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Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

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Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#161

Post by JshWright »

SMAAART wrote: post #157
ChuckMcM wrote: post #119

While I applaud Signal's response I expect this entire event (subpoena and response) will be provided as one of the exhibits to congress by the Department of Justice to justify their request that it be unlawful to provide such services. The DoJ will say, "See, here is this horrible crime we are investigating and because this company chose to make it impossible for law enforcement, with a warrant and a subpoena to get…

Half of the people in Congress don't really understand what this is all about; the other half who understands, uses Signal.

Well, I guess we're "lucky" that you have to have well more than half of Congress on board to get anything done...

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#162

Post by alfiedotwtf »

onetimeusename wrote: post #115
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #23

Beautiful. That's how you do it. I actually believe that law enforcement has the legal right to subpoena information, with a judge's consent, while investigating criminal activity. This is exactly the solution to that problem. These platforms should want to know as little about you as possible.

Yes, although the way around this for law enforcement is to pressure Apple and Google to remove Signal from the App Store/Play respectively (to protect children!) and work on operating system level bypasses of Signal. I am fearing this scenario.

This.

The Internet may interpret censorship as damage and route around it, but spy agencies interpret laws as inconveniences and ignore them.

As access closes in one place (i.e application layer), they will just get closer to the source (i.e operating system or supply chain)

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#163

Post by salawat »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #85
savant_penguin wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, except when the government gets to make that subpoena a state secret

With very limited use, even secret subpoenas can be a good thing, for example in a counterintelligence situation where you don't want to tip your hand to a foreign intelligence service. The problem is abuse of that system.

...or to your own citizens, who you may be looking at as a domestic threat.

Let's be clear There is no reason to assume that this type of thing is constrained to "just the type" the government can have their arm forced into admitting to.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#164

Post by nobody9999 »

azinman2 wrote: post #107
feanaro wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In formulating your statement that examining criminal behavior is a problem [...] Who exactly said this? It's rather the other way around: flagrantly examining and being able to examine non-criminal behaviour at a whim is a problem. The excuse of potentially being able to spot criminal behaviour is not enough.

The GP did: "I actually believe that law enforcement has the legal right to subpoena information, with a judge's consent, while investigating criminal activity. This is exactly the solution to that _problem_." Nothing was said about spotting at large, but the context was subpoenaing information with a judge's consent while investigating criminal activity.

>"I actually believe that law enforcement has the legal right to subpoena information, with a judge's consent, while investigating criminal activity. This is exactly the solution to that _problem_."

Absolutely. The other side of that coin is that people are not required to keep (or in this case, even gather) information in a way that allows the government to obtain it.

I'd also point out that this isn't about information that could prove a crime. It's about the government demanding information from a third party about unknown persons and the contents of their personal effects.

Given that Signal doesn't collect or have access to such information[0]:

"...this subpoena requested a wide variety of information we don’t have, including the target’s name, address, correspondence, contacts, groups, calls."

It's not possible to provide it. Are you claiming that Signal should be required to gather such information solely for the benefit of the police?

As the Fourth Amendment[1] to the US Constitution says, in part:

"...and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"

And since the subpoena was asking for Signal to identify the subject (their name), such a demand is clearly outside the bounds of the Fourth Amendment.

I'll say it again: Whether a judge (in this case, it was a grand jury and not a judge, but why split hairs?) agrees or not, Signal can't provide information it does not possess.

I suppose a law could be passed requiring them to collect such information as was demanded, but it's hard to see how that would be defensible on any grounds.

[0] https://signal.org/bigbrother/cd-california-grand-jury/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United...

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#166

Post by nobody9999 »

azinman2 wrote: post #109
politician wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can pull this information from either the sender or any of the recipients phones. If the government knows the sender, they can arrest them and confiscate the phone. That's reasonable.

If you use a passcode, they police cannot force you to unlock your phone: https://www.lawtechnologytoday.org/2019/08/can-police-force-...

>If you use a passcode, they police cannot force you to unlock your phone:

And that's a good thing.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#167

Post by BayAreaEscapee »

AlbertCory wrote: post #57
ndesaulniers wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another benefit, it sounds like, is that you don't have to pay capital gains on selling those shares. Like, let's say your intent is to donate $10k to some charity, out of the goodness of your heart and/or as a tax write off. You don't have that in cash, but do in stock. You could liquidate $10k of stock, pay capital gains on it (if it appreciated since acquisition), then donate it. So you're out the capital gains ta…

You're exactly right, you don't pay capital gains tax, and DAFs really are the poor man's "tax-exempt foundation." Billionaires have access to much fancier schemes than this, and I won't even attempt to describe all those. But yeah, I imagine "donating their shares without capital gains taxes" figures into them. I just noticed you said "trusts for their kids" -- that's something different. If the children can access…

There is at least one intermediate step: it's not prohibitively expensive to set up a charitable remainder trust. You have more control than with a DAF. But you have a fixed cost to set up the trust and some annual administration and tax compliance costs. It can make sense if you plan to donate more than, say, a million dollars.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#168

Post by arminiusreturns »

webmobdev wrote: post #148
Trias11 wrote: post #135

Signal, please stop asking for mandatory phone number to register and use Signal. This raises privacy concerns and negates all the end-to-end encryption goodness you're offering.

Yes, this is why I am very suspicious of Signal as a front for the CIA / NSA. A phone number can reveal so much information about a person because many online and offline services now ask for it.

Signal is the best we have on mobile at the moment in my estimation, but after a cursory analysis of Moxy, I totally expect one day it will be revealed he has been compromised somehow. Nation state actors already have baseband roots, so as long as those arent your threat vector, you are probably, maybe, ok on signal.

I find it really interesting that Bill Binney says, despite years of me hearing the opposite, that we shoild all be rolling our own crypto because its a form of decentralization. The more time goes on, the more I think hes onto something.

The main problem I see is this: a future where only the hackers have privacy, and everyone else apathetically accepts their servitude and abuse. Furthermore, to maintain that privacy, hackers will have to be extremely selective in their friends, due to the invasive nature of the privacy violations from those around us, unbeknownst to them.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#169

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

Groxx wrote: post #139
vorpalhex wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For android that will be annoying to users: sideloading is a bit technical. For iOS users, that will be a death knell.

Sideloading on android is quite simple. "download apk" -> "launch apk file" -> "alert gives you a shortcut to settings to allow installing apk from [source]" -> toggle the only switch on that screen -> "launch apk file" now installs it. You press the only non-"give up" button at each stage and you're done. Remember that Fortnite succeeded in convincing people to do this by the millions. It's not hard.

Kids hooked on a game vs adults reading a scary message for an app are psychologically very different. Even if fortnite retained millions, how many users did they lose?

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

#170

Post by xorcist »

_zoltan_ wrote: post #8

surely signal has at least the IP address used to connect to their service? aren't they by law required to log that?

They have your phone number and (trivially reversible hashes of) your phonebook.

They must keep this data hot because they can send "this specific person in your phonebook just installed signal" messages.

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