Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by germinalphrase » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

genewitch wrote: post #444

germinalphrase wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re not even a hundred years out from culturally and legally discriminating against an entire race of people in the US. Democracy has been stable here (and continues to be) but for whom was it representative?

Which race? The US interred Japanese people during WW2. I hear that we interred people from central and south America for the last 5+ years, too. We're not a hundred years from anything except gaslights.

Edit: perhaps, I am reading this wrong and you’re arguing that we continue to discriminate culturally and legally?

In that case, we agree and are talking past each other.

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

#542

Post by ByteJockey » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

jkaplowitz wrote: post #279

nzrf wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second this EFF is where I would go to support this myself snd do monthly. ACLU has lost its way picking civil rights to support or not.

For supporting "this" very specifically, ACLU (in the form of their 501(c)(3) foundation) is directly involved as legal counsel to Signal, so donating to EFF would be less relevant to "this" than donating to either Signal (also a non-profit) or to the ACLU Foundation. But, sure, the EFF is also a good organization. If your concern is specifically the ACLU's disagreement with recent Supreme Courts on the intended scop…

> If your concern is specifically the ACLU's disagreement with recent Supreme Courts on the intended scope of Second Amendment rights, the EFF isn't going to address that either since it's out of scope for their mission. But that's in no way relevant to what Signal had to deal with here, an area in which I think ACLU and EFF are pretty well aligned.

The comments about the ACLU probably aren't about the second amendment. That's never been the ACLU's thing. It's probably about the recent backing away from the 1st amendment which has historically been the ACLU's domain.

NYT link covering the topic: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html

Archive.org link in case you can't view the NYT link: https://web.archive.org/web/20211027082703/https://www.nytim...

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

#543

Post by loeg » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

dublinben wrote: post #204

ndesaulniers wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another benefit, it sounds like, is that you don't have to pay capital gains on selling those shares. Like, let's say your intent is to donate $10k to some charity, out of the goodness of your heart and/or as a tax write off. You don't have that in cash, but do in stock. You could liquidate $10k of stock, pay capital gains on it (if it appreciated since acquisition), then donate it. So you're out the capital gains ta…

This is more or less what billionaires do to pass their wealth to their children. Here's a recent article that goes into detail about one particular family's setup. https://archive.md/yN7M7 https://www.bloomberg.com/features/how-billionaires-pass-wea...

DAFs and GRATs are completely different vehicles. DAFs are beneficially owned by some 501(c)(3) and withdrawals can only go to arms-length, 3rd party 501(c)(3)s, with no reciprocity attached to the gift.

DAFs are a convenient way to gift appreciated stock (which is already a nice tax gift to the charitable wealthy), but fundamentally not a vehicle for passing money to your heirs.

Your article is about GRATs, which should be illegal.

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

#544

Post by loeg » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

jonas21 wrote: post #99

AlbertCory wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're exactly right, you don't pay capital gains tax, and DAFs really are the poor man's "tax-exempt foundation." Billionaires have access to much fancier schemes than this, and I won't even attempt to describe all those. But yeah, I imagine "donating their shares without capital gains taxes" figures into them. I just noticed you said "trusts for their kids" -- that's something different. If the children can access…

Yeah, I didn't realize what an enormous difference this made until I ran the numbers. In your example above, let's say the person purchased those 10 Meta shares for $38 each at the IPO and they're worth $322 each now. That's $3220 in proceeds and a $2840 capital gain. The taxes on this depend on income level and state of residence, but let's say they're in CA making $300K/year. They'll pay 20% federal capital gains t…

To be clear, this is exactly the same for any gift of appreciated stock -- a DAF is not required to donate appreciated stock in-kind and deduct the full (unrealized) price without paying capital gains. But the vast majority of charities are not equipped to accept in-kind stock donations, which a DAF facilitates by taking stock in-kind and cutting the charity a check.

(Also, DAFs allow claiming the deduction during high-income years and deferring distribution to charities over a longer period of time.)

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

#545

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 2:28 PM UTC

DeathArrow wrote: post #455

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I’m surprised it’s legal to run a Tor exit-node at all given the sheer volume of morally reprehensible things that go through it - regardless of its utility for journalistic freedom.

Probably most Tor exit nodes are run by agencies trying to snoop on traffic. I wouldn't trust Tor to solely protect my identity since there might be ways to attack it. But it can be an useful asset in a "pipeline" designed to protect one's identity.

