Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law • Hacker News Board

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#171

Post by derefr » Sat, Jul 15, 2023, 7:25 PM UTC

semiquaver wrote: post #78

derefr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so what do you do with laws that already exist at the time your country is founded, which 100% of the public wants to keep, but has no justification for?

Surely if 100% of the public wants something they can articulate _some_ justification?

Inevitably: "we've always done it exactly this way until now, and it's worked, and we'd rather just keep doing it exactly this way, without having to re-think it from scratch."

Where "this way" includes all sorts of implementation details that may or may not be important.

Think of a baker in some kind of baker's guild, who was taught as an apprentice various techniques for how to get the best rise from their bread, before any scientific understanding of what those techniques are doing. The baker wants to keep following their various rules of thumb, because they know they'll produce the best bread. They don't know why the rules-of-thumb work; they just know that whenever they've accidentally diverged from them, they get less puffy bread.

Now, replace "baker's rules for baking bread" with e.g. "common-law rules around easements and rights-of-way in property disputes."

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#172

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Jul 15, 2023, 7:26 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #71

23B1 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the Federalist Papers are some of the most important documents when understanding the intent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights – and simultaneously the least read! I'm not saying that case law isn't also an important aspect of the 'law' and that the constitution shouldn't be amended – I'm not really a hardcore 'originalist' – I just mean that any time a SCOTUS ruling comes out, it's clear that in the…

There seems to be a function missing from government. All governments, AFAICT. Legislators change the law (including, rarely, the constitution) — effectively by applying a hierarchy of "countermanding orders" — to suit the changing interests of the public. Courts interpret the law, but only downstream of legislation. The executive can make regulation and executive orders, but only in agreement with the law. But at th…

> "representative anarchy"

That's a nice alternative name for "democracy".

Anyway, the problem is that when governments get old, interests get entrenched, and it begins to act against the democratic mandate. Any stable organization with some power can not solve this problem and will only make it worse.

Ideally, elections should be a way to insert instability into the system and avoid this. But those were subverted in a series of ways and the instability just isn't there anymore.

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#173

Post by PartiallyTyped » Sat, Jul 15, 2023, 7:26 PM UTC

Eisenstein wrote: post #170

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to follow everything to a T to grasp the fact that 99.99% of us exist to feed the capitalists, the ruling class, to keep them satisfied.

I'm sorry you think that your life is only meaningful in that it provides labor to capitalists.

Do you mind pointing out where that was stated or implied?

Anything and everything I do is to satisfy my own curiosity and desires, but that's only because I got lucky. Everyone who didn't get lucky, well, they have to slave away in jobs that may not be fulfilling, or are menial, etc; and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#174

Post by Brian_K_White » Sat, Jul 15, 2023, 7:26 PM UTC

semiquaver wrote: post #4

Governments seem to want to have it both ways. As new technologies are introduced they assume that capabilities and practices available to analogous predecessors must remain available to them (e.g. wire-tapping phones => undermining cryptography) but they don’t feel the same way about public benefits or rights associated with other technology that is being replaced (anonymous cash transactions => ???) It also seems l…

All kinds of advantages go to one sides benefit.

Can we set up an automated monitor on all the traffic cams and licence plate readers and facial recognition systems just to catch cops and politicians breaking laws or just to track their movements and associations the way they do to everyone else? Can we access the same cam footage that the state uses to accuse you of something, to clear you instead?

Only occasionally and incompletely.

For instance you might have access to whatever they submit as their proof, but they had access to the full footage and from many sources, and if you had that same access, maybe you'd find proof that you were elsewhere at the same time, or that the subject came from somewhere that isn't your house, or see them getting dressed just before going to commit the act, or was even the very cop bringing the charge, or show the greater context that when you drove through that red light, you had already waited 10 minutes and the light was actually broken, or the lights were out but the timer/switing mechanism was still ticking over so the cam just assumed the driver was shown a red light, etc.

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#175

Post by kelnos » Sat, Jul 15, 2023, 7:27 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #125

ciwolsey wrote: post #18

For other UK citizens: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/634725

Goodness, I hate to be this guy, but do these petitions ever actually help? I can’t think of one that I’ve followed up to the debate that has been successful in anything except getting a solid “no” from the sitting government. Direct action, enough to be villainised by the media, seems to be the only way that politicians will actually listen — though even then its a massive uphill struggle. God, I feel so unrepresent…

> God, I feel so unrepresented.

American here, but I feel the same way. I live in California, and I'm left-leaning, but I feel like I have no voice. This state -- and my city -- have so many problems, but I don't feel like I have any effect on the politicians who are failing to solve them.

And that's bad enough without getting into how powerless I feel to affect anything at a national level.

