tangent: I’m not versed in Android (iPhone for me), but what’s stopping you from installing a newer version of Android (like LineageOS) yourself through rooting?

Device not supported.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#87

Post by ysnp »

Something I am not sure about as a layman: What is the likelihood that the documents Signal are allowed to publish, concerning subpoenas, are an accurate account of all the information they can provide? Could Homeland Security/FBI compel them to lie in the evidence they have produced?

In [1], Signal mention that traffic correlation via timing attacks and IP addresses are a work-in-progress as far as their metadata protection goes. They also claim that they do not store IP addresses, or at least they are not set up to do so. I guess they can be forced to record some of these, if need be.

I am not deeply concerned about the metadata Signal could possibly collect if compelled to (although it is unclear what exactly they can collect) because it is likely best-in-class among encrypted messengers anyway. I suppose it is likely that even if Signal were forced to lie or undergo a gag, the chance of whistle-blowing would be much higher given that they are a donations based nonprofit that probably employ more young-ish people with strong principles, as opposed to employees who need a stable job and have families to look after.

[1] https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#88

Post by gumby »

raverbashing wrote: post #51
tialaramex wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grand Juries are a really weird American thing†. The Grand Jury is entirely dependant on the prosecutor for guidance, so as an outsider it appears to me that their real purpose is to enable politically appointed prosecutors to pretend this anonymous "Grand jury" decided not to prosecute somebody when in reality what happened is that the prosecutor didn't want to. So now it's not the prosecutor's fault an obviously gu…

But trial by jury continues to be used in several countries (maybe in more restricted ways but it still a thing) or is there something special about a "Grand Jury"?

The system of having a judge/prosecutor with broad investigative powers is unknown in the US, which is probably a good thing given how the rest of the system is organized.

The jury that hears the evidence in a trial is referred to as the petit jury (small jury). It is convened for a single case.

The grand jury is a standing body (also supposed to be drawn from the populace, and with definite tenure) which hears preliminary evidence and in theory decides whether there is enough of a case that an actual trial would be warranted. It can issue subpoenas (as in this situation).

The rest of the US system is weird. At the federal level the people who judge the cases are a whole branch who do pretty much nothing but that. The actual bringing of the cases is the responsibility of the executive. Oh, various departments of the executive have their own "courts" too that rule with no juries. There is no constitutional reason why this whole apparatus could not be part of the judicial branch but I've not seen any interest in that happening. Actually the executive's courts are pretty clearly not constitutional but they have survived enough challenges that they are simply the way they are.

At the state level the same system is roughly followed but in most, or perhaps all states, the attorneys general (who oversee all prosecutions) and Supreme Court judges are elected. Sheriffs too, which in some states are important police, and even some chiefs of police. You might think that this direct election would reduce the chance of corruption but of course it seems to run the opposite way. The longstanding American distaste for competence is the strongest force against a trained, standing set of people to do things.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#89

Post by 1MachineElf »

andix wrote: post #17
zdkl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want something decentralised what's wrong with doing the same with Tor and/or Matrix?

Matrix is not ready for non-technical people. Way too much stuff to consider as a user. It's similar to PGP a technology that will probably never go mainstream.

I used to believe the same as you about the usability of Matrix, but then I discovered the Fluffy Chat matrix client. It aims and looks to be as simple to use as WhatsApp or Telegram. Check it out if you haven't seen it: https://fluffychat.im/en/

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#90

Post by auiya »

It's unlikely that prosecutors don't realize how Signal works. It's more likely they assume that, much like the rest of the tech world, there has been an increase in data collection efforts and they want to test the waters again to confirm/deny this data is available via Signal internals. Subpoenas are the only mechanism by which they're able to do so. That Signal are able to pivot to the media and say "yup, still court-tested, still privacy-focused" is a good thing for Signal. No need for the derisive tone I don't think.
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