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Twitter discloses national security letters
- CaptSpify 10y agoAlthough they could have just sent it onto the intended target and gone quietly about their day, I'm really glad that Twitter made this an announcement. Do they have any kind of warrant canary system?
- thinkloop 10y agoI was just thinking about this - what kind of system could work in these circumstances? Say someone had to press a button every hour otherwise an automatic public release gets sent - the government could simply imprison the person for not pressing it. Say no-one knew who is supposed to press it because of some system of randomness and crypto, then you just threaten the CEO with imprisonment for not dismantling the whole thing. It seems only a fully decentralized organization could get away with it. Thoughts?
- CaptSpify 10y agopreface: I'm not the person you want for thoughts on this from, there are clearly smarter people to ask. I guess it would have to work like a dead-man switch, in that not taking action triggered it. The way I understand the law is that they can force you to omit details about it i.e. "I refuse to comment", but they can't make you lie about it. I wonder if, believing that "omitting details" to be morally/religiously wrong, could you argue that it is preventing your freedom of religion? Ultimately though, I agree that only a fully decentralized organization would work. I'd be open to other ideas, but I've never heard of one that avoids the issues that you mention above.
- jdormit 10y agoI think I missed the thread of this discussion. What would the press releases say? Under what circumstances would someone not be able to press the button?
- corvus_sapiens 10y agoWarrant canaries are a thing [1]. For example, see Reddit's one which disappeared last year [2]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary 2. https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4ct1kz/reddit_deletes_surveillance_warrant_canary_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4ct1kz/reddit_de...
- beezle 10y agoWhy not just tape it to the front door? Its directed at the company right? then anybody working there can read it. The secrecy fetish and end around court warrants is disgusting.
- algesten 10y agoGiven the size of their user base, makes you wonder how many of these they are not allowed to talk about...
- martinvol 10y agoWait a minute, Do they still really use typewriters?
- ycmbntrthrwaway 10y agoThey stick to plain ASCII and the same font everywhere to reduce metadata leakage.
- krzrak 10y ago> They stick to plain ASCII and the same font everywhere to reduce metadata leakage. Could you please elaborate?
- Sanddancer 10y agoNo. The DOJ has standardized on Courier for a font, and Courier's a built in font on pretty much all decent word processing programs and printers. The State Department used to use it too, but switched to Times New Roman some years ago.
- dmix 10y agoThis is great Twitter is being open about these. Do these releases get media coverage? Is anyone talking about the various lawsuits and blog posts about public releases of NSLs by tech companies? I wish the NYTimes and WaPo spent as much time caring about this stuff as they did about being the non-critical mouthpiece for various "anonymous intelligence officials". There is definitely a story that could be made out of this plus the Cloudflare, Google, etc posts... so hopefully I'm proved wrong in this assessment. > While the actual NSLs request a large amount of data, Twitter provides a very limited set of data in response to NSL I'm curious just how much they asked for here. I'm guessing it's the user plus 2 hops of anyone they talked to? Including: - DMs - t.co links clicked on - IP addresses when accessing twitter - device IDs, browser, OS, etc - phone numbers - visits to URLs of 3rd party web pages containing embedded tweets? (not sure if this is tracked via cookie) That could turn out to be plenty of data but I don't believe a single users data would be referenced by Twitter as "a large amount of data", it's very likely at least one hop or more, but who knows.
- secfirstmd 10y agoTwitter need to pull their finger out and get end-to-end encryption sorted on their DM's. I mean they onced acuihired Moxie and Whisper Systems yet they still don't have this in place? Many journalists and others are finding that Twitter is the place where initial contact with people/public/sources is being made first, because it's so easy to find and reach out to people. Yet they have no e-2-e on that. Even Facebook/WhatsApp, Google 'Allo, Telegram and of course, Signal are doing a better job then them.
- wpietri 10y agoWhat does end-to-end encryption mean for a tool with browser-based interfaces and where people often log on from multiple devices? I'm having trouble imagining how I'd do safe and easy key management between my phone, the old phone I stuck to my fridge, my tablet, and then Chrome and Firefox on my work laptop, my personal laptop, and that old laptop that hangs out by the couch for use when I'm watching TV. I also don't see how end-to-end encryption would help for the sort of data apparently asked for here, which is metadata. If the feds get a warrant to find out who a particular government employee DMed, it would seem that encrypting the contents of the DMs wouldn't help if it's @nytimes they contacted.
- thedevil 10y agoIs this the same Twitter that has allegedly shadowbanned Scott Adams multiple times for his political positions? If Twitter is interested in transparency, how about some transparency on that? Twitter's actions make me distrust any "transparency" talk, even if I disagree with Adams on certain things.
- ng12 10y agoIt's just virtue signaling, something Jack is very big on.
- WillyOnWheels 10y agoVirtue signaling is a meaningless phrase.
- Karunamon 10y ago..seeing something like this come from someone with the name of an infamous Wikipedia troll is just a little bit giggle worthy. That said, no it isn't. the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue. In other words, it's a way to proclaim "I am a good person!" to the world, usually in a vacuous or shallow way.
- WillyOnWheels 10y agoThe phrase 'virtue signaling' is always meant to convey "public expressing opinions intended to demonstrate one's good character, in a vacuous or shallow way". There's no "usually" about it. My comment was commenting on someone who wrote (doing a little interpolating here) "It's just Jack(in his role as CEO of twitter) is just virtue signaling, who was commenting on whether Twitter is or is not Twitter is 'shadowbanning' Scott Adams. It's a nonsense argument, Twitter doesn't shadowban, the commenter is probably also commenting on Jack's very public positions on equality and justice. His public statements are heard by millions. I'm sure he actually means what he says. It's not vacuous or shallow.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dgrealy 10y agoIt's important to remember that these orders serve a real and necessary role in investigating serious criminals; these individuals are not named prior to trial or if the investigation does not lead to a trial. It should not be assumed that they were being unlawfully persecuted - rather that there was a serious reason for them to be under investigation.
