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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

#161

Post by newman314 »

janimo wrote: post #113
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.

I think he understands UX is important; the majority of recent changes are to the UX since the crypto is more or less stable. OWS probably has much fewer developers contributing to Signal than either Telegram and WhatsApp, so that could be one of the reasons they have to play catch-up. There are also features some consider good UX but Signal shuns because they create confusion regarding the security properties (i.e.…

I'll use an example that has been confusing for me. The contact list alternately shows some people in gray text and others in black while having a separate phone icon.

1) It was not immediately obvious to me that I have to select the name to msg. iMessage deals with this by having a specific messaging icon that makes it clear.

2) I was able to guess that the grayed out names meant no messaging but then again I tried to call multiple of these contacts and it does not seem to work properly in that that I can't seem to reach those people. Not sure if this is broken... Part of this is the legacy of Redphone/Textsecure so as Signal spreads as a single app across platforms, I'm hoping this issue somewhat goes away. [1]

3) It would certainly be nice to have the whole contact list be visible instead of just the known contacts with Signal/Textsecure/Redphone along with the ability to easily share an invite to others to use Signal via iMessage, email etc. (use the standard iOS share dialog) I'm willing to bet this gets a lot more people to see/use/invite others.

4) I would argue that groups/multi-device is the same abstraction in this case (each device would be a hidden subcontact) hence it should be possible to get multi-device support in short order if group support is already there.

I don't believe any of the things I've listed above have security implications but I could always be wrong. Maybe I'll file some tickets this weekend if I have some time.

I did some digging and found the link below. Requiring people to understand and handle an issue around a bloom filter is a bit much. That part should just work.

[1] http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/21274348...

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#162

Post by dogma1138 »

lucasnemeth wrote: post #125
dogma1138 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't might makes right this is a corporation pissing over laws, if this was some oil company killing seals would you respond in the same manner? WhatsApp provides a service in a country, they gain direct financial benefit from almost 100M users, they received a subpoena and ignored it because it's Brazil, if this would've been a European nation they would most likely have complied, if it were a US court order t…

Things should be taken into consideration, a "confidential" investigation that closes an service used by millions of citizens is highly controversial. They don't do the same to any Telecom company, so that's very suspicious. A spilling of oil is not controversial. It's damage made by a company accidentally and that is causing great environmental damage. The Brazilian government has the power to ask try to enforce the…

Subpoena is a subpoena, most wire taps and telecom subpoenas are confidential you can't really have your target knowing that you are tapping them can you?

No where did i mentioned spilling of oil it's just an example if an energy company doesn't want to cooperate with the government it's perfectly legitimate to order your energy sector to stop importing oil from them this happens quite often. Same goes for websites that violate laws like copyright which are blocked by ISP's.

The Brazilian government has no power over WhatsApp and WhatsApp knows this very well this is why they've utterly ignored them, this isn't some civil rights issue WhatsApp cooperates with US and EU countries all the time this is they CBA because it's Brazil.

And lastly Brazil was part of the 3rd world during the Cold War and is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement so it's really not a western country.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#163

Post by JoshTriplett »

x0x0 wrote: post #160
JoshTriplett wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Obeying duly authorized warrants or subpoenas is very reasonable.

Depends on the warrant or subpoena and the technology in question. If they have plaintext messages sitting around on a server somewhere, then perhaps they can supply the messages they've irresponsibly given themselves access to. However, WhatsApp claims to provide end-to-end encryption in some (though not all) cases, so they may not have the data in question; if so, a subpoena expecting them to supply it anyway wouldn't be reasonable. A subpoena expecting them to backdoor their client (in general or for a specific user) would not be reasonable.

And that's before getting into the "why" of the individual case, such as whether this has any more merit than the "take down this YouTube video because it embarrasses us" cases that caused Brazil to attempt to block YouTube previously.

Apart from that, a subpoena from a country only has legal meaning to a business with a legal nexus in that country. Providing a service via the Internet does not create a legal nexus in every country in the world.

> If WhatsApp doesn't like that, they should withdraw their business from Brazil.

What business in Brazil? I haven't seen anything in the stories or comments thus far to suggest that they have any legal nexus in Brazil. They have customers all over the world.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#164

Post by rbanffy »

aianus wrote: post #50
rbanffy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and that Facebook may have to comply with valid court orders. How outrageous a judge telling what Facebook should do.

