Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data • Hacker News Board

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data

#251

Post by tremon » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 9:21 AM UTC

gnarbarian wrote: post #240

tremon wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are no objective conclusions in politics, and asking for such is shutting the door to any useful progress. Ideally, a good political solution is one where all involved parties "feel" that they have realized more of their demands than the others -- not one where one party gets all the spoils based on winning 51% of an artificial binary vote. I feel (part of) the reason your society is in political gridlock i…

The challenge I proposed is intended to be an objective exercise otherwise it's pointless because everyone can feel however they want. Here are some examples of how both a gun and encryption can be used for the same end goal. X can secure a financial transaction X can stop a thief from obtaining my credit card information X can stop someone from forcibly obtaining my identity X can stop an attacker from obtaining pri…

To me, the goal isn't the only thing that matters. How you achieve that goal matters too, and "using a threat of violence" ranks pretty low on the ladder of civility. Trying to equate the arguments based on goal alone is starting your argument from a false equivalence.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data

#252

Post by woah » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 4:43 PM UTC

lorenzhs wrote: post #30

CaptSpify wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FYI, Signal has access to all metadata about messages and calls source for this?

The messages and calls are routed through their servers, so they could (but do not ) store whatever metadata is required to route messages and calls. This would at least be the recipient's account and IP address, the sender's IP address (but not necessarily their account), and the current time. I believe the GP is echoing zeverb's sentiment, that it would be preferable if OWS (Signal) could not even be ordered to col…

Someone exploiting a security vulnerability in Signal's servers could be storing the metadata.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data

#253

Post by Jarwain » Thu, Oct 06, 2016, 8:02 PM UTC

faktorialas wrote: post #181

Jarwain wrote: post #152

> All message contents are end to end encrypted, so we don't have that information either. The way I'm reading/understanding this is that they have the encrypted messages, but don't specify whether they are stored. However, since the messages are encrypted, they don't have the message contents/that information. Concluding, they may have all the messages saved, albeit in an encrypted format and with minimal metadata.…

Considering the way they claim to minimize the metadata stored, I wouldn't expect them to store encrypted message content after it is delivered to the client. It'd be difficult to delete metadata about a message, but still keep the content. And they are claiming to not retain message metadata.

That makes sense, but the way they ended up phrasing the sentence was a little weird/suspicious I guess?

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data

#254

Post by module0000 » Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 4:17 AM UTC

avar wrote: post #91

module0000 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political actors usually only respond when they are or their colleagues are harmed in some fashion. When people successfully affect politicians, they tend to do so from a grassy knoll. Summary: Oppressive bullies only respond to equal or greater oppressive bullying. edit:typo

I'd have a vastly different view on politics if I believed in the Kennedy assassination being an inside job, as your offhand "grassy knoll" comment suggests you do.

Sorry for the late reply, but I didn't mean to imply anything about an inside job or other conspiracy theory. My point was that a sure-fire way to affect a politician is to kill them. Everything else is a "this might work..." proposition. I prefer absolutes.

I see how my comment could have been misinterpreted by so many people in hindsight. Sometimes I look at things through a very specific-to-my-experience lens. In another life, myself and squadmates(think coworkers) would get orders such as "Cleric(foreign equivalent of mayor/publicly-supported-bad-actor) and all his/her supporters are threats and should be neutralized". That didn't mean we should protest their policies or otherwise attempt to subvert them...those aren't guaranteed solutions. The finality of killing is a guaranteed solution. If they become a martyr and create even more undesirables through their demise...don't despair - just accept that the list of undesirables has grown and await the very predictable orders. It's tried, true, and only protested until the protester's name joins the list and is subsequently checked off.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data

#255

Post by gnarbarian » Sun, Oct 16, 2016, 2:43 AM UTC

tremon wrote: post #251

gnarbarian wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge I proposed is intended to be an objective exercise otherwise it's pointless because everyone can feel however they want. Here are some examples of how both a gun and encryption can be used for the same end goal. X can secure a financial transaction X can stop a thief from obtaining my credit card information X can stop someone from forcibly obtaining my identity X can stop an attacker from obtaining pri…

To me, the goal isn't the only thing that matters. How you achieve that goal matters too, and "using a threat of violence" ranks pretty low on the ladder of civility. Trying to equate the arguments based on goal alone is starting your argument from a false equivalence.

The ends don't justify the means. Of course.

People will use force to take advantage of your moral stand against violence and make you comply to things you do not agree to.

We both abhor violence. The difference is I refuse to be victimized by it.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data

#256

Post by thingexplainer » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 6:20 AM UTC

avar wrote: post #91

module0000 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political actors usually only respond when they are or their colleagues are harmed in some fashion. When people successfully affect politicians, they tend to do so from a grassy knoll. Summary: Oppressive bullies only respond to equal or greater oppressive bullying. edit:typo

I'd have a vastly different view on politics if I believed in the Kennedy assassination being an inside job, as your offhand "grassy knoll" comment suggests you do.

In all seriousness, and meaning no disrespect, have you researched the Kennedy assassination and come away with the impression there was no conspiracy?

Because I didn't even think it was particularly controversial that the official story is bunk. Making no more assumptions about the circumstances of his death (ie, who or how), a conspiracy would be required to produce an official explanation that was lean of some inconvenient facts. But I'm always in the market for convincing evidence that I'm wrong.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data

#257

Post by thingexplainer » Tue, Oct 18, 2016, 6:23 AM UTC

joering2 wrote: post #102

subliminalpanda wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp does store metadata in plaintext which makes it susceptible to law enforcement or 3rd parties. The contents of the messages are still end-to-end encrypted; that being said WhatsApp does default to backing up chats in the cloud and those could be subpoenaed by a government.

.. and how easy to frame someone... just keep sending them some messages until they block you. in the eyes of LE... they have metadata that you spoke with suspected individual :)

And presumably you have a record of those same chats revealing the content was, "I'm not interested in participating in your conspiracy to commit fraud, stop talking to me."

If you meant to imply they could abuse this capability to get a warrant, I'll be concerned about it when they have any trouble getting warrants.

Re: Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data

#258

Post by avar » Wed, Oct 19, 2016, 8:35 AM UTC

thingexplainer wrote: post #256

avar wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd have a vastly different view on politics if I believed in the Kennedy assassination being an inside job, as your offhand "grassy knoll" comment suggests you do.

In all seriousness, and meaning no disrespect, have you researched the Kennedy assassination and come away with the impression there was no conspiracy? Because I didn't even think it was particularly controversial that the official story is bunk. Making no more assumptions about the circumstances of his death (ie, who or how), a conspiracy would be required to produce an official explanation that was lean of some inc…

Yeah I've been quite interested in it an other conspiracy theories, like the 9/11 conspiracy theory (also bunk) etc.

Most of what these conspiracy theories consist of is just anomaly hunting, you take a really complex event and try to find any sort of unusual things, which of course you're going to find since it's a big & complex event.

Check out this interview (around 40m) in [1] with Gerald Posner, the author of Case Closed[2] (a non-conspiracy Kennedy assassination book) for a good start down the rabbit hole of non-conspiracy coverage of the Kennedy assassination.

1. http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/435

2. http://www.posner.com/case-closed