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Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data
- CiPHPerCoder 10y agoI'm not too surprised to see an attempted overreach by federal investigators. Too bad there's no measure of meaningful accountability here. Outside the usual "let's ask for more than we're legally entitled" shtick, there's nothing particularly alarming about this subpoena; it was narrowly focused on two phone numbers, for which only one was a Signal user. It's good on OWS to fight so hard for transparency.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- woah 10y agoFYI, Signal has access to all metadata about messages and calls (but not the content of course). They claim not to store it and I believe them for now but someone else could be storing it. They don't have access to group message membership directly. A group appears as a bunch of one to one messages between the participants, so they might still be able to infer it.
- yincrash 10y agoIf they were storing that metadata, they would be lying in the response to their subpoena.
- CaptSpify 10y agoThat doesn't prove they don't have it though. I'm skeptical of the suggestion as well, but people can lie.
- 5ersi 10y agoSince their client apps are OSS you can check yourself: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android
- CaptSpify 10y agoBut isn't this server-side meta-data, not client-side meta-data? The service still routes through their system.
- mi100hael 10y agoNotably, the source for the voice call server is not available as far as I know, and there's no guarantee that the text messaging server is running in an unaltered state on their production servers.
- verandaguy 10y agoLying in response to a subpoena would be an EXTREMELY unwise move by OWS, or most other bodies in this position.
- guelo 10y agoI think you misread woah's comment. Signal has access to the metadata but chooses not to store it in order to be able to remain unresponsive to queries like this.
- rurban 10y agoSo the real threat here is that the FBI wants to come in with a search warrant, install one of their famous splitters (a Windows machine btw) and routes all metadata traffic to the NSA. To legally get contact data in real-time for one criminal under investigation. Essentially the Lavabit case. Or is that what they called PRISM? Legal route splitting at the endpoint, i.e. legally declared as such by the secret FISA court, because there's oversight...
- erichocean 10y ago> they would be lying in the response to their subpoena The court can compel a business (or individual) to lie about that sort of thing.
- CaptSpify 10y ago> FYI, Signal has access to all metadata about messages and calls source for this?
- glibgil 10y agoIt's the way the protocol works and its centralized infrastructure. They for sure have access
- lorenzhs 10y agoThe 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 collect such data. The thing I don't understand about the GP's post is "but someone else could be storing it". I would expect the entire message (including headers / metadata) to be encrypted in transit, with a pinned key, so that only OWS has access to the routing metadata. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
- woah 10y agoSomeone exploiting a security vulnerability in Signal's servers could be storing the metadata.
- faktorialas 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software) Check the metadata portion. One thing to note, this isn't surprising at all. All of the centralized IM servers can do this and, usually more. The alternatives that try to minimize or obfuscate metadata are far from market-ready.
- Aissen 10y agoYes, some mitm entity between OWS and the internet would be able to deduce who is speaking with whom once a big enough number of messages have been sent. In fact, any big ISP could do that for parties communicating from inside its network.
- falcolas 10y agoEven if they don't store it now, they could be forced by court-order to start storing it, even if for a limited number of endpoints. Remember LavaMail? This is pretty much what happened to them.
- Paul-ish 10y agoCould they be ordered to store metadata, with a gag order not allowing them to say they are doing so?
- zeveb 10y agoIt'd be better, of course, if we didn't rely on Signal not storing all that metadata and instead used a protocol which made it impossible for anyone to be in a position to choose whether or not to store it. Unfortunately, the protocols that enable truly traffic–analysis-resistant messaging (I believe the Pynchon Gate[1] is currently the best-of-breed) tend to have increased latency and consume greatly-increased bandwidth. I don't really know what the solution is, but I'm very uneasy about the central point of failure Open Whisper Systems is. Moxie's previous points about the difficulty of upgrading a federated protocol[2] are correct, but I think that despite the difficulty it's important to do. [1] http://freehaven.net/anonbib/cache/sassaman:wpes2005.pdf http://freehaven.net/anonbib/cache/sassaman:wpes2005.pdf [2] https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/
- CiPHPerCoder 10y agoAre you familiar with the Aqua project? I haven't seen it discussed much among privacy researchers, but it's certainly interesting. https://aqua.mpi-sws.org https://aqua.mpi-sws.org
- zeveb 10y agoLooks interesting … I'm looking forward to spending some time reading up on it.
