45 ms·

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

538 points by missinglink12 5y ago

sneak 5y ago
Page 8 of that subpoena says the document files produced must have the extension "*.TIF". (note asterisk) I wonder how they'd like it if you sent them files literally named FILE001.PAGE001.*.TIF (the rest of the specified file format structure notwithstanding) It's very important to follow the instructions exactly when you are legally compelled to do something!
- KMag 5y ago
  Q: "Why did you send us BPGs[0] named .TIF?" A: "Because you specified an extension, not a file format." [0]https://bellard.org/bpg/ https://bellard.org/bpg/
  - admissionsguy 5y ago
    That will be 30 days in county jail, adios.
  - sneak 5y ago
    Surprisingly, the subpoena does specify the file format, including the compression, rather precisely.
    - alpaca128 5y ago
      Not that surprising considering this overlaps with areas where lawyers may use every trick in the book to cooperate just enough as is necessary. Like when Lavabit was asked to provide an encryption key and they sent the 4096bit key printed out on multiple pages in a tiny font size.
      - tgv 5y ago
        I've read similar, over-precise phrasing in other documents, and there I got the impression that the specification was not based on understanding the tech, but simply copied from some other place where the request wasn't fucked up (as in your lavabit example).
    - t0mas88 5y ago
      Are they allowed to make you do extra work to convert/generate data in the format asked? I know the other way around in (our local non-US variant of) freedom of information act requests you cannot ask any part of government to make/create/convert data for you, only ask for what they have in the format they have it in.
- drivingmenuts 5y ago
  It’s interesting how the government gets to demand the evidence in a very specific format, thereby offloading the work the government should be doing onto someone else, apparently without recompense.
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    You can be assured that any request for bulk data the government actually fulfills will be available by fax, smoke signal, and cuneiform.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
andix 5y ago
Let's see if they try to search the Signal servers for any evidence. And if there is really no information stored. Or if that will disrupt Signal services. The central, non-distributed architecture is always a big concern against Signal.
- movedx 5y ago
  Agreed. I really wish they would go decentralised. If they did, I'd order up my 1gbit/1gbit dedicated link at the office and offer it up immediately.
  - zdkl 5y ago
    If you want something decentralised what's wrong with doing the same with Tor and/or Matrix?
    - andix 5y ago
      Matrix is not ready for non-technical people. Way too much stuff to consider as a user. It's similar to PGP a technology that will probably never go mainstream.
      - bayesianbot 5y ago
        Is there? I'm definitely the kind of person who wants to set up my own server and bridges for it at some point, but when I tried Matrix for the first time last week I just created an account at matrix.org, installed a quite polished client and just started chatting.
        wayoutthere 5y ago
        The iOS client (Element) is garbage unless they fixed it in the last month. I suspect that’s what they’re referring to.
        mulander 5y ago
        Last time I tried matrix, and mind you that was over 3 years ago. Was with riot.im and trying to use the e2e encryption. The major surprise was not being able to suddenly decrypt older chat messages when OpenBSD changed the User-Agent string for Chromium which as I understand was used to establish the device identity. This is not something non-technical people can or want to diagnose.
willvarfar 5y ago
So as I type this, Signal have two stories in top-10 on HN: more coverage of Signal's Cellebrite Hack, and this. Are they connected? Signal gets this subpoena on the 29th March, and the reply by ACLU is on the 12th April. Signal's founder and CEO, Moxie Marlinspike, hacked Cellebrite and the story surfaced this week. Was it retaliation? Was it just because the subpoena made him wonder? Or is there something else causing Moxie to lash out at Cellebrite about now? Or was it all chance?
- input_sh 5y ago
  The reason they've mentioned "first half" of 2016 is because this isn't first such subpoena. See: https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/ Doubtful there's any connection between the two.
- jinzo 5y ago
  Cellebrite made a splash some time ago that their tools can extract Signal messages from the (unlocked?) devices. The claim was " Cellebrite can now break into Signal, an encrypted app considered safe from external snooping, it claimed." [1] And I guess that did not sit too well with Moxie :) [1] - https://securityboulevard.com/2020/12/signal-app-crypto-cracked-claims-cellebrite/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SecurityBloggersNetwork+%28Security+Bloggers+Network%29 https://securityboulevard.com/2020/12/signal-app-crypto-crac...
m4lvin 5y ago
Funny that they give all information they have about these accounts not just to the court, but even make it public. Page 3 of the response PDF shows the registration and last connection time stamps (all of which are between April and December 2020). Is this an elegant way to notify those six users?
- input_sh 5y ago
  I don't think so. I've tried a few last connection dates and they're all over 6 months in the past. Odds are they're burner numbers based on that alone. For example, last number last connected on Sep 13, 2020 (they're just dates, no time info stored), while the account was created on July 7th, 2020 at 16:15:37. Knowing the number's without Internet access for over half a year, person in question is probably unable to compare the creation date and time to the SMS received from Signal.
movedx 5y ago
This sort of subpoena clearly shows one of two things: 1. the government/law enforcement really don't have any idea how technology works; 2. they don't care and they're just trying their luck anyway. Either or it shows how tone deaf the state is when it comes to modern technologies.
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  I can rule out number 1 for you. I've had to assist the FBI many times and everyone I interacted with was incredibly technical, more than I ever expected. They are very under-staffed however.
djoldman 5y ago
I am not a lawyer. The lawyers at DOJ know what they are doing (notwithstanding the history or fact that signal will respond with little information): The subpoena has a request for interstate wire to help them quash future motions to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds. Whatever statute they're looking to charge will have an element of federal jurisdiction attached and interstate wire works great even if there are other ways. It's easy to ask, so they'll ask for it all.
- mdeck_ 5y ago
  I am a lawyer, and you’re correct. It’s typically called a “jurisdictional hook.” In certain regards the US Constitution limits the U.S. Congress’s ability to legislate to issues that touch on “interstate commerce.” If it all happens within Montana’s borders, that’s typically for Montana to handle in its own state legislature. So, for the DOJ to investigate something, they have to then satisfy whatever jurisdictional hook that the Congress put in the law, which in turn makes the law constitutional (in the sense of: within the Congress’s jurisdiction to legislate about). Here, the Congress will have required a proof of “use of interstate wires” (or something to that effect).