- jpmattia 10y ago> these individuals are not named, but it should not be assumed that they were being unlawfully persecuted - rather that there was a serious reason for them to be under investigation. If only there were some way of determining whether they were being unlawfully persecuted or validly investigated.
- smoothgrammer 10y agoI know, right? Who could possibly judge one way or the other?
- dgrealy 10y agoDo you think it might be a judge? Upon a completed investigation? One which is effective and protects the identities of the investigated prior to any criminal prosecution? Do you think there should maybe be an oversight board and a congressional committee? Because these things exist. Do you propose something different? These are the functions which these authorities serve in society.
- kodablah 10y agoWhy all of these rhetorical questions? There have been hundreds of thousands of these, with only a handful released upon completed investigation. I think a transparent judge, a transparent oversight board, a transparent congressional committee, etc is what is proposed. This is how we know these functions are even being served by authorities in society. Or not being served, such as up until recently where the gag was interminable making your "upon a completed investigation" comment misinformed at the least and your blind faith misplaced.
- anw 10y agoThis is a welcome message, especially seeing Twitter continue to fight for their freedom of speech in court (Twitter v. Lynch), along with the host of other Internet service companies. While I understand government agencies' desires to investigate persons of interest, the checks and balances of the system were put in place to do just that – check and balance the power of the system. It's outrageous that agencies feel they can side-step these checks and leave out the need to get a judge's approval for these kinds of things. A response from the Internet Archive (2016) also stated: > The NSL we received includes incorrect and outdated information regarding the options available to a recipient of an NSL to challenge its gag. Specifically, the NSL states that such a challenge can only be issued once a year. But in 2015, Congress did away with that annual limitation and made it easier to challenge gag orders. The FBI has confirmed that the error was part of a standard NSL template and other providers received NSLs with the same significant error. We don’t know how many, but it is possibly in the thousands (according to the FBI, they sent out around 13,000 NSLs last year). I wonder what kind of legal action could even be taken against this kind of treatment (being given wrong / outdated information on legal options)?
- moxious 10y agoI may be in the minority, but I still think these companies are being cowardly. They disclose as soon as they're permitted to, but the trouble with that is that the permission is coming from the people who are the problem in the first place. An approach that would care about customers and show some more guts would be simple refusal. In essence, civil disobedience in the face of someone who is violating the law. Let the government take them to court, and let it be disclosed in that way. Before we applaud them too much, keep in mind they're also telegraphing that this behavior is continuing. It doesn't take much skill to read between the lines and see that this is an ongoing problem for them, there's just a lot more of it that's happened that they're not allowed to disclose yet.
- wfunction 10y ago> An approach that would care about customers and show some more guts would be simple refusal. In essence, civil disobedience in the face of someone who is violating the law. Let the government take them to court, and let it be disclosed in that way. Is that how it works? You can refuse anything the government tells you to do until they take you to court and the court orders you?
- boomboomsubban 10y agoLike the internet archive letters, these are only released as a legal error on the part of the FBI made regarding the ability to challenge the order. This is not the government deciding to lift the order voluntarily, and is not a sign of more transparency from their end.
- freshyill 10y agoI wonder how many NSLs they're going to start getting because of all the rogue government agencies.
- wfunction 10y agoI have a related question: Is there some kind of database anyone is keeping that helps the public figure out what information companies have been ordered to produce in the past, and what they have actually produced? (I don't specifically mean NSLs here -- subpoenas and any other things would all be included in my question.) This would be useful in several respects, because it would not only provide a check on the government, but it would also provide a check on the companies. For example, can I be sure that if I delete something, and a company with my data claims it is deleted in 60 days, can I rely on it to be true? If the company has been ordered to produce such information in the past, knowing whether or not it has done so would seem to be the most foolproof way to figure out how much data the company retains or discards. Is anyone keeping such records publicly (insofar as the information is available)?
- berry_sortoro 10y agoTwitter is weak PC. No balls. They should just come out with this day one and not let the fucking gov suppress them. Just leaking things to wikileaks or whatever, something that chant be traced to a single person. So what will they do?
- awqrre 10y agoThey disclosed what they were allowed to disclose... that doesn't tell you much...
- bitslave 10y ago"The FBI recently informed us that the gag orders have been lifted and that we may notify the account holders" How recently? Why?
- ensiferum 10y agoAnd Americans think that they have freedom. In general for anyone conscious about freedom of speech and press it should alarming how certain agencies breach people's data and then put gag orders in place. This isn't freedom, this is tyranny. The citizens of North-Korea probably have more freedom that then the citizens of USA.
- sneak 10y agoI've been to both places. While Americans are not free, and can indeed be tortured for saying the wrong things to the wrong people, the retribution in the DPRK is much more swift and broadly applied.
- Analemma_ 10y agoComments like this are worse than useless, in that people see them and dismiss them as hysterical hyperbole-- because they are-- and thereby become inoculated against more credible warnings of real danger.
- baybal2 10y agoAmerica needs a new civil war to reset the political establishment that went beyond the point of no return.
- TheRealDunkirk 10y agoIf this comment gets upvoted, will HN get an NSL for who voted it up, and their posting/commenting history?