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Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

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Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#151

Post by roymurdock »

moxie wrote: post #122
roymurdock wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what the judge wants. He is trying to get Whatsapp to comply with his request. What could be a better way to do this then to drive millions of users to a competitor? The longer Whatsapp holds out, the more users leave the service, possibly for good. Thing is, this better be a really important case. Because if users migrate and stay on Telegram, it could be much harder for Brazilian courts to get recor…

> Thing is, this better be a really important case. Because if users migrate and stay on Telegram, it could be much harder for Brazilian courts to get records in the future. Why would it be harder? Telegram has the entire plaintext message history for every message all of their users have ever sent, WhatsApp doesn't. It's much easier for Telegram to comply, not harder.

I'm not completely familiar with data storage and access policies between the two, but I was under the impression that Telegram's main selling point was security/privacy and that you could schedule messages to be permanently deleted from Telegram's servers. Now that I've read more on the subject from you and others, it seems to be UX/UI and marketing.

I'll defer to you on this one as you're an expert in the field.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#152

Post by leshow »

ossreality wrote: post #33
morgante wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some criminals You mean suspected criminals, right? It still seems pretty reactionary. The solution isn't to block an entire service.

>The solution isn't to block an entire service. Oh really? What else are you supposed to do when a startup flush with cash decides to ignore the laws of your nation, exactly?

What a ridiculous thing to say. Firstly, the amount of cash the company has is irrelevant. Secondly, it was mentioned elsewhere in this thread, if WhatsApp has no presence in Brazil (i.e. no physical offices, the service is just 'offered' there because it is on Google Play/App Store) then why should they have to comply with local laws in a foreign country?

If my website gets ruled to turn over logs by some local jurisdiction in Brazil. Why should I feel compelled to comply? I am not Brazilian and I have no Brazilian business presence. It's the Internet... to be policed by every local jurisdiction in the world is ridiculous.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#153

Post by cthalupa »

lagadu wrote: post #143
cthalupa wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s the only way to deal with lawbreaking companies in a globalized world. Fundamentally, I think it's ludicrous to think you should international companies to the laws of your own country. Fundamentally, WhatsApp is not a lawbreaking company - they are not subject to Brazilian law. You can't break a rule that isn't actually imposed on you. From a practical perspective, it doesn't matter for Brazilians. The end res…

> Even if I believed in following all of these laws, I am now expected to know all of them? Yes. Yes you are. You are expected to follow all laws of where you have a presence or face the consequences they'll impose on you for it, which is exactly what is happening here.

They don't have a presence there. There are no WhatsApp employees in Brazil.

I have a website that is accessible in Syria. Do I have a presence in Syria? In Antartica? In Trinidad? In Russia?

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#154

Post by cthalupa »

sangnoir wrote: post #139
kuschku wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The internet is not a law-free room” This quote from a German politician sounds silly at first, but makes sense. If a company wishes to get access to a market, they have to follow their laws. I can’t start a company and sell pirated DVDs to the US – even if that might be legal in China. And the US can then stop importing my products, and demand I follow their laws, or be blocked. For you, as a solo developer, it is…

> “The internet is not a law-free room” It's worse than that - only American laws are applicable on the internet world-wide, and most of HN is fine with that without any second thought. The US has never been shy applying its laws abroad, with numerous examples: domain name seizures with the tenuous nexus being "Domain Registrar is a US entity", prosecution of the Pirate Bay and Kim Dotcom, the TPP. Brazil intends to…

>The US has never been shy applying its laws abroad

Which I think is insane as well. My criticism is not limited to Brazil.

Companies should beholden to the laws of the places they reside. Not everywhere that has internet access.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#155

Post by cthalupa »

kuschku wrote: post #114
cthalupa wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s the only way to deal with lawbreaking companies in a globalized world. Fundamentally, I think it's ludicrous to think you should international companies to the laws of your own country. Fundamentally, WhatsApp is not a lawbreaking company - they are not subject to Brazilian law. You can't break a rule that isn't actually imposed on you. From a practical perspective, it doesn't matter for Brazilians. The end res…

“The internet is not a law-free room” This quote from a German politician sounds silly at first, but makes sense. If a company wishes to get access to a market, they have to follow their laws. I can’t start a company and sell pirated DVDs to the US – even if that might be legal in China. And the US can then stop importing my products, and demand I follow their laws, or be blocked. For you, as a solo developer, it is…

No one is suggesting an internet without laws. Just that you be beholden to the laws where your company resides. Office in the US? US laws. Office in Brazil? Brazilian laws. No office in Turkey? No Turkish laws.

