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

signal.org

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

#101

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?

Usually, it's the fact that the device drivers are included in the image.

I do wish we had kept from the existing desktop OS ecosystem.

Apple's update schedule is a lot better in this regard for me (iPhone SE still gets iOS 14 FROM 2016)

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

#102

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 jury trials you are thinking of are petit juries. The grand jury is an extra pre-trial step, which most countries have abandoned at this point

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

#103
post #79

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?

I mean, for me, the layman, my understand is that this sentence implies you are not strictly forbidden under severe penalty from disclosing, otherwise, as they have demonstrated, they're not above throwing the CAPITAL LETTERS at you.

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

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the parent poster wanted to highlight the auto update feature of phones.

it may be worth mentioning that every Sony phone still supported except for this year's models are officially supported by Sony for AOSP. https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/ furthermore Sony provides blobs to enable full feature sets of the cameras and even the 120Hz refresh options that Sony doesn't enable with stock firmware / Android. This gets you notch free real UHD (but not DCI) 4K 120HZ HDR screen…

I assuming that mandatory keeping connection logs for a year for ISPs and cell carriers was typical in Europe?

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

#105
post #90

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 co…

> It's unlikely that prosecutors don't realize how Signal works.

Why would you expect them to understand how Signal works? A lawyer does not and cannot become a subject matter expert for every aspect of a case they undertake.

A lawyer's job is to investigate every possible avenue for evidence to support their case. They're going to ask Signal for everything imaginable and have legal recourse if they discover at a later date that Signal withheld information.

A lawyer with a complete understanding of how Signal works and intimate knowledge of it would still send the same subpoena and expect the same response. They would never say "Oh Signal? That's a dead end, don't bother."

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

#106
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Lavabit. Centralized is never raid/DDoS-proof. Okay boys, take all these servers because evidence is hiding on them and these lefty pinkos aren't helping us find it. Let's get them back to the lab to find out what that evidence is.

Afaik, Signal uses AWS. Is a raid/confiscation of AWS servers even possible?

It's always possible, but the collateral damage might be pretty bad...

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

#107
post #17
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.

Comparing Element to PGP is ridiculous.

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

#108
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot reproducibly build signal, what you get in the play store is effectively closed.

You can build the core code, reproducibly. As I understand it if you take this code, and the binary blobs of the code that does stuff like video calls, you can verify that's what is inside your Play Store APK. Now, if you're a tinfoil hat wearer obviously you can consider that maybe the video call code secretly reads your messages and sends them to the FBI, or indeed that the Android OS just ignores this APK and when…

It would be nice if Android let you check the hash of the APK against a Binary Transparency log hosted by a third party. Google have even written extensively about this idea:

https://transparency.dev/application/add-tamper-checking-to-...

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

#109
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Lavabit. Centralized is never raid/DDoS-proof. Okay boys, take all these servers because evidence is hiding on them and these lefty pinkos aren't helping us find it. Let's get them back to the lab to find out what that evidence is.

Afaik, Signal uses AWS. Is a raid/confiscation of AWS servers even possible?

Wouldn't the system see a raid's confiscation of a server as just a down machine and do the normal thing to bring up a new server to handle the load correctly? "Okay boys, now go get that server. Wait, now that one, now that one"

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

#110
It's probably unwise to think prosecutors and federal agents are stupid. They were in the 1990s crypto wars, but not now. What we tend to perceive as 'stupid' is in reality, 'powerful.' They don't need to explain themselves, because they put the onus of compliance on you.

Gaming out the subpoena, Signal does not have this user information because it does not exist, but it does have server locations, 3rd party service providers relationships, and staff who can all be dragged into the process and system, where they can be charged with other arbitrary process crimes to put pressure on them.

It's a mistake to interpret any official action as a serial, single point transactional request. Like mice, if you think you see one, you have, and it's guaranteed there are many more behind it. Given where they have used the action to draw your attention, where in relief is the second part of the pinch or funnel they are creating?

If the legal system wants to destroy you, they can and do. Signal has antagonized them, and the current political climate is all about getting rid of any resistance to official powers and their unofficial private arms. Politically, there is ample incentive to take out Signal and cause users to switch to more amenable apps from friendly platform companies. They may even be able to compel friendly app stores to patch apps before they are distributed.

To me, this subpoena looks like the Cellebrite takedown was analogous to injuring a cop, where the response will likely be disproportionate and even extra-legal, because it is about maintaining public perception and belief.

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