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U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#21

Post by EvilEndures »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #7

At what point does the technical community stop trying to technically interfere with the efforts of law enforcement, and start trying to change the laws that make law enforcement behave this way?

> At what point does the technical community stop trying to technically interfere with the efforts of law enforcement, and start trying to change the laws that make law enforcement behave this way?

Law enforcement and government are addicted to power to an unhealthy degree. Convincing people to voluntarily give up power is rarely successful.

You seem to believe majority support is enough to make something happen. It is not.

The Public Option has 75% popular support. Medicare-For-All has 59% popular support.

Yet we have neither.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#22

Post by stale2002 »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #7

At what point does the technical community stop trying to technically interfere with the efforts of law enforcement, and start trying to change the laws that make law enforcement behave this way?

The opinions of politicians can change on a whim.

Changing the law means nothing if it gets changed back the following decade.

Technical solutions tend to be more permanent.

Your solution is equivalent to saying "why are we focused so much on pretecting ourselves from hackers? We should instead change society such that nobody even WANTS to be a hacker!"

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#23

Post by joe_the_user »

mjevans wrote: post #4

I think it has become abundantly clear that a fully peer to peer, encryption required (non-optional), no single central server infrastructure solution is the answer. No points to tap. No point in tapping the data. If they want to capture conversations it's time to go back to the proper old ways of actually spying on high-value targets.

Plus a client which is under complete control of the user - a phone could never be and a laptop running Linux with Intel me stripped-out might be if you're lucky.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#24

Post by SN76477 »

mjevans wrote: post #4

I think it has become abundantly clear that a fully peer to peer, encryption required (non-optional), no single central server infrastructure solution is the answer. No points to tap. No point in tapping the data. If they want to capture conversations it's time to go back to the proper old ways of actually spying on high-value targets.

Reevaluate the value of the target.

I don't know what government is doing snooping on facebook messenger. I would be blindsided if real crime was happening that way.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#25

Post by javagram »

SN76477 wrote: post #24
mjevans wrote: post #4

I think it has become abundantly clear that a fully peer to peer, encryption required (non-optional), no single central server infrastructure solution is the answer. No points to tap. No point in tapping the data. If they want to capture conversations it's time to go back to the proper old ways of actually spying on high-value targets.

Reevaluate the value of the target. I don't know what government is doing snooping on facebook messenger. I would be blindsided if real crime was happening that way.

Real crime happens on SMS all the time. Why wouldn’t it happen on Facebook messenger which is one of the most popular SMS replacement apps?

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#27

Post by joe_the_user »

madeofpalk wrote: post #16
seorphates wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? You kind of lost me. Isn't the actual issue math?

The issue is laws. A country that's going to mandate backdoors/access to such communications, are going to outlaw communication methods they can't backdoor. Say Apple makes a federated end-to-end encrypted messenger app, the government will still go to Apple and say "let us read all the messages, otherwise you can't sell your devices". THAT is the problem, and it can't be solved by more technology and shouting "BLOCK…

Laws are an issue and enforceability is an issue.

If a largish group of users could create end-to-end encryption not with a single company but with "readily available materials", then stopping it could be harder.

So it's a combination of state dictate and the practical ability of users to defy that. This isn't saying I'm optimistic, I'm rather pessimistic on any ability of a wide home-grown encrypted-messaging milieu to appear - if few are aiming for this, those few can easily be picked-off. But I don't think we should just give up on any part of this.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#28

Post by WillPostForFood »

noobermin wrote: post #19
craftyguy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably at the point where elected officials start to care. They won't care until their voters care, and most voters don't seem to care about or understand the issue here since it does not affect most of them in any meaningful/measurable way.

I think they care. A majority of the country did not want NN to be repealed but it was. The problem is their vote means little and understandably, many tune out and don't vote or choose between lesser of two evils.

A majority of the country has no idea what new neutrality is nor do they care. The only way you get to polls indicating a preference either way is by describing the regulations to the recipient first.

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#29

Post by wallace_f »

EvilEndures wrote: post #21
CGamesPlay wrote: post #7

At what point does the technical community stop trying to technically interfere with the efforts of law enforcement, and start trying to change the laws that make law enforcement behave this way?

> At what point does the technical community stop trying to technically interfere with the efforts of law enforcement, and start trying to change the laws that make law enforcement behave this way? Law enforcement and government are addicted to power to an unhealthy degree. Convincing people to voluntarily give up power is rarely successful. You seem to believe majority support is enough to make something happen. It…

After President Franklin Pierce's child died gruesomely in a train wreck, it was believed, even by his own wife and family, that it was God's punishment for him seeking authority and power.

I didn't live in the past, but my reading of it leads me to believe that, at least through US history, it seemed that the public consciousness in the past has had very real skepticism of authority.

Perhaps that is the opposite today in many parts of the developed world. For example, a German guy recently looked me dead in the eye, smiled, and said sincerely: "But why would anybody not trust their government?"

Re: U.S. government seeks Facebook help to wiretap Messenger

#30

Post by paulcole »

mjevans wrote: post #4

I think it has become abundantly clear that a fully peer to peer, encryption required (non-optional), no single central server infrastructure solution is the answer. No points to tap. No point in tapping the data. If they want to capture conversations it's time to go back to the proper old ways of actually spying on high-value targets.

Isn’t this what Slack is?
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