Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by tialaramex » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:46 PM UTC

upofadown wrote: post #83

tialaramex wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, what's happening here is that the Signal Desktop app wants a configuration, which it fetches from

https://textsecure-service.whispersystems.org/v1/config

HTTPS is HTTP protocol spoken over a TLS encrypted channel.

When these Telia users weren't able to use the Signal Desktop software, this fetch failed, with a 401 error which is the HTTP error code for Unauthorised.

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

#92

Post by miloignis » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

mulander wrote: post #61

bayesianbot wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there? I'm definitely the kind of person who wants to set up my own server and bridges for it at some point, but when I tried Matrix for the first time last week I just created an account at matrix.org, installed a quite polished client and just started chatting.

Last time I tried matrix, and mind you that was over 3 years ago. Was with riot.im and trying to use the e2e encryption. The major surprise was not being able to suddenly decrypt older chat messages when OpenBSD changed the User-Agent string for Chromium which as I understand was used to establish the device identity. This is not something non-technical people can or want to diagnose.

It's significantly better now! They've done a lot in the last 3 years, and during that timeframe was when cross signing and e2ee DMs became default. It's not perfect, but it's by far the best I've found for my priorities, and I think it's much more reasonable for regular people now. And if not now, hopefully soon! As a sibling mentioned, some of the alternative clients are also getting good.

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

#93

Post by LinuxBender » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

movedx wrote: post #10

This sort of subpoena clearly shows one of two things: 1. the government/law enforcement really don't have any idea how technology works; 2. they don't care and they're just trying their luck anyway. Either or it shows how tone deaf the state is when it comes to modern technologies.

I can rule out number 1 for you. I've had to assist the FBI many times and everyone I interacted with was incredibly technical, more than I ever expected. They are very under-staffed however.

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

#94

Post by bhalina » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

I tip my hat to whoever wrote this

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

#95

Post by djoldman » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

mdeck_ wrote: post #78

djoldman wrote: post #11

I am not a lawyer. The lawyers at DOJ know what they are doing (notwithstanding the history or fact that signal will respond with little information): The subpoena has a request for interstate wire to help them quash future motions to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds. Whatever statute they're looking to charge will have an element of federal jurisdiction attached and interstate wire works great even if there are oth…

I am a lawyer, and you’re correct. It’s typically called a “jurisdictional hook.” In certain regards the US Constitution limits the U.S. Congress’s ability to legislate to issues that touch on “interstate commerce.” If it all happens within Montana’s borders, that’s typically for Montana to handle in its own state legislature. So, for the DOJ to investigate something, they have to then satisfy whatever jurisdictional…

I'm less certain of the following but as I understand it: if the event in question involves telephone/fiber lines or airwaves, it's usually a shoe-in for Fed jurisdiction anyway because those are generally regulated by some Fed agency and/or travel at some point through Fed-owned, regulated, or operated assets.

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

#96

Post by supergirl » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

why do they write so amateurish sounding blog posts? 50% of the post is not relevant to the story. they are not making a good image for signal with these posts.

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

#97

Post by bnj » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

Y_Y wrote: post #79

alias_neo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the following sentence says "If you nonetheless plan to disclose the existence or nature of the subpoena, please contact the Special Agent identified above first". I suspect it might not. I don't know why this additional information wasn't quoted by the parent comment.

And so, are you obligated to contact the "Special Agent" in the case the you do disclose the subpoena?

Not a lawyer but my inference is that this language establishes that you have foreknowledge that disclosure might interfere with the investigation -- so if you ignore these requests and disclose in a way which appears to adversely impact the investigation, you won't be able to claim that you didn't know

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

#98

Post by ransom1538 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

andix wrote: post #3

Let's see if they try to search the Signal servers for any evidence. And if there is really no information stored. Or if that will disrupt Signal services. The central, non-distributed architecture is always a big concern against Signal.

Eh. I have worked with US investigators quite a few times. They really try to work with you. If you don't have the information and you tell them you don't have the information - they pretty much drop it. FBI/local police are not interested in pulling servers and doing forensics. This isn't what their prosecutors want. Prosecutors want: "Hey, give me all data you have for IP address X." If you honestly can explain to them you don't have it -- they just drop it move on to easier cases IMHO.

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

#99

Post by BlueTemplar » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

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?

Someone has to make that version first. Each phone model needs a specific one, I am guessing because of the way that drivers are handled?

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

#100

Post by BlueTemplar » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

kenniskrag wrote: post #47

tormeh wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are alternative clients for Matrix. You don't need to use Element.

which android can force update or remove if they have to.

How can Android do that ?