  - djoldman 5y ago
    I'm less certain of the following but as I understand it: if the event in question involves telephone/fiber lines or airwaves, it's usually a shoe-in for Fed jurisdiction anyway because those are generally regulated by some Fed agency and/or travel at some point through Fed-owned, regulated, or operated assets.
    - justaguy88 5y ago
      I'm now wondering if it's possible to make a within-state-only messaging service. What would something look like that manages to avoid Federal jurisdiction as much as possible?
      - aitkenably 5y ago
Vinnl 5y ago
For their first subpoena [1], they said: > It originally included a broad gag order that would have prevented us from publishing this notice, but the ACLU represented us in quickly and successfully securing our ability to publish the transcripts below. This subpoena says: > you are asked not to disclose the existence of nature of the subpoena But the post doesn't mention that at all. I wonder how much effort they had to spend, if any, to be able to publish this this time. [1] https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/
- laurencei 5y ago
  Does the phrase "you are asked" have a legal bearing though? is it something they can just choose to not follow, since they were not "told" or "instructed"?
  - underdeserver 5y ago
    Given that the subpoena itself contains language such as "YOU ARE COMMANDED" (sic), probably not, but I imagine Moxie asked the ACLU lawyers before making it public.
  - alias_neo 5y ago
    Given that the following sentence says "If you nonetheless plan to disclose the existence or nature of the subpoena, please contact the Special Agent identified above first". I suspect it might not. I don't know why this additional information wasn't quoted by the parent comment.
    - Y_Y 5y ago
      And so, are you obligated to contact the "Special Agent" in the case the you do disclose the subpoena?
      - bnj 5y ago
        Not a lawyer but my inference is that this language establishes that you have foreknowledge that disclosure might interfere with the investigation -- so if you ignore these requests and disclose in a way which appears to adversely impact the investigation, you won't be able to claim that you didn't know
INTPenis 5y ago
OT and tinfoil hat on; there was a strange event last week with users of Signal on the Telia ISP.[1] For about 24 hours no messages could be sent, resulting in a 401 unauthorized error from the server side. Telia is the former state-owned Swedish ISP that is now only half state-owned I believe. They have a bad rep already for sending out extortion letters to torrent users and are almost assumed to be monitoring all user traffic for the police. No explanation of the event has been provided by anyone. Users have done some basic troubleshooting but couldn't really establish much. I personally would love to see what those 401 errors looked like on the Signal server side. What exactly were these clients sending that was unauthorized on the server side? I guess we'll never know, hopefully it wasn't even stored. 1. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/5202 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/5202
- zibzab 5y ago
  > They have a bad rep already for sending out extortion letters to torrent users That's almost never the ISPs doing, they are being strong armed by IP owners.
  - exmadscientist 5y ago
    Sure, but some ISPs get strong-armed while others get... weak-armed. (And that's being generous to many of them.)
    - alkonaut 5y ago
      I completely understad why 9 ISPs out of 10 would choose to just do what's "least legally dangerous" rather than taking the Banhof route which is basically political posturing while taking a risk. Most of Telias customers and shareholders have no skin in that game, and would probably approve of the company taking the smallest amount of legal risk possible.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  As one of the replies in that thread you linked explains, this is TLS encrypted traffic, so Telia can't really do anything to influence what happens here. They don't get to see what the traffic means, and if they change any of it then the connection aborts, which doesn't result in a 401 error it just hangs up abruptly - that's how TLS is designed to work. It is entirely possible that somebody at Signal fat-fingered an IP address block, e.g. some kiddie is spewing 10Gb/s of traffic from 10.2/16 to Signal, but a Signal person blocks 10.20/16 [addresses example only] and only a week later when investigating "Why are we still eating 10Gb/s of spew?" do they realise they typo'd the number.
baybal2 5y ago
What investigation it is for?
mike_d 5y ago
The subpoena is from Homeland Security Investigations at LAX airport. They deal specifically with crimes that involve international transport. So this is human trafficking, drug smuggling, money mules, etc. To be honest the rest of it is just standard "we have some phone numbers" boilerplate. Same thing was probably sent to Facebook, Twitter, etc. with the hopes that someone was dumb enough to login and check their messages from a burner phone. Edit: Rereading it, this is a grand jury. They likely already know the who, what, why, and how. Signal's response will go to support other evidence that they may have recovered from cell phones or cell network. Grand juries historically result in a 95%+ chance of indictment so this isn't a fishing expedition.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- roflc0ptic 5y ago
  The structure of grand juries makes it so that the defense is unable to mount a defense. The fact that grand juries often result in indictment has vanishing little relevance for whether or not it’s a fishing expedition. Further, no one is saying it is a fishing expedition. It’s a request for information that Signal isn’t designed to be able to answer. You’re also just speculating about the nature of the crime, but saying it confidently, like, oh, this is definitely true. You don’t know.
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    Grand Juries are a really weird American thing†. The Grand Jury is entirely dependant on the prosecutor for guidance, so as an outsider it appears to me that their real purpose is to enable politically appointed prosecutors to pretend this anonymous "Grand jury" decided not to prosecute somebody when in reality what happened is that the prosecutor didn't want to. So now it's not the prosecutor's fault an obviously guilty person walked free, and yet conveniently they don't need to prosecute anybody they don't want to. † Americans didn't invent them, but they did keep them after everybody else went "Wait, this is a terrible idea" and abolished the Grand Jury.
Semaphor 5y ago
> The subpoena requested a wide variety of information that fell into this nonexistent category, including the addresses of the users, their correspondence, and the name associated with each account. And in other jurisdictions, only the correspondence would be inaccessible. Furthermore, there would be no need to contact Signal because you can get that information just from their phone number. Just in case anyone is still wondering why there are users who still complain about Signal linking accounts to phone numbers.