- tptacek 10y agoWhat metadata? All they were able to produce was whether or not a phone number was associated with Signal at all, and the last time that phone number's account pinged the Signal service for any reason. They produced virtually no metadata to the investigation.
- problems 10y agoThey would also be able to figure out what phone numbers it was communicating with, at what times and how often - they do the routing. We're relying on them not to store that metadata, which is the problem.
- secfirstmd 10y agoGood stuff Moxie and OWS!
- tbrake 10y agoAnd ACLU!
- secfirstmd 10y agoYep and ACLU! :)
- MyMan1 10y agoIs it safe to assume then that WhatsApp is not secure? Unless their data has been subpoena'd as well?
- subliminalpanda 10y agoWhatsApp 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.
- joering2 10y ago.. 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 :)
- thingexplainer 10y agoAnd 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.
- jimktrains2 10y agoI love that they gave them the info in unix millis. A serious question though, how do gag orders work? How do I notify an attorney?
- bahjoite 10y agoAt the bottom of the gag order is states that OWS "may disclose the attached subpoena to an attorney for [OWS] for the purpose of receiving legal advice".
- jimktrains2 10y agoIs that required to be there? Is that just a curtesy? It would be unconstitutional otherwise, but, I don't know. It just seems odd. Is the attorney now bound by a gag order?
- lerpa 10y agoWell maybe they could contact an attorney through an online chat system that does leak conversations and surprisingly posts those private conversations about shady things govt wants to their website front page. What a bummer. Some lawyer needs to create www.gagorderattorney.com
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ejcx 10y agoThat's very neat and really glad to see privacy enhancing technologies working. I'm curious what type of metadata Facebook would have from the signal integrations with Whatsapp and Messenger. Is there more, less, or same? Has anyone looked in to this?
- joantune 10y agoQuite recently Whatsapp started to share your phone name and last time you were on the service with Facebook AFAIK https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-stop-whatsapp-from-sharing-your-information-with-facebook/ https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-stop-whatsapp-from-sharin...
- faktorialas 10y agoSignificantly more; OWS in this blog post are claiming to keep the very bare minimum. Whatsapp and Facebook, meanwhile, are sharing data to improve ads - surely they share much more than that with LE.
- throwawayIndian 10y agoWorry not, 'Murica! Hillary is considering to drone this guy as well. So that you can be safe. :-)
- moxie 10y agohttp://fortune.com/2016/08/29/clinton-campaign-signal/ http://fortune.com/2016/08/29/clinton-campaign-signal/
- dredmorbius 10y agoSince GP risks flag death: the implication was that Hillary Clinton would seek to have Signal shut down, or more specifically: target Moxie directly. Moxie's link shows her campaign is in fact relying on the service.
- jbmorgado 10y agoWhile the GGP idea was just misinformed and basically outright dumb, it doesn't mean that just because a politician chooses to use a tool or a person a a given time then they will protect that person or tool in the future. The world is full of examples in the contrary. Bottom line, just because Hilary's campaign is using Signal, it doesn't mean that in the future her administration won't gag them or make legislation available in order to use them so spy on their own citizens.
- ComodoHacker 10y agoThe good news here is people are using Signal for important things.
- jweir 10y agoIf I had $100 to donate - ACLU or EFF or a 50/50 split?
- java-man 10y agohow about $200 to ACLU and $200 to EFF?
- Fej 10y agoAlso curious as to the opinions of others here. (Although I have considerably less money.)