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#176

Post by p1esk » Sat, Jul 15, 2023, 7:28 PM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #114

safety1st wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then these governments have forgotten that they serve at the pleasure of the people. We permit them to exist specifically for the purpose of protecting our rights, not expanding their own. The rights we possess are inherent and automatic because we're human beings, they are not granted by government or anyone else, and if a government fails to aid us in preserving them, that government is no longer legitimate. Jeffer…

We live in an era where increasingly it is the government who picks the voters rather than the voters picking the government. Whether it is through immigration policy, favoring certain areas over others, or trying to throw up restrictions on voting, across the political spectrum there is a dedicated effort to shape the electorate to be friendly to those in power remaining in power.

Increasingly?

When and where it was ever any better?

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#177

Post by pierat » Sat, Jul 15, 2023, 7:28 PM UTC

23B1 wrote: post #35

derefr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they don’t feel the same way about public benefits or rights associated with other technology that is being replaced When the government creates a law within recorded history — something like a wiretapping law — then the spirit of the law is well-known at time of creation. Usually, that "spirit" is that it's created to explicitly grant a capability to the government to do a thing for the benefit of the public u…

This is why the Federalist Papers are some of the most important documents when understanding the intent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights – and simultaneously the least read! I'm not saying that case law isn't also an important aspect of the 'law' and that the constitution shouldn't be amended – I'm not really a hardcore 'originalist' – I just mean that any time a SCOTUS ruling comes out, it's clear that in the…

The Federalist papers are the equivalent of a Medium blog post. And I will treat them as such.

Edit: Evidently I've pissed off enough people who drink the red-white-blue kool-aid. -3 at the moment.

These newspaper publishings were expressly for the solidification of power at the federal level, and the weakening of the states. And only look closer at what the "federal" powers were about, and it was all about "secur(ing) the existence of (their) people and a future for white children." (cite: 14 words)

Hamilton/Madison/Jay and others knew if a strong federal law reigned supreme, his and other founders' slaves and their current wealth would be greatly solidified. And right he was. And all those slaves also gave 3/5'th a vote per human they enslaved. While many of you say it was for "selfless reasons", my only response is a great big belly laugh.

So perhaps, I was wrong calling these an equivalent of a Medium blog post. No, instead they'd fit right in on the Daily Stormer or Stormfront (2 neonazi publications). Those are the types of "rights" these founders were fighting for: the rights to own another human as property.

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#178

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Jul 15, 2023, 7:29 PM UTC

avianlyric wrote: post #99

hammock wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people who invented "using gold coins as a common exchange for barter" weren't thinking about anonymity What makes you say that anonymity wasn’t a concern? I have a hard time believing that claim without any substantiation. Anonymity in market participation and transactions has been an important consideration for millennia. Anyone who has watched Jasmine put on peasant clothes and visit the market in Disney’s A…

> What makes you say that anonymity wasn’t a concern? I have a hard time believing that claim without any substantiation. Because the inverse claim, “people using gold coins thousands of years ago for common exchange were worried about the anonymity of their transactions”, is absurd. It’s not like the alternative to gold coins two millennia ago was a traceable currency, the technology for tracking a large population…

Funny thing, when I read the beginning of your comment I assumed you would claim that the people that agreed on the standard knew everybody on the market and would believe anonymity was impossible. Instead you got there with inevitable.

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#179

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 15, 2023, 7:29 PM UTC

Brian_K_White wrote: post #174

semiquaver wrote: post #4

Governments seem to want to have it both ways. As new technologies are introduced they assume that capabilities and practices available to analogous predecessors must remain available to them (e.g. wire-tapping phones => undermining cryptography) but they don’t feel the same way about public benefits or rights associated with other technology that is being replaced (anonymous cash transactions => ???) It also seems l…

All kinds of advantages go to one sides benefit. Can we set up an automated monitor on all the traffic cams and licence plate readers and facial recognition systems just to catch cops and politicians breaking laws or just to track their movements and associations the way they do to everyone else? Can we access the same cam footage that the state uses to accuse you of something, to clear you instead? Only occasionally…

[deleted]

Re: Signal president says company will not comply with U.K. ‘mass surveillance’ law

#180

Post by godelski » Sat, Jul 15, 2023, 7:30 PM UTC

leesalminen wrote: post #139

jononomo wrote: post #127

How can the Signal app "exit the UK market"? Can't people just use the app anyway?

There's a couple ways: - Signal could just ban all UK IP addresses from accessing its messaging servers. Your encrypted messages still pass through servers controlled by Signal, Inc. - UK government could require ISPs to deny access to Signal's messaging servers. Of course, one could just use a VPN, set up a VM in a third country and run a Signal Proxy Server, etc. It was hard enough getting family/friends to downloa…

I've also tried to urge the Signal community to develop things like a mesh networking because it can really help prevent such actions. I saw another user suggest an airdrop like functionality as a means to make the mesh networking features "fun" or at least of high value to users. I've given up on that community though and Signal just moves too slow. Moxie argued that they should maintain control because the ecosystem is moving but I'm pretty confident the ecosystem is moving a hell of a lot faster than they are. Realistically it looks like Apple is starting to become a better privacy app, except it isn't cross platform and likely never will be.