danpalmer 5y ago
Interesting that they provide last login dates as Unix milliseconds, but rounded to day boundaries (each of these is at midnight UTC). I'd assume that's what they store, which is good, but it's odd that they provide the data with such unnecessary precision if so. I wondered originally if this would help disambiguate accounts, perhaps if two numbers last logged in at the same timestamp one could guess that they were on the same device or something, but this doesn't look possible.
- timmattison 5y ago
  I’d guess that’s just how it’s stored and they’re not going to go through any additional effort to make it look nice for a request like this.
- psanford 5y ago
  The source code for storing the last login timestamp is here: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/blob/master/service/src/main/java/org/whispersystems/textsecuregcm/auth/BaseAccountAuthenticator.java#L105-L117 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/blob/master/servi...
rmac 5y ago
"Upon information and belief, these servers are physically located in Virginia." Such strange and probably necessary legal language...
- 1_player 5y ago
  "AWS told us the servers are in Virginia, but don't quote me on that. Might be Virginia, Queensland, for all I know."
ysnp 5y ago
Something I am not sure about as a layman: What is the likelihood that the documents Signal are allowed to publish, concerning subpoenas, are an accurate account of all the information they can provide? Could Homeland Security/FBI compel them to lie in the evidence they have produced? In [1], Signal mention that traffic correlation via timing attacks and IP addresses are a work-in-progress as far as their metadata protection goes. They also claim that they do not store IP addresses, or at least they are not set up to do so. I guess they can be forced to record some of these, if need be. I am not deeply concerned about the metadata Signal could possibly collect if compelled to (although it is unclear what exactly they can collect) because it is likely best-in-class among encrypted messengers anyway. I suppose it is likely that even if Signal were forced to lie or undergo a gag, the chance of whistle-blowing would be much higher given that they are a donations based nonprofit that probably employ more young-ish people with strong principles, as opposed to employees who need a stable job and have families to look after. [1] https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/ https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/
- thecrash 5y ago
  My rough understanding is that in the US the State can compel silence but not compel speech. Warrant canaries take this reasoning to an untested extreme, but it seems safe to assume that ordering Signal to tell elaborate lies about its subpoena responses would not fly in court.
auiya 5y ago
It's unlikely that prosecutors don't realize how Signal works. It's more likely they assume that, much like the rest of the tech world, there has been an increase in data collection efforts and they want to test the waters again to confirm/deny this data is available via Signal internals. Subpoenas are the only mechanism by which they're able to do so. That Signal are able to pivot to the media and say "yup, still court-tested, still privacy-focused" is a good thing for Signal. No need for the derisive tone I don't think.
- cptskippy 5y ago
  > It's unlikely that prosecutors don't realize how Signal works. Why would you expect them to understand how Signal works? A lawyer does not and cannot become a subject matter expert for every aspect of a case they undertake. A lawyer's job is to investigate every possible avenue for evidence to support their case. They're going to ask Signal for everything imaginable and have legal recourse if they discover at a later date that Signal withheld information. A lawyer with a complete understanding of how Signal works and intimate knowledge of it would still send the same subpoena and expect the same response. They would never say "Oh Signal? That's a dead end, don't bother."
  - merpnderp 5y ago
    Because a prosecutor calls up the IT crime lab and asks for the rundown. And since they have massive budgets, there actually is a well trained head of the IT crime lab who is perfectly capable of understanding and explaining (to a jury) how Signal works.
    - mgarfias 5y ago
      You’re very optimistic about the state of budgets, crime lab competence, etc
      - erhk 5y ago
        End to end encryption is not a complex thing to explain
bhalina 5y ago
I tip my hat to whoever wrote this
supergirl 5y ago
why do they write so amateurish sounding blog posts? 50% of the post is not relevant to the story. they are not making a good image for signal with these posts.
motohagiography 5y ago
It's probably unwise to think prosecutors and federal agents are stupid. They were in the 1990s crypto wars, but not now. What we tend to perceive as 'stupid' is in reality, 'powerful.' They don't need to explain themselves, because they put the onus of compliance on you. Gaming out the subpoena, Signal does not have this user information because it does not exist, but it does have server locations, 3rd party service providers relationships, and staff who can all be dragged into the process and system, where they can be charged with other arbitrary process crimes to put pressure on them. It's a mistake to interpret any official action as a serial, single point transactional request. Like mice, if you think you see one, you have, and it's guaranteed there are many more behind it. Given where they have used the action to draw your attention, where in relief is the second part of the pinch or funnel they are creating? If the legal system wants to destroy you, they can and do. Signal has antagonized them, and the current political climate is all about getting rid of any resistance to official powers and their unofficial private arms. Politically, there is ample incentive to take out Signal and cause users to switch to more amenable apps from friendly platform companies. They may even be able to compel friendly app stores to patch apps before they are distributed. To me, this subpoena looks like the Cellebrite takedown was analogous to injuring a cop, where the response will likely be disproportionate and even extra-legal, because it is about maintaining public perception and belief.
- rocqua 5y ago
  The subpoena is dated 29 march. That puts it before the celebrite blog. Hence, it cannot be a response to that blog.
  - motohagiography 5y ago
    Fair and astute observation, and it implies prosecutors have been rounding on Signal for months at least before the Cellebrite blog post as well. However, it also means there was already a snare set for them before the post. I would still not underestimate what these people are capable of. If they want to get you, they will find a way to get you.
    - 5y ago
mdavis6890 5y ago
This is scary, intentional bullying. It costs the govt none of their own money (they have unlimited taxpayer money) to launch these attacks, but it costs Signal or other organizations a lot of their own money to defend against them. It will continue until Signal agrees to become part of the surveillance state or goes broke and goes away.
