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> 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
by cptskippy 6y 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 6y agoBecause 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.
- xeromal 6y agoThey're just going to call up an expert like they do with every industry.
- ben_w 6y agoThe expert in question being the company which made it, because software isn’t a commodity like steel [0] where any two manufacturers are making basically interchangeable stuff. [0] I assume. I don’t do steel.
- kube-system 6y agoThere's proprietary stuff in the steel business, and there's stuff that everyone knows. Same with software. The way end-to-end encryption works is common knowledge. Some of the same people here who know that Signal doesn't have this data are the same people who are those experts.
- tekknik 6y agoSame with source code. Someone, somewhere, will know some language. And subpoenaing for source code is a thing.
- tekknik 6y ago> 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. I really hope the lawyer I’m hiring is at least a subject matter expert on the specific laws around the subject. Then a simple google search would explain how this data isn’t available.
- cptskippy 6y agoExpert knowledge of the laws doesn't give you understanding of the technology.