- CaptSpify 10y agodepends on where your priorities lie, and which group matches them best, IMO
- 1123581321 10y ago100% to EFF because they specialize in issues important to me more than ACLU, which has a broader mandate, and because EFF's budget is about 10% of ACLU's.
- DasIch 10y agoThe ACLU does a lot of important work but goes far beyond tech. You should take a closer look at the ACLU to look at what else they do and how you feel about that.
- secfirstmd 10y agoWhat about 33% ACLU, 33% EFF and 33% Open Whisper Systems?
- joncp 10y agoSo, when is it going to be considered misconduct for Dana Boente and the (not so) honorable Theresa Buchanan to tack on gag orders for no good reason? How do we change that? Calling our representatives in Congress won't help. Signing petitions is laughable. I'm at a loss for how to change this as a regular citizen.
- module0000 10y agoPolitical 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
- avar 10y agoI'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.
- module0000 10y agoSorry 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) <John Doe> 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.
- tomjen3 10y agoIn the future please don't blank out the officer's email address, especially when they (as explained in the reply) overstep their bounds in terms of what they are allowed to request, thus essentially abusing their position and the trust we as citizens have provided to them.
- codezero 10y agoThe redacted letter was provided by the court, so I assume that they weren't willing to disclose it and revealing it would be a violation of the court order.
- rurban 10y agoFunny that Open Whisper Systems wrote in the last chapter that they essentially should come back with a court order or search warrant to get more data, but forgot to include the critical information, that even then the FBI will not get more information, because Open Whisper Systems has no technical ability to provide that data at all. It's volatile data exchanged between the clients only, but not centrally stored anywhere (contrary to all other secure chat systems out there). The FBI has probably no idea how Signal works, what is stored and what not. Even a grand-jury subpoena has no chance to produce more data. But maybe they can force them to re-implement Signal with a government backdoor (because it's a police state after all), and that's what Open Whisper Systems is really objecting to? Or just logging the metadata? (Which btw. duckduckgo does, even if it slows down their webserver by at least 20%). Or did they just try to mess with the FBI lawyers?
- stingraycharles 10y agoWouldn't OWS be able to push an update specifically targeted at retrieving the necessary information to decrypt that specific user's data?
- Programmatic 10y agoOr be forced a la Lavabit to install a pen register which would capture the metadata from that point forward.
- pooper 10y agoWhat is the solution here? The solution that minimizes damage involves everyone building from source and connecting in a peer to peer fashion that makes it pretty difficult to push a malicious update if you're looking for targeted surveillance. However, even this requires an understanding government that isn't willing to poison the well in order to get to the target. A government that justifies dragnet (and whose agencies allegedly buy and sit on a stash of zero days) isn't something I'd trust to be bothered by the idea of leaving many people vulnerable in order to catch one bad guy. I know it sounds trite but technology will not provide a full solution here. We need a lot of lobbying and a lot of PR to have any chance. Co-ordination will be very challenging when our goals very so wildly. But I guess we need to ask ourselves where we stand on this issue. Given we have difficulty getting almost half of the people to even bother registering and showing up to vote, this is an uphill task.
- kyledrake 10y agoI'm really happy they provided documentation on how to fight an unconstitutional gag order on a subpoena. They put gag orders on subpoenas they're not supposed to all the time, and it's good to show people an "easy" way to fight them.
- Fej 10y agoI actually trust OWS in this case. They have taken every precaution to make data seizure (all but) impossible. Signal is the best shot we have at widespread, usable private communications at this point. It's about time we get around to supporting it. Be pragmatic.
- gagabity 10y agoI really hate that every messaging app nowadays requires a phone number to use, sure it makes some things easier but its very difficult to get a phone number anonymously. They should include an email signup option or even better just a username/password option although that would cause some issues with spammers, which can probably be mitigated in other more creative ways.
- CraftThatBlock 10y agoThe "privacy" apps nowadays (Signal for instance) is morw about security than anonymity.
- CraftThatBlock 10y agoApps that claim "privacy" only actually protect the security, not anonymity of their users.