- panzagl 5y ago
  You have an overly simplistic view of how government works.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  Maybe a prosecutor wants to actually gather evidence on a crime? And it’s not a giant conspiracy against signal.
hedora 5y ago
I was wondering if they could get in trouble for publishing the account creation times. In theory, the account holders in question kept track of the time they created these accounts, and now know about the subpoena. The cover letter from DHS says they need to warn the agent before disclosure. Presumably they did that.
- t0mas88 5y ago
  They are "requested to [..] please" which is very different from the way the rest of the order is written. So it's fair to assume they can decide for themselves whether they want to contact the agent or not.
wolverine876 5y ago
While I generally support Signal's mission, let's not get too taken in by their own PR and its triumphal tone, however satisfying it may be to thumb one's nose at the powerful. (People tend to trust the PR they like and distrust PR they don't like - let's think critically about of all of it.) Based only on this post and the Cellebrite hack, Signal appears overconfident, taken with their own press clippings, and making enemies. That's not behavior that leads to good security: Paranoid, worried about the next vulnerability, and utilizing excellent risk management to prevent conflict are what I would look for. How does it help their millions of users when Signal provokes a leading forensics firm and the U.S. DoJ? Could you imagine a security team at a company doing this, making problems for the company? It would be absurd. Maybe Signal feels they need the publicity.
- ygjb 5y ago
  Several security teams do this. Project Zero and it's various researcher have been thumbing their noses at software companies for a long time. The Cellebrite hack is not a shocking thing, similar demonstrations have been done for other digital forensics, IDS/IPS systems, and others over the last 20 years (longer?). This notion that directly, and clearly calling out your adversaries deficiencies is unprofessional or a risk is kind of asinine, whether it's another business like Cellebrite, or ongoing government overreach in support of mass surveillance, or specific cases of investigation. Failing to call them out leaves room for to imply agreement with their tactics and practices.
  - ygjb 5y ago
    That said, the Cellebrite hack scratched an old-school itch that hasn't been in awhile in a time when in person security cons where some of those demos happen haven't been happening :)
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Project Zero tries to improve security for the public and in ways that directly or indirectly affect Google, as do many other hackers, by informing the public of risks and by pressuring developers to be more diligent and to fix specific vulnerabilities. I don't see Signal's recent blog post as trying to pressure Cellebrite to improve their security. And the fact that other people do something isn't evidence of good judgment - other people can be stupid, and your circumstances are your own. Moxy doesn't work for possibly the most well-resourced security organization in the world (maybe outside the NSA), and he's not some independent hacker: he has a company, a product, and the privacy of millions of people that he has taken responsibility for - it's like having kids: you don't get to think of just yourself anymore, ever. > asinine At least you take your own advice.
jedberg 5y ago
My fear with Signal being so giddy about what they don't have is that it will convince Congress to make a law forcing them to collect the data they don't have, the laws of math be damned. I worry that Congress with just make them liable if they are requested to produce location data and are unable to do so, for example.
- Lendal 5y ago
  As a Signal user it does not make me happy either that they seem to enjoy thwarting law enforcement for its own sake. I'm not a criminal. I just enjoy privacy and good software. I don't enjoy thumbing my nose at the justice department when they're just trying to do their job protecting citizens from criminals. Signal, just follow the law and quit acting so happy whenever your software helps a criminal get away with criming. It's not a good look.
  - spurgu 5y ago
    Speak for yourself. I am a criminal and I'm happy that Signal has my back. In fact I'd argue that anyone who is not a criminal is probably quite a boring and uninteresting person.
    - stjohnswarts 5y ago
      Most people break laws every day without even knowing it.
      - spurgu 5y ago
        Exactly. And everyone probably knows a particular junction where the Stop sign is waaaay more of a guideline than a rule and when there's no traffic there's little point in following it - expending expensive (for the wallet as well as the planet) dinosaur juice - just to adhere to the principle of following laws to the letter. Traffic is probably one of the easiest examples where disobeying the law makes a ton of sense multiple times per day/week. I would not want any entity to be able to track my history of these kinds of felonies committed multiple times per week (not related to Signal though, but keeping track in general). And don't get me started on drugs. Crime has gone down a lot by decriminalizing marijuana for example. "Crime".
AlexCoventry 5y ago
Couldn't they provide someone's contract info, by using an SGX vulnerability?
ping_pong 5y ago
Stuff like this is so powerful, it really makes me trust Signal. It's the same reason why I use Apple, because they fought the government in court. I'm not sure how much I still trust them, but it's more than I would Google/Android.
daneel_w 5y ago
"It’s the same set of “Account and Subscriber Information” that we provided in 2016: Unix timestamps for when each account was created and the date that each account last connected to the Signal service. That’s it." Signal offers a "registration lock" for the phone number used to register the account, so that another user cannot register using the same number (i.e. reusing VLNs and similar). If "that's it", then where is the phone number (or its hash) associated with the account stored in order to facilitate the lock?
- upofadown 5y ago
  Presumably they have a database of hashes. But they are already providing the information that the phone number is in use in their system. That is the only information that the hash represents.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
All I can say is fuck the grand jury of the Central District of California. They'll just have to get a warrant for the device and try to convince the person to give up the password to the device. That's how these things work.
theamk 5y ago
There is still a huge hole: all the contact info is available anyway in the phone's address book. Assuming the common practice of syncing that address book to the cloud, the prosecutors just need to subpoena Google or Apple, and they get full Signal contact list of each person. I am amazed that Signal claims to be private while requiring all chat participants to expose their government-regulated phone number often tied to the legal identity.

