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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

#211

Post by tekknik »

dragonwriter wrote: post #161
billytetrud wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 Except that written law is the whole story. (Precedential court decisions are, after all, not transmitted as oral history.)

This is absolutely not true, the easiest example being the second amendment.

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

#212

Post by tekknik »

cptskippy wrote: post #105
auiya wrote: 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 lat…

> 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.

I really hope the lawyer I’m hiring is at least a subject matter expert on the specific laws around the subject. Then a simple google search would explain how this data isn’t available.

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

#213

Post by tekknik »

kube-system wrote: post #180
ben_w wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The expert in question being the company which made it, because software isn’t a commodity like steel [0] where any two manufacturers are making basically interchangeable stuff. [0] I assume. I don’t do steel.

There's proprietary stuff in the steel business, and there's stuff that everyone knows. Same with software. The way end-to-end encryption works is common knowledge. Some of the same people here who know that Signal doesn't have this data are the same people who are those experts.

Same with source code. Someone, somewhere, will know some language. And subpoenaing for source code is a thing.

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

#214

Post by tekknik »

md_ wrote: post #135
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…

This is one of those posts that sounds truthy because it makes a bunch of broad assertions. ;) Legal systems are peopled by people. Just like other systems. Unlike many other systems, the American legal system is in fact highly distributed—so it's hard to say things like "The System is out to destroy you"; individual agents of that "system" might have different, misaligned, or antagonistic goals. Much of this is by d…

> so it's hard to say things like "The System is out to destroy you";

How do you explain the 9th circuit court and their decisions around gun control while being scolded by SCOTUS for not following proper process? The legal system is highly politicized these days, and if your not on the “correct” side, it most definitely is out to get you. California turned a bunch of law abiding citizens into felons overnight after abiding by a law written by said government.

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

#215

Post by salawat »

justaguy88 wrote: post #164
djoldman wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm now wondering if it's possible to make a within-state-only messaging service. What would something look like that manages to avoid Federal jurisdiction as much as possible?

Funny you should mention that. Look up the Texas power grid. Completely independent from the rest of the U.S. and has stayed that way despite some rather impressive drama w.r.t. the Midnight Connection Controversy.

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

#216

Post by antman »

auiya wrote: 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…

Also it is an opportunity to test whether Signal's persistence on registering only with a phone number was a good idea or not, considering that it is mandatory in many countries to register with your ID.

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

#217

Post by t0mas88 »

hedora wrote: post #137

I was wondering if they could get in trouble for publishing the account creation times. In theory, the account holders in question kept track of the time they created these accounts, and now know about the subpoena. The cover letter from DHS says they need to warn the agent before disclosure. Presumably they did that.

They are "requested to [..] please" which is very different from the way the rest of the order is written. So it's fair to assume they can decide for themselves whether they want to contact the agent or not.

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

#218

Post by t0mas88 »

sneak wrote: post #19
KMag wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Q: "Why did you send us BPGs[0] named .TIF?" A: "Because you specified an extension, not a file format." [0] https://bellard.org/bpg/

Surprisingly, the subpoena does specify the file format, including the compression, rather precisely.

Are they allowed to make you do extra work to convert/generate data in the format asked? I know the other way around in (our local non-US variant of) freedom of information act requests you cannot ask any part of government to make/create/convert data for you, only ask for what they have in the format they have it in.

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

#219

Post by swiley »

hans1729 wrote: post #30
swiley wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it's decentralized there's only one client and they can always push updates to male it send keys/messages back for targeted users. Smartphones in their current form cannot have secure messaging.

>Smartphones in their current form cannot have secure messaging. What about self-hosted matrix/element, used from the browser?

Maybe but

1) You don't get push notifications on most mobile OSes

2) Mobile users have poor control over their browser (if any.)

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

#220

Post by [deleted] »

sneak wrote: post #2

Page 8 of that subpoena says the document files produced must have the extension "*.TIF". (note asterisk) I wonder how they'd like it if you sent them files literally named FILE001.PAGE001.*.TIF (the rest of the specified file format structure notwithstanding) It's very important to follow the instructions exactly when you are legally compelled to do something!

[deleted]
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