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230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

signal.org

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Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#61

Post by tialaramex »

spacephysics wrote: post #3
seemslegit wrote: post #2

Is signal still demonstrating their commitment to my privacy by notifying everyone with my number in their phone contacts who is also on signal when I join ?

That’s a good question I’d like to know, too. Perhaps they hash the phone numbers then compare to their master list for matches?

Specifically they use the first ten bytes of SHA1(phoneNumber) where phone number is like +12345553215 for the US phone number 1-234-555-3215 or say +4424061184 for the number I had as a child in a village in England.

This form of number is also the one your (mobile) phone actually uses, although they let you type in any sloppy human attempt at a phone number and translate.

Signal apps periodically reach out to Signal's servers to do two things: Confirm that this specific user does still have Signal (and so messages to them should be accepted) and optionally upload a set of these hashes for their contacts to see if any of those have Signal and so messages to those numbers can go securely via Signal instead.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#62

Post by core-questions »

hawkice wrote: post #60

Plenty of people have complex opinions about 230, but it's a law that says, if you see a comment that defames you, sue the person who made it, it's got nothing to do with e.g. whoever runs the skateboarding forum. Who opposes this? It's just codifying the common sense understanding of the internet.

OK, so please do tell me how to sue `sk8rboy2020` on the forum then?

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#63

Post by Macha »

core-questions wrote: post #62
hawkice wrote: post #60

Plenty of people have complex opinions about 230, but it's a law that says, if you see a comment that defames you, sue the person who made it, it's got nothing to do with e.g. whoever runs the skateboarding forum. Who opposes this? It's just codifying the common sense understanding of the internet.

OK, so please do tell me how to sue `sk8rboy2020` on the forum then?

How do you sue the guy that shouted at you as they left the restaurant? Who stuck a defamatory sign on the electric pole?

I don't see why the issues these present should move responsibility to the restaurant or electric company, however.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#64

Post by Macha »

seemslegit wrote: post #10
ajconway wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use Intel SGX to keep themselves from being able to access their users' contact lists. Still, one has to possess and reveal a valid phone number to use the service. This must help to grow the user base.

This misses the point, just because someone sometimes added me to their phone contacts and uses signal does not mean I want them notified when I start using signal too.

This has been my blocker to using Signal or Telegram also.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#65

Post by dublinben »

rapnie wrote: post #57
clarkevans wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the parent is downvoted not because of the underlying content of the message, but because of the black/white framing. Every tool has a barrier to use, and even with a strong commitment to security/privacy, Signal seems to have decided that it's more beneficial for their users know which one of their friends are on Signal, than there is potential for abuse. Further, there may come a time where this calculus ch…

> Signal seems to have decided that it's more beneficial for their users know which one of their friends are on Signal I feel the reason might be more as a way to promote more widespread use of Signal itself, rather than directly serving their users.

The creators of Signal surely believe that 'promoting the more widespread use of Signal itself' benefits their users. They're not for-profit company that exists for some other purpose.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#66

Post by hawkice »

core-questions wrote: post #62
hawkice wrote: post #60

Plenty of people have complex opinions about 230, but it's a law that says, if you see a comment that defames you, sue the person who made it, it's got nothing to do with e.g. whoever runs the skateboarding forum. Who opposes this? It's just codifying the common sense understanding of the internet.

OK, so please do tell me how to sue `sk8rboy2020` on the forum then?

I mean, 230 doesn't entitle them to immunity to subpeonas for records about which IP address made a comment, and internet providers routinely translate those to real identities in response to valid legal requests.

But that might work. Maybe they don't keep records. How do you sue defamatory information scrawled on a bathroom wall? Sometimes we don't have records for things. That's life.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#67

Post by 333c »

seemslegit wrote: post #10
ajconway wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use Intel SGX to keep themselves from being able to access their users' contact lists. Still, one has to possess and reveal a valid phone number to use the service. This must help to grow the user base.

This misses the point, just because someone sometimes added me to their phone contacts and uses signal does not mean I want them notified when I start using signal too.

I agree with your point, and I suspect that part of this comes from the Signal android app, which can be used as a replacement for all messaging (including SMS). Like Apple's Messages, it automatically upgrades from SMS to Signal when the recipient supports receiving messages on that platform.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#68

Post by yuliyp »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #34
gknoy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I report harmful content on Twitter or Facebook or Google, we need a system that ensures I receive a non-automated, competent response That seems extremely prone to being DOS-ed by bots or a brigade of complaint-heavy users.

If a platform can't scale to handle content moderation requests, it shouldn't exist at scale. Presumably a company shouldn't be responsible to respond to bot submissions, and could potentially ban complainants who abuse the system. (Although doing so would potentially open them to legal recourse if they were banning someone for filing legitimate reports they just didn't want to deal with, for example.) There are reas…

No human review system can scale to automated reporting; the number of attackers you have is not bounded by your legitimate user base.

The system you describe would basically mean every online service that allows human interaction would always run under risk of any trolls being able to permanently take them down by abusing content moderation requests.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#69

Post by 333c »

Macha wrote: post #64
seemslegit wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This misses the point, just because someone sometimes added me to their phone contacts and uses signal does not mean I want them notified when I start using signal too.

This has been my blocker to using Signal or Telegram also.

With Telegram at least, you do not have to share your contacts with the app. You can build up a Telegram-specific list of contacts based on who you message on the platform.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#70

Post by toast0 »

core-questions wrote: post #62
hawkice wrote: post #60

Plenty of people have complex opinions about 230, but it's a law that says, if you see a comment that defames you, sue the person who made it, it's got nothing to do with e.g. whoever runs the skateboarding forum. Who opposes this? It's just codifying the common sense understanding of the internet.

OK, so please do tell me how to sue `sk8rboy2020` on the forum then?

Sue John Doe, and ask the court to issue a subpoena to the forum for identifying information, and then to the ISP, and once you have that, add the account holder as a defendant to the suit.

It's not fast, and it's not easy, but such is life.

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