538 points by missinglink12 5y ago

Page 8 of that subpoena says the document files produced must have the extension "*.TIF". (note asterisk) I wonder how they'd like it if you sent them files literally named FILE001.PAGE001.*.TIF (the rest of the specified file format structure notwithstanding) It's very important to follow the instructions exactly when you are legally compelled to do something!

KMag 5y ago
Q: "Why did you send us BPGs[0] named .TIF?" A: "Because you specified an extension, not a file format." [0]https://bellard.org/bpg/ https://bellard.org/bpg/
- admissionsguy 5y ago
  That will be 30 days in county jail, adios.
- sneak 5y ago
  Surprisingly, the subpoena does specify the file format, including the compression, rather precisely.
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    Not that surprising considering this overlaps with areas where lawyers may use every trick in the book to cooperate just enough as is necessary. Like when Lavabit was asked to provide an encryption key and they sent the 4096bit key printed out on multiple pages in a tiny font size.
    - tgv 5y ago
      I've read similar, over-precise phrasing in other documents, and there I got the impression that the specification was not based on understanding the tech, but simply copied from some other place where the request wasn't fucked up (as in your lavabit example).
  - t0mas88 5y ago
    Are they allowed to make you do extra work to convert/generate data in the format asked? I know the other way around in (our local non-US variant of) freedom of information act requests you cannot ask any part of government to make/create/convert data for you, only ask for what they have in the format they have it in.
drivingmenuts 5y ago
It’s interesting how the government gets to demand the evidence in a very specific format, thereby offloading the work the government should be doing onto someone else, apparently without recompense.
- spacemanmatt 5y ago
  You can be assured that any request for bulk data the government actually fulfills will be available by fax, smoke signal, and cuneiform.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

andix 5y ago

Let's see if they try to search the Signal servers for any evidence. And if there is really no information stored. Or if that will disrupt Signal services. The central, non-distributed architecture is always a big concern against Signal.

movedx 5y ago
Agreed. I really wish they would go decentralised. If they did, I'd order up my 1gbit/1gbit dedicated link at the office and offer it up immediately.
- zdkl 5y ago
  If you want something decentralised what's wrong with doing the same with Tor and/or Matrix?
  - andix 5y ago
    Matrix is not ready for non-technical people. Way too much stuff to consider as a user. It's similar to PGP a technology that will probably never go mainstream.
    - bayesianbot 5y ago
      Is there? I'm definitely the kind of person who wants to set up my own server and bridges for it at some point, but when I tried Matrix for the first time last week I just created an account at matrix.org, installed a quite polished client and just started chatting.
      - wayoutthere 5y ago
        The iOS client (Element) is garbage unless they fixed it in the last month. I suspect that’s what they’re referring to.
      - mulander 5y ago
        Last time I tried matrix, and mind you that was over 3 years ago. Was with riot.im and trying to use the e2e encryption. The major surprise was not being able to suddenly decrypt older chat messages when OpenBSD changed the User-Agent string for Chromium which as I understand was used to establish the device identity. This is not something non-technical people can or want to diagnose.

willvarfar 5y ago

So as I type this, Signal have two stories in top-10 on HN: more coverage of Signal's Cellebrite Hack, and this. Are they connected? Signal gets this subpoena on the 29th March, and the reply by ACLU is on the 12th April. Signal's founder and CEO, Moxie Marlinspike, hacked Cellebrite and the story surfaced this week. Was it retaliation? Was it just because the subpoena made him wonder? Or is there something else causing Moxie to lash out at Cellebrite about now? Or was it all chance?

input_sh 5y ago
The reason they've mentioned "first half" of 2016 is because this isn't first such subpoena. See: https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/ Doubtful there's any connection between the two.
jinzo 5y ago
Cellebrite made a splash some time ago that their tools can extract Signal messages from the (unlocked?) devices. The claim was " Cellebrite can now break into Signal, an encrypted app considered safe from external snooping, it claimed." [1] And I guess that did not sit too well with Moxie :) [1] - https://securityboulevard.com/2020/12/signal-app-crypto-cracked-claims-cellebrite/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SecurityBloggersNetwork+%28Security+Bloggers+Network%29 https://securityboulevard.com/2020/12/signal-app-crypto-crac...

m4lvin 5y ago

Funny that they give all information they have about these accounts not just to the court, but even make it public. Page 3 of the response PDF shows the registration and last connection time stamps (all of which are between April and December 2020). Is this an elegant way to notify those six users?

input_sh 5y ago
I don't think so. I've tried a few last connection dates and they're all over 6 months in the past. Odds are they're burner numbers based on that alone. For example, last number last connected on Sep 13, 2020 (they're just dates, no time info stored), while the account was created on July 7th, 2020 at 16:15:37. Knowing the number's without Internet access for over half a year, person in question is probably unable to compare the creation date and time to the SMS received from Signal.

movedx 5y ago

This sort of subpoena clearly shows one of two things: 1. the government/law enforcement really don't have any idea how technology works; 2. they don't care and they're just trying their luck anyway. Either or it shows how tone deaf the state is when it comes to modern technologies.

