171–180 of 649 posts
It's a huge problem for both privacy and the open source ecosystem that Apple and Google mandate use of their own notification system for apps to be included in their stores.
And now we understand why they do that.
Amusingly and sadly, the law was called PATRIOT as a normal "give a bad law a Good name", but over time "patriot" has become synonym for "traitor" in common use.
This, to me, is the more disturbing part of the article: > In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information," the company said in a statement. "Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests. What is the point of transparency reports if they don't include major vectors of government surveillance? IMO such gag orders sh…
> But gagging a company from disclosing untargeted or semi-targeted surveillance, especially if it involves American citizens, seems like it should be unconstitutional on free speech grounds. I see you have not read the Patriot Act, an Orwellian double-speak of a title if there ever was one.
Would be great to see an example of notification metadata that can supposedly link it to real users. Seems like this is what is being implied: Given: - users with notifications enabled - have X app installed - targeted user(s) reside in USA - targeted users(s) following “foo” on X app When: - issue FISA warrant for all smartphone users that received notifications in regards to “foo” user Then: - able to pull all Appl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. Most likely to try and catch Chinese spies or other countries like India, Iran, Russia, and others as they continue to go after dissidents abroad.
Or to track US activists and resell the information to the US government, in exchange for data on other five-eyes citizens or access to other surveillance systems (US ones are obviously the best, from a military standpoint).
This, to me, is the more disturbing part of the article: > In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information," the company said in a statement. "Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests. What is the point of transparency reports if they don't include major vectors of government surveillance? IMO such gag orders sh…
> But gagging a company from disclosing untargeted or semi-targeted surveillance, especially if it involves American citizens, seems like it should be unconstitutional on free speech grounds. I see you have not read the Patriot Act, an Orwellian double-speak of a title if there ever was one.
Is there any data on how often they're surveilling people without warrants vs with warrants?
This seems like important info to know.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
perhaps that democracy is not effective when the state organs are unelected bureacrats with guns
Would you prefer elected bureacrats with guns? That scares me more. Perhaps we just go with rock solid transparency laws...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"democracies allied to the United States." - includes India too.
Maybe so, but it seems clear that the surveillance goes both ways: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-09-23/us-dip...
Would be great to see an example of notification metadata that can supposedly link it to real users. Seems like this is what is being implied: Given: - users with notifications enabled - have X app installed - targeted user(s) reside in USA - targeted users(s) following “foo” on X app When: - issue FISA warrant for all smartphone users that received notifications in regards to “foo” user Then: - able to pull all Appl…
Who knows? Maybe you want to retroactively look at shit peopke received and decide on new crimes.