4 ms·

Why would a company in the US (Signal) decide to comply with the doctrine of another country, especially a doctrine antithetical to their entire business?

aksss 5y ago
Well, zero is not just a really small number. But to answer "why" would involve unpacking many direct and indirect motivations. First, I would never trust that any corporation has any doctrine that they would or could stand by ad infinitum given the right pressures. At the end of they day you're talking about humans. A group of self-interested humans. A group of self-interested humans whose makeup changes as directors and executives rotate out. A group whose intentions can be undercut by an individual. Think you that the "Snowden" move doesn't happen the other way around? Probably more frequent that the intelligence communities infiltrate private organizations with rogue contractors than they experience it themselves. Probably really dang easy to be honest. Since it came up earlier, I might just casually point to AT&T letting the NSA (or whomever) mirror all the traffic running through their network[0]. That would seem antithetical to their business, but obviously there are competing motivations. Where are those motivations sourced? Who makes the call? We don't know. I guess that's my point - you can't put faith in opaque decision making processes. I wouldn't rely on them, is all I'm saying. You could say the risk is low, but it's definitely not zero. [0] https://www.propublica.org/article/nsa-spying-relies-on-atts-extreme-willingness-to-help https://www.propublica.org/article/nsa-spying-relies-on-atts...
- alkonaut 5y ago
  My point originally not whether anyone would comply, but whether such a measure would ever be worded, let alone enforced. The op article doesn’t convince.

4 ms·

Why would a company in the US (Signal) decide to comply with the doctrine of another country, especially a doctrine antithetical to their entire business?

by cassonmars 5y ago

aksss 5y ago
Well, zero is not just a really small number. But to answer "why" would involve unpacking many direct and indirect motivations. First, I would never trust that any corporation has any doctrine that they would or could stand by ad infinitum given the right pressures. At the end of they day you're talking about humans. A group of self-interested humans. A group of self-interested humans whose makeup changes as directors and executives rotate out. A group whose intentions can be undercut by an individual. Think you that the "Snowden" move doesn't happen the other way around? Probably more frequent that the intelligence communities infiltrate private organizations with rogue contractors than they experience it themselves. Probably really dang easy to be honest. Since it came up earlier, I might just casually point to AT&T letting the NSA (or whomever) mirror all the traffic running through their network[0]. That would seem antithetical to their business, but obviously there are competing motivations. Where are those motivations sourced? Who makes the call? We don't know. I guess that's my point - you can't put faith in opaque decision making processes. I wouldn't rely on them, is all I'm saying. You could say the risk is low, but it's definitely not zero. [0] https://www.propublica.org/article/nsa-spying-relies-on-atts-extreme-willingness-to-help https://www.propublica.org/article/nsa-spying-relies-on-atts...
- alkonaut 5y ago
  My point originally not whether anyone would comply, but whether such a measure would ever be worded, let alone enforced. The op article doesn’t convince.