> Probably most Tor exit nodes are run by agencies trying to snoop on traffic.

Well, that would explain why the nodes don't get shut-down when the local police come knocking...

Still, that must require some very awkward conversations when ethics committees or even departmental budgets are approved - not to mention inviting consternation from the general-public who really don't approve of their tax-money being used to knowingly facilitate dark-net activities, especially horrific child abuse, ugh. (I'm a utilitarian myself, but personally I'd pull the plug on it: surely there are better ways for embedded agents to exchange information? What about digital-steganography, and concealable satellite comms hardware?)

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

#546

Post by wombatpm » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

zarzavat wrote: post #408

poszlem wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a distortion of the paradox of tolerance, it doesn't endorse censorship. The paradox of tolerance only comes into play when views start getting translated into actions. Let the Nazis march down Skokie. Action should only be taken against them if they start acting on their views. Removal only happens in the interest of self-preservation. The paradox of tolerance is not an endorsement of censorship.

The paradox of tolerance arises because (neo)nazis want to abolish free speech, indeed they want to abolish entire groups of people. What is legally protected as speech and what is actually speech cannot be equal. For instance, speech that involves property damage is not protected, even though that is a common kind of speech in certain circumstances (e.g. graffiti "Romans go home") Conversely, some groups abuse free…

Westboro Baptist is a grift. It’s founders and leaders are lawyers. They intentionally yell offensive things to enflame public opinion in the hopes that someone assaults them or the police violate their rights. Then they sue for tons of money

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

#547

Post by surajrmal » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

rthomas6 wrote: post #532

onetimeusename wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, although the way around this for law enforcement is to pressure Apple and Google to remove Signal from the App Store/Play respectively (to protect children!) and work on operating system level bypasses of Signal. I am fearing this scenario.

If there was a heinous criminal and they were using Signal, I wonder if law enforcement could get a warrant to push an update to Signal (or even OS push services) through the Play Store/App Store, just for that user. Wouldn't that work? It's the same legality and hoops to jump through as a wiretap, it seems to me, and it solves law enforcement's problem. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced they could d…

This is exactly why I don't put 100% trust in these apps that claim e2e encryption. It's trivial to update the app and destroy the contract if the company is willing and cooperating. You need hardware based security to make it truly impossible, like the case of unlocking and iPhone, although I honestly don't know how hardware based security could be leveraged for chat. Maybe in a similar way to how DRM works where the CPU never has access to the data and something else is drawing the pixels on the screen?

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

#548

Post by webmobdev » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #154

webmobdev wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is why I am very suspicious of Signal as a front for the CIA / NSA. A phone number can reveal so much information about a person because many online and offline services now ask for it.

Reveal, yes, read their message, no.

We have to hope so ... The message still goes through their server ...

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

#549

Post by diebeforei485 » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 4:03 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #424

diebeforei485 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EFF takes weird policy positions. They're against speed cameras, but in favor of the status quo (police with guns manually pulling people over for speeding in cities).

That isn't a weird policy position. The speed cameras do ALPR and can store all the results, so they build a location history of all the vehicles that weren't even breaking the law. That's bad. It's also bad that cops pull people over arbitrarily, but that's not the part in the EFF's bailiwick, and there are other solutions than putting ALPR cameras everywhere.

> there are other solutions than putting ALPR cameras everywhere

What are these solutions?

For context, speed cameras have been very effective at reducing traffic deaths in cities- https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/camera-zones-curbed...

Also, I think it's a bit of a weird argument to say that ALPR is alright for paying highway/tunnel/bridge tolls but not for speed cameras.

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

#550

Post by jollybean » Sat, Oct 30, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #447

mLuby wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> proportionality and tactics are rare and unique Are they though? First it's "only" to catch the super-terrorists. Then it's only to catch the murderers. Then it's for VIP missing person cases. Then it's petty crime. Then it's for political opponents. Then nobody dares ask anymore about "legitimacy, proportionality, oversight." When those in power grant themselves more power, the onus is on them to prove they can't…

And to be clear, this isn't some hypothetical slippery slope, either - we've literally already seen it happen. E.g. various legislation passed ostensibly to target terrorism is routinely misused. Here's just one example that predates the Patriot Act, even: https://www.hrw.org/report/2010/07/04/without-suspicion/stop... .

By that argument, the entire justice system is a 'slippery slope'. It probably is to some extent, that's a good reason to vote.