Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

signal.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 226 posts

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

#181

Post by ska »

billytetrud wrote: post #159
infogulch wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I may restate this slightly: > Subpoenas are the only mechanism by which prosecutors are able to test the waters to confirm/deny whether they can demand production of this data I think many people fail to appreciate the importance of setting a precedent in the courts. Maybe this is because our legislators have been shirking responsibility for decades and pushing what should be their work off onto the executive and…

This is the problem with the common law system. It's a haphazard set of poking and prodding where written law is less than half the story. We really need to switch to a civil law system in this country.

> We really need to switch to a civil law system in this country.

"pure" versions of either don't work - it's more like a spectrum. Unfortunately moving to more legislative emphasis than case law only works if you have an efficient legislative process to update. If that's too adversarial, you get the worst of both worlds.

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

#182

Post by spurgu »

Lendal wrote: post #177
jedberg wrote: post #175

My fear with Signal being so giddy about what they don't have is that it will convince Congress to make a law forcing them to collect the data they don't have, the laws of math be damned. I worry that Congress with just make them liable if they are requested to produce location data and are unable to do so, for example.

As a Signal user it does not make me happy either that they seem to enjoy thwarting law enforcement for its own sake. I'm not a criminal. I just enjoy privacy and good software. I don't enjoy thumbing my nose at the justice department when they're just trying to do their job protecting citizens from criminals. Signal, just follow the law and quit acting so happy whenever your software helps a criminal get away with c…

Speak for yourself. I am a criminal and I'm happy that Signal has my back.

In fact I'd argue that anyone who is not a criminal is probably quite a boring and uninteresting person.

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

#183

Post by Taniwha »

korethr wrote: post #125
Dah00n wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to the other comment a Grand Jury is also often made up of jurors called in using the prosecutor's private phone contacts. A few ex-cops and former work buddies. People also go to jail because of misuse of power by grand juries. There's a great documentary on Netflix but I can't remember its name right now. Suffice to say there aren't grand juries in any well working and fair justice system. It's abuse and/or…

I will offer a counter-example to this. I was an alternate for my local county's grand jury for a year. I was selected through the same voir dire process used to place me on a petit jury for a criminal trial years later. It was wholly random. AFAIK, I didn't end up in the jury pool because I knew a prosecutor or cop. Were "I know a guy who knows a guy" the selection criteria, I would have never ended up on the grand…

The main difference I assume is that for a normal jury the defendant can challenge jurors, while for a grand jury the defendant often doesn't even know it is sitting on their case.

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

#184

Post by eat_veggies »

Lendal wrote: post #177
jedberg wrote: post #175

My fear with Signal being so giddy about what they don't have is that it will convince Congress to make a law forcing them to collect the data they don't have, the laws of math be damned. I worry that Congress with just make them liable if they are requested to produce location data and are unable to do so, for example.

As a Signal user it does not make me happy either that they seem to enjoy thwarting law enforcement for its own sake. I'm not a criminal. I just enjoy privacy and good software. I don't enjoy thumbing my nose at the justice department when they're just trying to do their job protecting citizens from criminals. Signal, just follow the law and quit acting so happy whenever your software helps a criminal get away with c…

Signal is complying with the law in this case, and the lack of information in their response is not "thwarting law enforcement for its own sake" but the entire purpose of end-to-end encryption.

Software that allows the possibility of cops spying on you is antithetical to "privacy and good software"

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

#186

Post by daneel_w »

"It’s the same set of “Account and Subscriber Information” that we provided in 2016: Unix timestamps for when each account was created and the date that each account last connected to the Signal service.

That’s it."

Signal offers a "registration lock" for the phone number used to register the account, so that another user cannot register using the same number (i.e. reusing VLNs and similar). If "that's it", then where is the phone number (or its hash) associated with the account stored in order to facilitate the lock?

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

#187

Post by dheera »

motohagiography wrote: post #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…

To Mark Zuckerberg: "So, how do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?"

To George Floyd witness: "So you had something called a mobile device right? And a mobile device is capable of taking pictures right? And you used the mobile device to use that capability right? And your eyes were able to see things besides the phone right?"

No shit Sherlock, have you never used Facebook and seen the glaring ads? A 15-year old could figure that out. Oh and yeah phones take pictures and people have eyes that can move. Just play the damn video. Yes, play the video, not "publish the exhibit". They really do sound pretty stupid to me.

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

#189

Post by stjohnswarts »

billytetrud wrote: post #159
infogulch wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I may restate this slightly: > Subpoenas are the only mechanism by which prosecutors are able to test the waters to confirm/deny whether they can demand production of this data I think many people fail to appreciate the importance of setting a precedent in the courts. Maybe this is because our legislators have been shirking responsibility for decades and pushing what should be their work off onto the executive and…

This is the problem with the common law system. It's a haphazard set of poking and prodding where written law is less than half the story. We really need to switch to a civil law system in this country.

I think I'll take my chances with common law.

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

#190

Post by stjohnswarts »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #156
heavyset_go wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the metadata is enough when it comes to evidence. "Person X added person Y on Signal", in context with other evidence, might be all they're looking for.

That metadata is not available, though.

It would be if they said they didn't know each other. It could figure in to determination of reasonable doubt. That can certainly be useful. The NSA has done plenty with metadata.
Post reply on HN