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

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

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 198 posts

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

#131

Post by salawat »

mulmen wrote: post #59
jeroenhd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You read the bloody code, and you run the infrastructure. Not your hardware, not your system. There is no alternative.

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

#132

Post by paganel »

diceduckmonk wrote: post #127
paganel wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is the problem: we have nothing to hide until someone changes the law. As it happens the Dutch authorities were pretty good with collecting ethnicity and confessional data in the inter-war period, then the very bad guys came along and we know what followed. Data collection at scale and especially data centralization has always been a mistake, too bad many of the livelihoods of us here depend on exactly that.

Maybe employers and schools should stop collecting diversity data in case a less inclusive nation invades the United States.

In the US’s case I don’t think it would take an invasion to put people’s lives at risk because of innocuous (at the time) data collection on sensitive societal issues. This article is just proof of that.

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

#133

Post by salawat »

ccouzens wrote: post #67
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?

> how can a user (without deep technical knowledge and skills) prove the claim of end to end encryption? Checking to see if investigations include evidence from messages on these platforms excepting: Messages sent by the user to someone who distributes them further Or investigators getting control of the phone. --- WhatsApp stands up to that test.

Except, parallel construction is a thing; jealously guarded by law enforcement as well.

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

#134

Post by aww_dang »

fluxinflex wrote: post #99
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sounds like a trip into medieval times? Government control over corporations? Corporation oversight over private lives? Isn’t that what the new generation of enlightened and progressive people wanted?

But wait, isn't that what was happening in medieval times: the church ruled over the peasants, the kings ruled over the states and everyone was happy living in a liberal and free world - well at least they believed that.

http://bionicmosquito.blogspot.com/2013/02/decentralization-...

Relatively more liberal than the Roman era and more decentralized than our current era.

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

#135

Post by [deleted] »

psychoslave wrote: post #114
diceduckmonk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> comply with the law What concerns you about this?

Nothing really. Here is the list of this ethnic people you want to eliminate in conformance with the law you just passed on mandatory abortion and sterilization, oh my great overlord. Congratulations for your successful putsch by the way.

[deleted]

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

#136

Post by decremental »

lapcat wrote: post #40
psychphysic wrote: post #15

The only take away from this article is that somehow they could read the change logs. Doesn't that fly in the face of metas own claims to not be able to? BI seems to be implying that abortion shouldn't be treated as a crime in places where it is a crime.

> BI seems to be implying that abortion shouldn't be treated as a crime in places where it is a crime. Abortion was explicitly legally protected for 50 years and only became a crime in some localities last year. There aren't many "crimes" like that.

Slavery was once legal everywhere until it wasn't. It became illegal in some parts of the country but eventually it became illegal everywhere. Now we can look back and think how obvious it is that slavery is wrong.

Murdering the unborn was once legal everywhere until it wasn't. It became illegal in some parts of the country and will eventually become illegal everywhere. One day we will look back and think how obvious it is that murdering the unborn is wrong.

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

#138

Post by dspillett »

croes wrote: post #12

Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. Unless they change the laws and suddenly you have something to hide.

I have nothing to hide, beyond a bit of casual piracy, at least until laws change significantly, but people I care about might.

My distaste for corporate stalking is, if I'm perfectly honest, at least partly selfish feelings of discomfort in losing what privacy I still have, but it is mostly concern for what some will use information about others to enforce.

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

#139

Post by salawat »

krapp wrote: post #123
concordDance wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roe v. Wade was a corruption of the political progress (and I say this as a non-american pro-abortionist). If you want to have a law on abortion make an actual law.

I mean, SCOTUS said otherwise for fifty years. They decide what is and isn't legitimate and it was fair play until last year. I agree with you in principle but AFAIK "actual laws" have never been necessary when the SCOTUS has declared a Constitutional right. Individual states don't need to codify a right to keep and bear arms, or freedom of speech or religion, nor can they choose to re-enable slavery or segregation,…

Yes, but a caveat by SCOTUS has the lifetime of a given group of justices. If you want that law to be effectively immortal, it needs to be implemented through the legislature, not backdoored through judicial fiat.

"Legislating from the bench" is considered poor form in legal circles for a reason.

Post reply on HN