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FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

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Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#191

Post by OhMeadhbh »

causalscience wrote: post #84
ddtaylor wrote: post #6

I don't know signal very well but when I have spoken to others about it they mention that the phone number is the only metadata they will have access to. This seems like a good example of that being enough metadata to be a big problem.

I've been hearing for years people say "Signal requires phone number therefore I don't use it", and I've been hearing them mocked for years. Turns out they were right.

I talked to Moxie about this 20 years ago at DefCon and he shrugged his shoulders and said "well... it's better than the alternative." He has a point. Signal is probably better than Facebook Messenger or SMS. Maybe there's a market for something better.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#192

Post by ceejayoz »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #188
awesome_dude wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole premise of the second amendment is about citizens being armed in order to resist/overthrow a government

[citation needed]

It's not exactly an unusual claim, and it was very much the loudly espoused position of the Republican Party until, well, last week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United...

> In Federalist No. 46, Madison wrote how a federal army could be kept in check by the militia, "a standing army ... would be opposed [by] militia." He argued that State governments "would be able to repel the danger" of a federal army, "It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops." He contrasted the federal government of the United States to the European kingdoms, which he described as "afraid to trust the people with arms"...

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#193

Post by 32527823634 »

ActorNightly wrote: post #124
craftkiller wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> willingly unlock their phones Or they are running any mainstream iPhone or Android phone, they've unlocked the phone at least once since their last reboot, and the police have access to graykey. Not sure what the current state of things is, since we rely on leaked documents, but my take-away from the 2024 leaks was GrapheneOS Before First Unlock (BFU) is the only defense.

>is the only defense. Or you know, the 2nd amendment. Id be willing to bet that ICE would have a much smaller impact if they would be met with bullets instead of cameras. In the end, what ICE is doing doesn't really matter to Trump, as long as MAGA believes that things are being done, even if nothing is being done, he doesn't care.

[flagged]

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#194

Post by mikkupikku »

ceejayoz wrote: post #166
ls612 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the signal messages I've seen screenshotted (granted screenshots can be altered) make it seem like the participants have access to some sort of ALPR data to track vehicles that they think are ICE. That would probably be an illegal use of that data if true.

> make it seem like the participants have access to some sort of ALPR data to track vehicles The whole reason cops love ALPR data is anyone's allowed to collect it, so they don't need a warrant.

The government falling victim to ALPR for once might actually be the push we need to get some reform. That said, they'll probably try to ban it for everybody but themselves. Never before have they had such comprehensive surveillance and I don't expect them to give it up easily.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#195

Post by Bender »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #191
causalscience wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been hearing for years people say "Signal requires phone number therefore I don't use it", and I've been hearing them mocked for years. Turns out they were right.

I talked to Moxie about this 20 years ago at DefCon and he shrugged his shoulders and said "well... it's better than the alternative." He has a point. Signal is probably better than Facebook Messenger or SMS. Maybe there's a market for something better.

I remember listening to his talks and had some respect for him. He could defeat any argument about any perceived security regarding any facet of tech. Not so much any more. He knows as well as I do anything on a phone can never be secure. I get why he did it. That little boat needed an upgrade and I would do it too. Of course this topic evokes some serious psychological responses in most people. Wait for it.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#196

Post by OhMeadhbh »

jvanderbot wrote: post #168
rainonmoon wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely nothing in this article is related to feds using conversation metadata to map participants, so, no they weren’t.

If you follow the X chatter on this, some folks got into the groups and tracked all the numbers, their contributions, and when they went "on shift" or "off". I don't really think Signal tech has anything to do with this.

Yeah. It's notable they didn't crack the crypto. In the 90s when I was a young cypherpunk, I had this idea that when strong crypto was ubiquitous, certainly people would be smart enough to understand its role was only to force bad guys to attack the "higher levels" like attacking human expectations of privacy on a public channel. It was probably unrealistic to assume everyone would automatically understand subtle details of technology.

As a reminder... if you don't know all the people in your encrypted group chat, you could be talking to the man.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#197

Post by causalscience »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #191
causalscience wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been hearing for years people say "Signal requires phone number therefore I don't use it", and I've been hearing them mocked for years. Turns out they were right.

I talked to Moxie about this 20 years ago at DefCon and he shrugged his shoulders and said "well... it's better than the alternative." He has a point. Signal is probably better than Facebook Messenger or SMS. Maybe there's a market for something better.

I have no idea if that was true 20 years ago, but it's not true now. XMPP doesn't have this problem; your host instance knows your IP but you can connect via Tor.

Re: FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE

#200

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

causalscience wrote: post #84
ddtaylor wrote: post #6

I don't know signal very well but when I have spoken to others about it they mention that the phone number is the only metadata they will have access to. This seems like a good example of that being enough metadata to be a big problem.

I've been hearing for years people say "Signal requires phone number therefore I don't use it", and I've been hearing them mocked for years. Turns out they were right.

Signal's use of phone numbers is the least of your issues if you've reached this level of inspection. Signal could be the most pristine perfect thing in the world, and the traffic from the rest of your phone is exactly as exposing as your phone number is when your enemy is the US government who can force cooperation from the infrastructure providers.
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