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Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

businessinsider.com

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Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#51

Post by jeroenhd »

caf wrote: post #47
mulmen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really? I always assumed it was like Zoom end to end encryption where one of the “ends” is a Facebook data center. How can a user prove the claim of end to end encryption?

There was a bit of a song and dance when Whatsapp adopted the Signal protocol. Certainly if you choose not to back up your Whatsapp messages, your old messages aren't available when you switch phones. If they're not end-to-end encrypted, they're engaging in a lot of deception to indicate that they are.

They are if you enable encryption (with your own key, of course). The default backups are insecure, though.

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#52

Post by ThinkBeat »

>Facebook and Google comply with the law. >When presented with a valid warrant they hand over the data requested.

The article seems to imply that the big social media companies should selectively comply with a valid warrant based on what crime the accused has committed.

I think you should either have problem with the entire procedure or agree that the procedure is valid.

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#53

Post by [deleted] »

lelanthran wrote: post #17
manwithaplan wrote: post #2

User chat logs and search history released by social media companies to police can be used to prosecute people for abortion, even when they are being investigated for other reasons.

> User chat logs and search history released by social media companies to police can be used to prosecute people for abortion, even when they are being investigated for other reasons. Firstly, can you even prosecute a woman for abortion? Aren't they legal? Secondly, if the abortion is illegal, it's not unusual for the state to prosecute someone when the investigation of that person reveals other crimes. What would yo…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#54

Post by A_D_E_P_T »

bboygravity wrote: post #46

Interesting to realize that I now have to equally self-censor whether I'm using WeChat (China) versus any US-based service (Western world) for communication..

Unless you're working on sensitive or compartmentalized tech, and talking about it on the platform, I don't even see why you'd need to self-censor on WeChat. The Chinese, for all their faults, don't seem to care what you do in your spare time.

That said, I don't know if I'd feel comfortable discussing my medical history over Gmail or Facebook, even if ostensibly "private."

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#55

Post by lapcat »

Semaphor wrote: post #9

Is this unexpected? Of course, they follow warrants, why wouldn’t they?

"An investigation by ProPublica found online pharmacies that sell abortion medication such as mifepristone and misoprostol are sharing sensitive data, including users' web addresses, relative location, and search data, with Google and other third-party sites — which allows the data to be recoverable through law enforcement requests."

"we also know that social media isn't likely to stand up to illegitimate law enforcement requests, because of the fact that they fear their own liability, or because of the fact that it's just too costly to stand up."

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#56

Post by mulmen »

caf wrote: post #47
mulmen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really? I always assumed it was like Zoom end to end encryption where one of the “ends” is a Facebook data center. How can a user prove the claim of end to end encryption?

There was a bit of a song and dance when Whatsapp adopted the Signal protocol. Certainly if you choose not to back up your Whatsapp messages, your old messages aren't available when you switch phones. If they're not end-to-end encrypted, they're engaging in a lot of deception to indicate that they are.

Thanks, I don’t have much experience with WhatsApp. I don’t have a lot of faith in Facebook. Especially post-Snowden.

If you think you need E2EE you can really only achieve that on an open system you control and have intimate knowledge of. You can’t trust precompiled binaries.

Something something trusting trust.

This isn’t a problem technology can solve. Women shouldn’t need to be information security experts just to ask questions about their own bodies.

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#57

Post by markles »

jeroenhd wrote: post #34
lelanthran wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> User chat logs and search history released by social media companies to police can be used to prosecute people for abortion, even when they are being investigated for other reasons. Firstly, can you even prosecute a woman for abortion? Aren't they legal? Secondly, if the abortion is illegal, it's not unusual for the state to prosecute someone when the investigation of that person reveals other crimes. What would yo…

> Firstly, can you even prosecute a woman for abortion? Aren't they legal? In case you've been living under a rock for the last while: several American states have banned abortions[0][1] after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade. The federal government failed to implement any laws to safeguard access to abortions so overturning Roe vs Wade was all that conservatives needed. Some states have exceptions for rape a…

> In case you've been living under a rock for the last while:

It might surprise you, but people who don't live in America probably don't follow, nor care about the politics going on in specific states.

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#58

Post by raverbashing »

f6v wrote: post #42
raverbashing wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly For men, it was always "pro-choice", child support and paternity tests are a recent invention (and don't compare with how hard it is to raise a kid) If men got pregnant you could have your abortion together with your haircut

> For men, it was always "pro-choice" You dramatically underestimate the number of both men and women who’re against abortion.

Are you counting those with unrecognized paternities?

Because it's very easy to be against abortion and having somebody else raise the child you should have been responsible for.

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#59

Post by mulmen »

jeroenhd wrote: post #49
mulmen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really? I always assumed it was like Zoom end to end encryption where one of the “ends” is a Facebook data center. How can a user prove the claim of end to end encryption?

Almost all of WhatsApp has been E2EE for years, based on the same protocol Signal uses. This goes for text messages (personal and groups) and calls. Cloud backups are not encrypted by default, but encryption can be enabled. WhatsApp doesn't have an open source client so verification is difficult. However, if someone were able to break the encryption, I'm sure it'd be in the headlines of most newspapers. One exception…

How do you tell the difference between true E2EE and Zoom E2EE where FB decrypts the message in the middle? Or otherwise backdoors the exchange, perhaps outside the Signal protocol? Ultimately you are trusting Facebook to tell the truth here.

Re: Facebook and Google hand over user data, help police prosecute abortion seekers

#60

Post by lapcat »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #52

>Facebook and Google comply with the law. >When presented with a valid warrant they hand over the data requested. The article seems to imply that the big social media companies should selectively comply with a valid warrant based on what crime the accused has committed. I think you should either have problem with the entire procedure or agree that the procedure is valid.

> The article seems to imply that the big social media companies should selectively comply with a valid warrant

They already selectively comply: "According to internal statistics provided by Meta, the company complies with government requests for user data more than 70% of the time".

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