LinuxBender 5y ago
I can rule out number 1 for you. I've had to assist the FBI many times and everyone I interacted with was incredibly technical, more than I ever expected. They are very under-staffed however.

djoldman 5y ago

I am not a lawyer. The lawyers at DOJ know what they are doing (notwithstanding the history or fact that signal will respond with little information): The subpoena has a request for interstate wire to help them quash future motions to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds. Whatever statute they're looking to charge will have an element of federal jurisdiction attached and interstate wire works great even if there are other ways. It's easy to ask, so they'll ask for it all.

mdeck_ 5y ago
I am a lawyer, and you’re correct. It’s typically called a “jurisdictional hook.” In certain regards the US Constitution limits the U.S. Congress’s ability to legislate to issues that touch on “interstate commerce.” If it all happens within Montana’s borders, that’s typically for Montana to handle in its own state legislature. So, for the DOJ to investigate something, they have to then satisfy whatever jurisdictional hook that the Congress put in the law, which in turn makes the law constitutional (in the sense of: within the Congress’s jurisdiction to legislate about). Here, the Congress will have required a proof of “use of interstate wires” (or something to that effect).
- djoldman 5y ago
  I'm less certain of the following but as I understand it: if the event in question involves telephone/fiber lines or airwaves, it's usually a shoe-in for Fed jurisdiction anyway because those are generally regulated by some Fed agency and/or travel at some point through Fed-owned, regulated, or operated assets.
  - justaguy88 5y ago
    I'm now wondering if it's possible to make a within-state-only messaging service. What would something look like that manages to avoid Federal jurisdiction as much as possible?
    - aitkenably 5y ago

Vinnl 5y ago

For their first subpoena [1], they said: > It originally included a broad gag order that would have prevented us from publishing this notice, but the ACLU represented us in quickly and successfully securing our ability to publish the transcripts below. This subpoena says: > you are asked not to disclose the existence of nature of the subpoena But the post doesn't mention that at all. I wonder how much effort they had to spend, if any, to be able to publish this this time. [1] https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/

laurencei 5y ago
Does the phrase "you are asked" have a legal bearing though? is it something they can just choose to not follow, since they were not "told" or "instructed"?
- underdeserver 5y ago
  Given that the subpoena itself contains language such as "YOU ARE COMMANDED" (sic), probably not, but I imagine Moxie asked the ACLU lawyers before making it public.
- alias_neo 5y ago
  Given that the following sentence says "If you nonetheless plan to disclose the existence or nature of the subpoena, please contact the Special Agent identified above first". I suspect it might not. I don't know why this additional information wasn't quoted by the parent comment.
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    And so, are you obligated to contact the "Special Agent" in the case the you do disclose the subpoena?
    - bnj 5y ago
      Not a lawyer but my inference is that this language establishes that you have foreknowledge that disclosure might interfere with the investigation -- so if you ignore these requests and disclose in a way which appears to adversely impact the investigation, you won't be able to claim that you didn't know

INTPenis 5y ago

OT and tinfoil hat on; there was a strange event last week with users of Signal on the Telia ISP.[1] For about 24 hours no messages could be sent, resulting in a 401 unauthorized error from the server side. Telia is the former state-owned Swedish ISP that is now only half state-owned I believe. They have a bad rep already for sending out extortion letters to torrent users and are almost assumed to be monitoring all user traffic for the police. No explanation of the event has been provided by anyone. Users have done some basic troubleshooting but couldn't really establish much. I personally would love to see what those 401 errors looked like on the Signal server side. What exactly were these clients sending that was unauthorized on the server side? I guess we'll never know, hopefully it wasn't even stored. 1. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/5202 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/5202

zibzab 5y ago
> They have a bad rep already for sending out extortion letters to torrent users That's almost never the ISPs doing, they are being strong armed by IP owners.
- exmadscientist 5y ago
  Sure, but some ISPs get strong-armed while others get... weak-armed. (And that's being generous to many of them.)
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    I completely understad why 9 ISPs out of 10 would choose to just do what's "least legally dangerous" rather than taking the Banhof route which is basically political posturing while taking a risk. Most of Telias customers and shareholders have no skin in that game, and would probably approve of the company taking the smallest amount of legal risk possible.
tialaramex 5y ago
As one of the replies in that thread you linked explains, this is TLS encrypted traffic, so Telia can't really do anything to influence what happens here. They don't get to see what the traffic means, and if they change any of it then the connection aborts, which doesn't result in a 401 error it just hangs up abruptly - that's how TLS is designed to work. It is entirely possible that somebody at Signal fat-fingered an IP address block, e.g. some kiddie is spewing 10Gb/s of traffic from 10.2/16 to Signal, but a Signal person blocks 10.20/16 [addresses example only] and only a week later when investigating "Why are we still eating 10Gb/s of spew?" do they realise they typo'd the number.

baybal2 5y ago

What investigation it is for?

mike_d 5y ago

The subpoena is from Homeland Security Investigations at LAX airport. They deal specifically with crimes that involve international transport. So this is human trafficking, drug smuggling, money mules, etc. To be honest the rest of it is just standard "we have some phone numbers" boilerplate. Same thing was probably sent to Facebook, Twitter, etc. with the hopes that someone was dumb enough to login and check their messages from a burner phone. Edit: Rereading it, this is a grand jury. They likely already know the who, what, why, and how. Signal's response will go to support other evidence that they may have recovered from cell phones or cell network. Grand juries historically result in a 95%+ chance of indictment so this isn't a fishing expedition.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
roflc0ptic 5y ago
The structure of grand juries makes it so that the defense is unable to mount a defense. The fact that grand juries often result in indictment has vanishing little relevance for whether or not it’s a fishing expedition. Further, no one is saying it is a fishing expedition. It’s a request for information that Signal isn’t designed to be able to answer. You’re also just speculating about the nature of the crime, but saying it confidently, like, oh, this is definitely true. You don’t know.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  Grand Juries are a really weird American thing†. The Grand Jury is entirely dependant on the prosecutor for guidance, so as an outsider it appears to me that their real purpose is to enable politically appointed prosecutors to pretend this anonymous "Grand jury" decided not to prosecute somebody when in reality what happened is that the prosecutor didn't want to. So now it's not the prosecutor's fault an obviously guilty person walked free, and yet conveniently they don't need to prosecute anybody they don't want to. † Americans didn't invent them, but they did keep them after everybody else went "Wait, this is a terrible idea" and abolished the Grand Jury.

