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I am coming to the conclusion that we’re in the current situation by design. A bunch of powerful people feel some stuff should be punished, but they can’t make

I am coming to the conclusion that we’re in the current situation by design. A bunch of powerful people feel some stuff should be punished, but they can’t make it illegal. So they’ll stay in good term with de facto gate keepers and nudge them in their direction. In the article it’s some billionaire, but ruling parties are probably doing the same extensively: instead of making the controversial decisions themselves, go through all the paperwork and get all the backlash, they’ll have a private entity deal with 95% of the problem (the industry “self-regulating”) and call it a day. A pettier exemple than money transactions: there’s no reason smartphones shouldn’t be able to record calls out of the box (using it within legal boundaries should be on the user) but phone makers will self-block that behavior with no specific interest on their side.

ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
> there’s no reason smartphones shouldn’t be able to record calls out of the box (using it within legal boundaries should be on the user) but phone makers will self-block that behavior with no specific interest on their side. Which smartphones block call recording? Every brandname Android I have had enables this feature for voice calls. (Although the feature is missing for app calls, and I'm now at least 5 years behind the newest phones.)
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  > Which smartphones block call recording? Every brandname Android I have had enables this feature for voice calls. (Although the feature is missing for app calls, and I'm now at least 5 years behind the newest phones.) This explains a lot because this is a more recent development. https://www.pcmag.com/news/google-is-banning-call-recording-apps-on-android https://www.pcmag.com/news/google-is-banning-call-recording-... As the article says it was blocked a couple years ago but there was still a loophole which is now being closed as well. Though it's by blocking apps using it from the play store which can still be avoided by sideloading so technically there still is a loophole :) But it's definitely seeing more and more restrictions.
- viceroyalbean 4y ago
  In some cases there might be local laws involved. If you buy a Samsung (or LG, but they don't make phones anymore) in Korea it will come with call recording available.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    Might be, though all places I went had services stating upfront they record the call, so recording in itself wasn't illegal.
  - Mindwipe 4y ago
    The main issue is that neither Google nor Samsung seem to understand European law on this point - it is blocked by both of them in Europe, presumably because of GDPR, but any lawyer who claims that GDPR prevents an individual for recording their own phone calls locally for personal use would get laughed out of the room. Except at Google and Samsung apparently. And there's no way to contest this decision for users, query it or even get a straight answer out of either company on it.
- ormaaj 4y ago
  It might have something to do with the high fidelity voice calling having a reasonably large bandwidth that you could theoretically use as a data channel - many times larger than an old v.92 modem. Maybe that's not so relevant these days with more people having unlimited data plans.
  - eru 4y ago
    Why would the phone manufacturer care? (And in any case, as you suggest most people pay more per bit transmitted on a mobile voice call than they pay per bit as data.) Purely for fun, it would be interesting to hack up two smart phones to transmit data over a voice call. Presumably, you can keep everything binary, if you control the end-points.
    - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
      That's how SMS works. It's running a baseband modem over the voice channel.
      - lxgr 4y ago
        SMS is transmitted over digital signaling or transport channels. There was never any analog coding involved (except for a few retrofitted implementations on landlines in Europe).
  - lxgr 4y ago
    That would give you a 128 kbit/s channel under absolute ideal conditions (the maximum bandwidth supported by the EVS codec). Practically, you‘d be better off using a throttled (after exceeding the included data volume) native data connection.
    - ormaaj 4y ago
      I see. Yeah pretty terrible.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  > Which smartphones block call recording? iOS? I'm not sure of the current state of Android but back in the early days this feature also wasn't there (there were tons of apps that claim to do it but they all exploited some device-specific quirk and wouldn't work universally) despite the hardware being capable of doing this from day 1. The reason call recording is shunned is that tons of scummy companies would suddenly end up in trouble if call recording becomes widespread and accessible to anyone.
  - voakbasda 4y ago
    Not just scummy companies…. Politicians, cops, judges, bureaucrats, managers, bankers, and so on. Corruption is endemic in our world, and these laws are there to protect that status quo.
yeaso9 4y ago
endgame 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point
tomc1985 4y ago
> A bunch of powerful people More than likely it's a handful of well-placed (by design or by luck) moralists acting at the willing behest of legal
nimbius 4y ago
I'm the exact opposite. this is regulatory automation gone haywire because one bad thing happened in the past. for example: I work in a repair shop and I know I can buy absolutely zero bottles of acetylene on the company card because visa will flag it every time. they report it to the atf and you get a lovely visit... but propylene? just as dangerous and flammable but i can buy it by the ton. we literally swapped out all our equipment for hot work cutting because visa.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  If it happens only on Visa, is it regulatory ? I'd expect that to be Visa covering their butt in advance to not even have to think about it ...
- jjeaff 4y ago
  Unless the name of the company is Acetylene R Us or something, I don't see how visa is finding out. And if visa is somehow finding out what you buy, how is the company selling it not telling it's customers and warning them they can't pay with visa?
- towaway15463 4y ago
  How does any welding shop deal with this? Or does it only apply to newcomers and old shops are grandfathered in?
raincom 4y ago
Just like the third party doctrine to subvert the fifth amendment, visa/master function as a similar loophole
- salawat 4y ago
  Fourth Amendment is the most aggregiously sidestepped by Third Party Doctrine. Though I suppose a case can be made for the Fifth as well. The fact is that the Federal Government loves wielding access to the Financial System as a gigantic exercise of soft power. Centralization nakes exercising that power feasible.

ravel-bar-foo 4y ago

> there’s no reason smartphones shouldn’t be able to record calls out of the box (using it within legal boundaries should be on the user) but phone makers will self-block that behavior with no specific interest on their side. Which smartphones block call recording? Every brandname Android I have had enables this feature for voice calls. (Although the feature is missing for app calls, and I'm now at least 5 years behind the newest phones.)

