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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

#291

Post by elliekelly »

lettergram wrote: post #254
Grimm1 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I do. EFF, Wikimedia, ACLU (Only EFF is really for this particular issue though)

I stopped supporting the ACLU when they started doing this: Fighting against due process: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/see-you-court-aclu-sues... claiming there's no men: https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1196877415810813955 and this: https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1199725066302308354 Telling families to discuss pronouns: https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1250795126584217602 and this: https://twitter.com/ACLU/st…

The tweet in which you allege they’re “claiming there’s [sic] no men” is actually saying the exact opposite? It’s saying there are many different types of men.

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

#293

Post by jes »

chrononaut wrote: post #266
nnutter wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ACLU is not what it once was. I will not donate to them. Even the EFF is growing questionable. I would definitely be curious what recommendations people have.

I am out of the loop on this one. What has the ACLU become today, and why is the EFF growing questionable?

The ACLU also opposed [1], [2] banning the non-medically necessary genital cutting of infant boys (“infant circumcision”) in the SF Bay area.

[1] http://www.bayareaintactivists.org/sites/default/files/aclu_...

[2] https://www.aclunc.org/news/aclu-urges-court-invalidate-sf-c...

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

#294

Post by eertami »

codewiz wrote: post #272

> this subpoena requested a wide variety of information we don’t have, including the target’s name, address, correspondence, contacts, groups, calls. Couldn't they easily use the phone number associated with the Signal account to find the target's name? Even if the account uses a pre-paid SIM without a credit card attached, the telco could still reveal the location of the device and probably its IMEI, which could be…

>Couldn't they easily use the phone number associated with the Signal account to find the target's name?

What do you mean? They already have the telephone number. It is listed in the subpoena. All Signal is doing is confirming that this phone number has a Signal account - sure, it's not perfect, but I don't really see your point. They don't need Signal to be able to do any of the things you listed.

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

#295

Post by Groxx »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #169
Groxx wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>Kids hooked on a game vs adults reading a scary message for an app are psychologically very different.

Somewhat. And sometimes. And when the high-security-site for installing a high-security-tool is asking you to do a thing, it's quite a bit psychologically different than e.g. a reddit post saying "install this apk and approve all prompts: http://www.5z8.info/hack-outlook_w2f7vj_dogfights"

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

#296

Post by leesalminen »

aesh2Xa1 wrote: post #229
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.”

If you use Amazon.com for shopping, and you do, then you can choose Signal Foundation for your benefiting organization. It's a small amount of money, but it's a little bit for every purchase.

Not such a great assumption anymore. I’ve given up my Amazon.com Prime membership and completely avoided them for many months now. I personally know several others who have done the same thing.

I aspire to not hand them AWS dollars one day, but Aurora has been an amazing product for my business.

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

#297

Post by leesalminen »

ekianjo wrote: post #267
singron wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely not true. Dianne Feinstein for instance has been instrumental in almost all of these efforts. As a senator from California, she could be replaced with someone nearly politically identical that didn't support government surveillance.

who you are before you get elected and after are not the same. never forget that.

Remember, the intelligence community has six ways from Sunday to get back at you.

- Senator Chuck Schumer

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

#298

Post by tylerhou »

Fogest wrote: post #281
chrononaut wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am out of the loop on this one. What has the ACLU become today, and why is the EFF growing questionable?

From my understanding the ACLU used to stand for the civil rights of everybody and even defended KKK members. But now they have taken sides on various social justice movements and targeted groups that oppose these sides. Instead of fighting for civil rights like they used to, they pick and choose which rights they think are okay to violate if it's for the "right cause". It goes completely against their old motto.

Except that's not exactly true; here is a counterexample.

https://lawandcrime.com/first-amendment/aclu-backs-n-j-woman...

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

#299

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

smoyer wrote: post #278
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…

Bonus points for sending the Unix timestamps in millis ... I hope the lawyer who got this response has to hire a consultant too translate it for the court!

My favorite was their footnote URL!

> The only information Signal maintains that is encompassed by thesubpoena for any particular user account, identified through a phone number, is the time of account creation and the date of the account’s last connection to Signal servers. That is all. [2]

> [2] see e.g. https://signal.org/bigbrother

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

#300

Post by aborsy »

* But FBI has access to Pegasus-like spyware.

If you have a phone number, a zero-click NSO spyware would provide full control over target device.

* FBI could get user’s data from Apple if it’s an iPhone (considering that iOS is closed source), or force a malicious update to user through so many ways (including by pushing a bad update or manipulating safety numbers in signal).

So why asking a messaging app that everyone knows doesn’t have the requested information?

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