Blocking imports or sites is fine, if your countries laws allow you to do it. But calling them lawbreakers? Not so much.

We already have precedent with the US going crazy over persecuting people who reside outside of it, and that's something the US needs to stop doing, not something more countries need to start.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#157

Post by scrupulusalbion »

lagadu wrote: post #137
morgante wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some criminals You mean suspected criminals, right? It still seems pretty reactionary. The solution isn't to block an entire service.

> It still seems pretty reactionary. The solution isn't to block an entire service. Why not? If they're not complying with court mandated orders, then the court is empowered to enact any legal (in Brasil) measures to coerce cooperation out of the offender. If whatsapp wants to operate there they have to follow the law; they stopped following the law, they're no longer welcome.

Perhaps I am overstepping my bounds, but to me it seems that using coercion to get information from a witness (Whatsapp appears to be in the position of a witness) is a recipe for getting unreliable information when the witness.

Whatsapp seems to be in a position that it could retaliate against this Brazilian judge by giving false testimony. Afterall, Whatsapp and the parties to the messages are probably the only people who know what was said in those messages; Whatsapp could modify the messages such that they exonerate the accused. If the judge has played his only trump card by blocking usage of Whatsapp in Brazil, then Whatsapp knows the absolute worst that can happen by lying about what was said in the messages. Worse, the Judge may not even be able to prove what the messages actually contained.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#158

Post by kuschku »

cthalupa wrote: post #153
lagadu wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if I believed in following all of these laws, I am now expected to know all of them? Yes. Yes you are. You are expected to follow all laws of where you have a presence or face the consequences they'll impose on you for it, which is exactly what is happening here.

They don't have a presence there. There are no WhatsApp employees in Brazil. I have a website that is accessible in Syria. Do I have a presence in Syria? In Antartica? In Trinidad? In Russia?

Yes, you do.

And if I, as a German, would host something that’s illegal in the US, it’d instantly get either blocked, or I’d even extradited to the US.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#159

Post by newman314 »

moxie wrote: post #121
newman314 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I'm not advocating for the use of Telegram. I keep posting this in hopes that moxie will understand just how important UX is and hire accordingly. WhatsApp, Telegram etc. are going to eat Signal's lunch because of the UX and I would like that not to happen.

lol, yeah the problem is that it just never occurred to us that UX is important! Here's the situation: people hem and haw about Telegram's cryptography, but what we should really be talking about is that Telegram is not using end to end encryption by default . Telegram stores your entire plaintext message history server-side. There is nothing worse when it comes to privacy, but it's very easy to write slick clients w…

moxie, I hope you aren't taking this the wrong way.

I'm pretty sure that you are aware that UX is a problem. I'm saying this because I do think UX is a priority for users and hence for widespread adoption.

There are legitimate reasons why Telegram is more popular and as evidenced, security first is not a sufficiently valid sell for Joe User. Obviously, there are also fundamental reasons why Telegram should not be used as you have pointed out above.

I want to see Signal succeed which is why I've made the comments about.

While I have your attention, maybe you could clarify the protocols used between Signal and WhatsApp. Is there a scenario which there will be interoperability? I believe that you previously alluded to the implementation of e2e being separate in WhatsApp but it would be nice to get some clarity around this. Thanks.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#160

Post by x0x0 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #117
x0x0 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. When companies decline to obey local law, it's reasonable for them to be cut off from operating in that country. Which is what the judge is proposing, temporarily. Probably with longer cutoffs to follow if this doesn't inspire obedience of judicial orders.

> When companies decline to obey local law, it's reasonable for them to be cut off from operating in that country. It's possible . It's only reasonable if the local law is itself reasonable.

Obeying duly authorized warrants or subpoenas is very reasonable. It's really not WhatsApp's job or right to pass judgement on the political system of a country. If WhatsApp doesn't like that, they should withdraw their business from Brazil.

And let's be serious; while Brazil may have problems, it's definitely not a dictatorship.

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