- jwtadvice 10y agoGreat, that explains the warrant canary disappearance. I hope they put it back up so they can take it down again.
- throw2016 10y agoCan a privacy service really be built in the US and that too in SFO which is ground zero for the fantastic new surveillance economy being imagined and built. We know freedom loving software engineers after decades of posturing have long folded and left Snowden holding the baby. We also know companies here are either closely linked to intelligence agencies or bending over backwards. We know the executive branch is in the middle of a full blown identity crisis of whether they are the good guys or bad guys of the world. Closesly followed by a legal system that has developed a third world regime like affinity for blanket gag orders and rubber stamping with 100% approval rates. This is a bit like tasking the fox to protect the hens. What stops a goverment friendly company from acquiring whispersystems, or whisper itself being some sort of a release valve operation?
- Jarwain 10y ago> 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. Did I come to the right conclusion? Or does Signal not store the encrypted message data either?
- faktorialas 10y agoConsidering 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.
- Jarwain 10y agoThat makes sense, but the way they ended up phrasing the sentence was a little weird/suspicious I guess?
- fatdog 10y agoIt might be worth considering why authorities think banning or regulating encryption is tractable. - 100+ years of business telecommunications without significant strong encryption. - Robust wiretapping and law enforcement access laws and practices that mean there is NO place or piece of information within US sovereign territory that is inaccessible to an authorized agent of the state. - they have the expectation of total control. Hell, beat cops can shoot you over minor "comply or die" orders. - Crypto isn't about your email or even evidence in a particular case, it is about the completeness and totality of their authority. - States around the world routinely decimate their populations in civil wars and massacres to ensure the same people remain in power. From the LE perspective, anyone who threatens the sovereignty of the state is a terrist they would complete for the opportunity to shoot. Hackers don't get it. If the crypto debate ever gets real, you cannot imagine how real it will get.
- api 10y agoIt's already quite "real" in many countries around the world where using strong crypto in the wrong way can get you imprisoned or killed.
- mastazi 10y agoSame story as covered by the ACLU website: https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/new-documents-reveal-government-effort-impose-secrecy-encryption-company https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/new-documents-reveal-g...
- ajdlinux 10y ago"In the "first half of 2016" (the most specific we're permitted to be)" I note that the documents use a proportional width font, and there's been previous research into using the width of blacked-out sections of redacted documents along with information about the font to work out possible character combinations that fit appropriately...
- 1024core 10y agoIs there any country where you can set up your servers, so you can be out of reach of the various US agencies hell bent on undermining our privacy?
- Keverw 10y agoWhy do they mean by "upstream and downstream providers"? I would think it'd mean the ISP associated with the IP address from the logs if they had it? Not sure why they worded it that way or if they meant somthing else?
- free2rhyme214 10y agoIf you had to rank encrypted messaging clients, how would you rank them? The clients you have are Signal, WhatsApp, Messenger and Allo. (all that run the Signal protocol currently)
- tdkl 10y agoMessenger and Allo aren't E2E by default, but optional. Whatsapp shares data with FB. Wire is one of those which is E2E by default and uses the similar algorithm as Signal.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- thingexplainer 10y agoMoxie says this happened in the first half of 2016, but the censored month seems have eight characters, ruling out the first six months. My bet is on December. My hedge is that I counted wrong. Edit: I counted wrong. <digit><digit><space>[April,March] works just as well.
- silur 10y agoDoesn't this mean that from now, WhisperSystems are legally bound to store every metadata that they couldn't provide to the authorities in this case?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- doorgoo 10y agoI don't think that it's Silicon Valley avoided politics.. They literally used to work solely for the government http://doorgoo.chat http://doorgoo.chat
- alanh 10y agoAt the risk of sounding clueless, how is it possible that Signal can’t say which account belongs to which phone number when the only concept of a username on Signal is that of a verified phone number? When I initiate a conversation, am I not at that moment using a lookup which now people are saying does not exist!?