Semaphor 5y ago

> The subpoena requested a wide variety of information that fell into this nonexistent category, including the addresses of the users, their correspondence, and the name associated with each account. And in other jurisdictions, only the correspondence would be inaccessible. Furthermore, there would be no need to contact Signal because you can get that information just from their phone number. Just in case anyone is still wondering why there are users who still complain about Signal linking accounts to phone numbers.

danpalmer 5y ago

Interesting that they provide last login dates as Unix milliseconds, but rounded to day boundaries (each of these is at midnight UTC). I'd assume that's what they store, which is good, but it's odd that they provide the data with such unnecessary precision if so. I wondered originally if this would help disambiguate accounts, perhaps if two numbers last logged in at the same timestamp one could guess that they were on the same device or something, but this doesn't look possible.

timmattison 5y ago
I’d guess that’s just how it’s stored and they’re not going to go through any additional effort to make it look nice for a request like this.
psanford 5y ago
The source code for storing the last login timestamp is here: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/blob/master/service/src/main/java/org/whispersystems/textsecuregcm/auth/BaseAccountAuthenticator.java#L105-L117 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/blob/master/servi...

rmac 5y ago

"Upon information and belief, these servers are physically located in Virginia." Such strange and probably necessary legal language...

1_player 5y ago
"AWS told us the servers are in Virginia, but don't quote me on that. Might be Virginia, Queensland, for all I know."

ysnp 5y ago

Something I am not sure about as a layman: What is the likelihood that the documents Signal are allowed to publish, concerning subpoenas, are an accurate account of all the information they can provide? Could Homeland Security/FBI compel them to lie in the evidence they have produced? In [1], Signal mention that traffic correlation via timing attacks and IP addresses are a work-in-progress as far as their metadata protection goes. They also claim that they do not store IP addresses, or at least they are not set up to do so. I guess they can be forced to record some of these, if need be. I am not deeply concerned about the metadata Signal could possibly collect if compelled to (although it is unclear what exactly they can collect) because it is likely best-in-class among encrypted messengers anyway. I suppose it is likely that even if Signal were forced to lie or undergo a gag, the chance of whistle-blowing would be much higher given that they are a donations based nonprofit that probably employ more young-ish people with strong principles, as opposed to employees who need a stable job and have families to look after. [1] https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/ https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/

thecrash 5y ago
My rough understanding is that in the US the State can compel silence but not compel speech. Warrant canaries take this reasoning to an untested extreme, but it seems safe to assume that ordering Signal to tell elaborate lies about its subpoena responses would not fly in court.

auiya 5y ago

It's unlikely that prosecutors don't realize how Signal works. It's more likely they assume that, much like the rest of the tech world, there has been an increase in data collection efforts and they want to test the waters again to confirm/deny this data is available via Signal internals. Subpoenas are the only mechanism by which they're able to do so. That Signal are able to pivot to the media and say "yup, still court-tested, still privacy-focused" is a good thing for Signal. No need for the derisive tone I don't think.

cptskippy 5y ago
> It's unlikely that prosecutors don't realize how Signal works. Why would you expect them to understand how Signal works? A lawyer does not and cannot become a subject matter expert for every aspect of a case they undertake. A lawyer's job is to investigate every possible avenue for evidence to support their case. They're going to ask Signal for everything imaginable and have legal recourse if they discover at a later date that Signal withheld information. A lawyer with a complete understanding of how Signal works and intimate knowledge of it would still send the same subpoena and expect the same response. They would never say "Oh Signal? That's a dead end, don't bother."
- merpnderp 5y ago
  Because a prosecutor calls up the IT crime lab and asks for the rundown. And since they have massive budgets, there actually is a well trained head of the IT crime lab who is perfectly capable of understanding and explaining (to a jury) how Signal works.
  - mgarfias 5y ago
    You’re very optimistic about the state of budgets, crime lab competence, etc
    - erhk 5y ago
      End to end encryption is not a complex thing to explain

bhalina 5y ago

I tip my hat to whoever wrote this

supergirl 5y ago

why do they write so amateurish sounding blog posts? 50% of the post is not relevant to the story. they are not making a good image for signal with these posts.

motohagiography 5y ago

It's probably unwise to think prosecutors and federal agents are stupid. They were in the 1990s crypto wars, but not now. What we tend to perceive as 'stupid' is in reality, 'powerful.' They don't need to explain themselves, because they put the onus of compliance on you. Gaming out the subpoena, Signal does not have this user information because it does not exist, but it does have server locations, 3rd party service providers relationships, and staff who can all be dragged into the process and system, where they can be charged with other arbitrary process crimes to put pressure on them. It's a mistake to interpret any official action as a serial, single point transactional request. Like mice, if you think you see one, you have, and it's guaranteed there are many more behind it. Given where they have used the action to draw your attention, where in relief is the second part of the pinch or funnel they are creating? If the legal system wants to destroy you, they can and do. Signal has antagonized them, and the current political climate is all about getting rid of any resistance to official powers and their unofficial private arms. Politically, there is ample incentive to take out Signal and cause users to switch to more amenable apps from friendly platform companies. They may even be able to compel friendly app stores to patch apps before they are distributed. To me, this subpoena looks like the Cellebrite takedown was analogous to injuring a cop, where the response will likely be disproportionate and even extra-legal, because it is about maintaining public perception and belief.

rocqua 5y ago
The subpoena is dated 29 march. That puts it before the celebrite blog. Hence, it cannot be a response to that blog.
- motohagiography 5y ago
  Fair and astute observation, and it implies prosecutors have been rounding on Signal for months at least before the Cellebrite blog post as well. However, it also means there was already a snare set for them before the post. I would still not underestimate what these people are capable of. If they want to get you, they will find a way to get you.
  - 5y ago

mdavis6890 5y ago

This is scary, intentional bullying. It costs the govt none of their own money (they have unlimited taxpayer money) to launch these attacks, but it costs Signal or other organizations a lot of their own money to defend against them. It will continue until Signal agrees to become part of the surveillance state or goes broke and goes away.

