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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

#231

Post by aesh2Xa1 »

majormajor wrote: post #178
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…

I think turning it into a press release / advertising pitch is a poor move that's likely to make harsh new legislation more, not less, likely.

Transparency is critical. If Signal cares about the ethics at least as much as the marketing then they did right by the ethics and by their bottom line.

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

#232

Post by ev1 »

alkdfdlkdslk wrote: post #91

I just realized something. One of the only things contained is the account creation date. How hard would it be for the FBI to pull that text you get at that time/date to activate Signal? Not Impossible I would imagine? Edit: What raised my eyebrow is that the subpoena specifically asks for that. Why?

Signal does not absolutely require real numbers/ban VoIP/etc. You can theoretically sign up with a cheap VoIP number.

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

#233

Post by rsj_hn »

ospray wrote: post #220
tehjoker wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty crazy that people still think elections do anything and aren't just a sham while the rulers plug in the choices from above.

Don't let people tell you not to vote, because it won't make a difference. Not voting is a sure way not to have a voice.

The thing is, your voice can also add to the din of noise that drowns out the signal. Not every vote adds signal.

Here the problem is when you go down the ballot and reach the judges, schoolboard, and other offices where most people have no idea who the candidates are and many just vote randomly.

In Arizona there was a campaign that unseated an incumbent schoolboard member by a rival candidate whose last name, if some letters were transposed, was a famous local figure. The funny last name guy won.

So go ahead and vote, but please leave blank or skip over any of the candidates that you haven't researched. Don't vote randomly - some people are trying to have a real election.

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

#234

Post by teawrecks »

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.

If neuralink/related tech ever gets to the point of mind-to-mind communication, without a doubt our law enforcement will claim they have the right to subpoena a person's thoughts. We may be setting a precedent now that is more important that we could ever think (pun intended).

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

#235

Post by t-writescode »

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.

all of it? That's a bit of hyperbole. What is a more measured thought of how much of a negative impact there is?

Certainly saying "I know that Janis and Nate talked on this day this many times / for this long" and "Janis and Nate had a detailed conversation covering lemons and lye" have two different levels of private information revelation; and E2E protects against the latter but not necessarily the former, so why does it negate _all_ the goodness?

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

#236

Post by Grimm1 »

Rd6n6 wrote: post #196

Anybody concerned about these issues should consider donating to their favourite non profit that can have an impact that works in the area. Most HN users can afford $20/year pretty easily (others could afford $200/month and not even notice it) As they say, “Put your money where your mouth is.”

I mean I do. EFF, Wikimedia, ACLU

(Only EFF is really for this particular issue though)

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

#237

Post by travisgriggs »

tedivm wrote: post #3

My favorite part of their response is that they gave the timestamps in unix milliseconds.

Came here to say just this.

It's the final dash on the icing of "politely F yourself". Compliant and accurate but "let me burn up a little bit _your_ time" (pun).

Made me smile.

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

#240

Post by teawrecks »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #183
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.

> This is exactly the solution to that problem. I could be wrong but I was under the impression that the way end-to-end encryption worked (like what Signal claims, I thought) was it was physically impossible for them to decrypt (handover decrypted data (aka your messages) to a court of law) because the public/private keys are impossible to crack and also not known by Signal. It sounds like this isn't the case whatsoe…

I think you misread the post above. They're saying that the govt should be allowed to issue subpoenas, and nothing more. They shouldn't be allowed to mandate backdoors, or hack suspect's machines, etc. And citizens should be free to use cryptography to control their information.

Also, "Impossible" is not the right term. "Extraordinarily expensive" is a better one. And yes, anyone can share public keys with each other offline and have end-to-end encrypted communication without help from a service. But advertising companies and the govt are not incentivized to make that practice convenient, and people typically do what is most convenient.

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