A judge in a corrupt third-world country can say whatever he wants, I don't think Facebook should blindly be following court orders from overseas.

The same way that, when I open an office in the US I must live with a series of arbitrary laws I may not agree with (or that horrify me), when you open an office in a corrupt third-world country, you are supposed to obey the law or suffer the consequences.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#165

Post by sangnoir »

cthalupa wrote: post #154
sangnoir wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “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.

>Companies should beholden to the laws of the places they reside.

My belief is slightly different: companies should be beholden to the laws of the places they trade (or do business, or earn income). I think it's both moral and pragmatic in a real politik way (he who pays the piper and all that). If a company thinks it can get away with ignoring the laws and at the same time benefiting from the same country, they shouldn't be surprised to find themselves cut off.

This is why US companies are bending over backwards to onerous demands by the Chinese gvt (and following Chinese laws) in order to gain access to the humongous Chinese market. Money talks, and the Brazilian judge 'hacked' the legal limitations: I consider this to be an extra-territorial contempt of court sanction. It is well within Whatsapp's legal rights to keep ignoring this, but it wouldn't be advisable with the 1m subscriber bonus to its competitor.

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#166

Post by sounds »

embik wrote: post #147
sounds wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dictator-like behavior has a polarizing effect, which is generally the precursor to large realignments (and possibly violence). On that note: please be careful! "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." - Stars Wars Episode 4 Large realignments are the fallout: those who benefit from the dictatorship will be in favor of it. Dictators also have difficulty maintaining their…

It's very interesting that we perceive this (public) shutdown as "dictator-like" behaviour while the US uses gag orders, laws and secret courts to force (tech) companies into complying. If you don't want to, you have to shut down your company (see Lavabit). Yet Brasilia is "anti-technology" (sic) because they're not abusing their power in secret .

Oh, I'm totally suggesting the US is "dictator-like"--not all US citizens, but the elite. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10748229

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#167

Post by lucasnemeth »

dogma1138 wrote: post #162
lucasnemeth wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things should be taken into consideration, a "confidential" investigation that closes an service used by millions of citizens is highly controversial. They don't do the same to any Telecom company, so that's very suspicious. A spilling of oil is not controversial. It's damage made by a company accidentally and that is causing great environmental damage. The Brazilian government has the power to ask try to enforce the…

Subpoena is a subpoena, most wire taps and telecom subpoenas are confidential you can't really have your target knowing that you are tapping them can you? No where did i mentioned spilling of oil it's just an example if an energy company doesn't want to cooperate with the government it's perfectly legitimate to order your energy sector to stop importing oil from them this happens quite often. Same goes for websites t…

a wiretap does not close the entire communication channel, does it? You used an analogy to the oil spillage, that would not result in the same impact for rhetoric purposes, but they are not similar.

The cold war ended. Look at "Modern Definitions": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Modern_definitio...

For you "western" means "white and rich".

Re: Brazilian Judge Shuts Down WhatsApp for 48 Hours

#168

Post by dogma1138 »

lucasnemeth wrote: post #167
dogma1138 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subpoena is a subpoena, most wire taps and telecom subpoenas are confidential you can't really have your target knowing that you are tapping them can you? No where did i mentioned spilling of oil it's just an example if an energy company doesn't want to cooperate with the government it's perfectly legitimate to order your energy sector to stop importing oil from them this happens quite often. Same goes for websites t…

a wiretap does not close the entire communication channel, does it? You used an analogy to the oil spillage, that would not result in the same impact for rhetoric purposes, but they are not similar. The cold war ended. Look at "Modern Definitions": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world#Modern_definitio... For you "western" means "white and rich".

Again you are confusing what the subpoena was with what had to be done. When a company doesn't comply you force it, there is almost nothing that Brazil can do to WhatsApp other than to harm them financially and their only way to do so is to block them. The warrant was extreme yes but it also wasn't indefinite it was a warning shot, this would not have happened if WhatsApp would give the same amount of respect to Brazil as it does to N. American and European countries. But since Brazil isn't "white and rich" as you've so colorfully described they just pissed all over them. I really don't understand how can you argue for a corporation to piss all over the law. This isn't about privacy this is about respecting the legal framework of a nation which is one of the most important foundations of modern society, WhatsApp could as easily pissed over a law that protects your data as they pissed over a legal subpoena would you still go out of your way to defend them then?
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