panzagl 5y ago
You have an overly simplistic view of how government works.
vineyardmike 5y ago
Maybe a prosecutor wants to actually gather evidence on a crime? And it’s not a giant conspiracy against signal.

hedora 5y ago

I was wondering if they could get in trouble for publishing the account creation times. In theory, the account holders in question kept track of the time they created these accounts, and now know about the subpoena. The cover letter from DHS says they need to warn the agent before disclosure. Presumably they did that.

t0mas88 5y ago
They are "requested to [..] please" which is very different from the way the rest of the order is written. So it's fair to assume they can decide for themselves whether they want to contact the agent or not.

wolverine876 5y ago

While I generally support Signal's mission, let's not get too taken in by their own PR and its triumphal tone, however satisfying it may be to thumb one's nose at the powerful. (People tend to trust the PR they like and distrust PR they don't like - let's think critically about of all of it.) Based only on this post and the Cellebrite hack, Signal appears overconfident, taken with their own press clippings, and making enemies. That's not behavior that leads to good security: Paranoid, worried about the next vulnerability, and utilizing excellent risk management to prevent conflict are what I would look for. How does it help their millions of users when Signal provokes a leading forensics firm and the U.S. DoJ? Could you imagine a security team at a company doing this, making problems for the company? It would be absurd. Maybe Signal feels they need the publicity.

ygjb 5y ago
Several security teams do this. Project Zero and it's various researcher have been thumbing their noses at software companies for a long time. The Cellebrite hack is not a shocking thing, similar demonstrations have been done for other digital forensics, IDS/IPS systems, and others over the last 20 years (longer?). This notion that directly, and clearly calling out your adversaries deficiencies is unprofessional or a risk is kind of asinine, whether it's another business like Cellebrite, or ongoing government overreach in support of mass surveillance, or specific cases of investigation. Failing to call them out leaves room for to imply agreement with their tactics and practices.
- ygjb 5y ago
  That said, the Cellebrite hack scratched an old-school itch that hasn't been in awhile in a time when in person security cons where some of those demos happen haven't been happening :)
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Project Zero tries to improve security for the public and in ways that directly or indirectly affect Google, as do many other hackers, by informing the public of risks and by pressuring developers to be more diligent and to fix specific vulnerabilities. I don't see Signal's recent blog post as trying to pressure Cellebrite to improve their security. And the fact that other people do something isn't evidence of good judgment - other people can be stupid, and your circumstances are your own. Moxy doesn't work for possibly the most well-resourced security organization in the world (maybe outside the NSA), and he's not some independent hacker: he has a company, a product, and the privacy of millions of people that he has taken responsibility for - it's like having kids: you don't get to think of just yourself anymore, ever. > asinine At least you take your own advice.

jedberg 5y ago

My fear with Signal being so giddy about what they don't have is that it will convince Congress to make a law forcing them to collect the data they don't have, the laws of math be damned. I worry that Congress with just make them liable if they are requested to produce location data and are unable to do so, for example.

Lendal 5y ago
As a Signal user it does not make me happy either that they seem to enjoy thwarting law enforcement for its own sake. I'm not a criminal. I just enjoy privacy and good software. I don't enjoy thumbing my nose at the justice department when they're just trying to do their job protecting citizens from criminals. Signal, just follow the law and quit acting so happy whenever your software helps a criminal get away with criming. It's not a good look.
- spurgu 5y ago
  Speak for yourself. I am a criminal and I'm happy that Signal has my back. In fact I'd argue that anyone who is not a criminal is probably quite a boring and uninteresting person.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Most people break laws every day without even knowing it.
    - spurgu 5y ago
      Exactly. And everyone probably knows a particular junction where the Stop sign is waaaay more of a guideline than a rule and when there's no traffic there's little point in following it - expending expensive (for the wallet as well as the planet) dinosaur juice - just to adhere to the principle of following laws to the letter. Traffic is probably one of the easiest examples where disobeying the law makes a ton of sense multiple times per day/week. I would not want any entity to be able to track my history of these kinds of felonies committed multiple times per week (not related to Signal though, but keeping track in general). And don't get me started on drugs. Crime has gone down a lot by decriminalizing marijuana for example. "Crime".

AlexCoventry 5y ago

Couldn't they provide someone's contract info, by using an SGX vulnerability?

ping_pong 5y ago

Stuff like this is so powerful, it really makes me trust Signal. It's the same reason why I use Apple, because they fought the government in court. I'm not sure how much I still trust them, but it's more than I would Google/Android.

daneel_w 5y ago

"It’s the same set of “Account and Subscriber Information” that we provided in 2016: Unix timestamps for when each account was created and the date that each account last connected to the Signal service. That’s it." Signal offers a "registration lock" for the phone number used to register the account, so that another user cannot register using the same number (i.e. reusing VLNs and similar). If "that's it", then where is the phone number (or its hash) associated with the account stored in order to facilitate the lock?

upofadown 5y ago
Presumably they have a database of hashes. But they are already providing the information that the phone number is in use in their system. That is the only information that the hash represents.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

All I can say is fuck the grand jury of the Central District of California. They'll just have to get a warrant for the device and try to convince the person to give up the password to the device. That's how these things work.

theamk 5y ago

There is still a huge hole: all the contact info is available anyway in the phone's address book. Assuming the common practice of syncing that address book to the cloud, the prosecutors just need to subpoena Google or Apple, and they get full Signal contact list of each person. I am amazed that Signal claims to be private while requiring all chat participants to expose their government-regulated phone number often tied to the legal identity.