GekkePrutser 4y ago
> Which smartphones block call recording? Every brandname Android I have had enables this feature for voice calls. (Although the feature is missing for app calls, and I'm now at least 5 years behind the newest phones.) This explains a lot because this is a more recent development. https://www.pcmag.com/news/google-is-banning-call-recording-apps-on-android https://www.pcmag.com/news/google-is-banning-call-recording-... As the article says it was blocked a couple years ago but there was still a loophole which is now being closed as well. Though it's by blocking apps using it from the play store which can still be avoided by sideloading so technically there still is a loophole :) But it's definitely seeing more and more restrictions.
viceroyalbean 4y ago
In some cases there might be local laws involved. If you buy a Samsung (or LG, but they don't make phones anymore) in Korea it will come with call recording available.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  Might be, though all places I went had services stating upfront they record the call, so recording in itself wasn't illegal.
- Mindwipe 4y ago
  The main issue is that neither Google nor Samsung seem to understand European law on this point - it is blocked by both of them in Europe, presumably because of GDPR, but any lawyer who claims that GDPR prevents an individual for recording their own phone calls locally for personal use would get laughed out of the room. Except at Google and Samsung apparently. And there's no way to contest this decision for users, query it or even get a straight answer out of either company on it.
ormaaj 4y ago
It might have something to do with the high fidelity voice calling having a reasonably large bandwidth that you could theoretically use as a data channel - many times larger than an old v.92 modem. Maybe that's not so relevant these days with more people having unlimited data plans.
- eru 4y ago
  Why would the phone manufacturer care? (And in any case, as you suggest most people pay more per bit transmitted on a mobile voice call than they pay per bit as data.) Purely for fun, it would be interesting to hack up two smart phones to transmit data over a voice call. Presumably, you can keep everything binary, if you control the end-points.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    That's how SMS works. It's running a baseband modem over the voice channel.
    - lxgr 4y ago
      SMS is transmitted over digital signaling or transport channels. There was never any analog coding involved (except for a few retrofitted implementations on landlines in Europe).
- lxgr 4y ago
  That would give you a 128 kbit/s channel under absolute ideal conditions (the maximum bandwidth supported by the EVS codec). Practically, you‘d be better off using a throttled (after exceeding the included data volume) native data connection.
  - ormaaj 4y ago
    I see. Yeah pretty terrible.
Nextgrid 4y ago
> Which smartphones block call recording? iOS? I'm not sure of the current state of Android but back in the early days this feature also wasn't there (there were tons of apps that claim to do it but they all exploited some device-specific quirk and wouldn't work universally) despite the hardware being capable of doing this from day 1. The reason call recording is shunned is that tons of scummy companies would suddenly end up in trouble if call recording becomes widespread and accessible to anyone.
- voakbasda 4y ago
  Not just scummy companies…. Politicians, cops, judges, bureaucrats, managers, bankers, and so on. Corruption is endemic in our world, and these laws are there to protect that status quo.

yeaso9 4y ago

endgame 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

tomc1985 4y ago

> A bunch of powerful people More than likely it's a handful of well-placed (by design or by luck) moralists acting at the willing behest of legal

nimbius 4y ago

I'm the exact opposite. this is regulatory automation gone haywire because one bad thing happened in the past. for example: I work in a repair shop and I know I can buy absolutely zero bottles of acetylene on the company card because visa will flag it every time. they report it to the atf and you get a lovely visit... but propylene? just as dangerous and flammable but i can buy it by the ton. we literally swapped out all our equipment for hot work cutting because visa.

makeitdouble 4y ago
If it happens only on Visa, is it regulatory ? I'd expect that to be Visa covering their butt in advance to not even have to think about it ...
jjeaff 4y ago
Unless the name of the company is Acetylene R Us or something, I don't see how visa is finding out. And if visa is somehow finding out what you buy, how is the company selling it not telling it's customers and warning them they can't pay with visa?
towaway15463 4y ago
How does any welding shop deal with this? Or does it only apply to newcomers and old shops are grandfathered in?

raincom 4y ago

Just like the third party doctrine to subvert the fifth amendment, visa/master function as a similar loophole

salawat 4y ago
Fourth Amendment is the most aggregiously sidestepped by Third Party Doctrine. Though I suppose a case can be made for the Fifth as well. The fact is that the Federal Government loves wielding access to the Financial System as a gigantic exercise of soft power. Centralization nakes exercising that power feasible.