6 ms·

Everyone must cooperate when they receive legal warrants and subpoenas. That's normal police work. There is the right way and the wrong way. Wrong way: Telegr

by nabla9 2y ago

Everyone must cooperate when they receive legal warrants and subpoenas. That's normal police work. There is the right way and the wrong way. Wrong way: Telegram keeps records and refuses to cooperate. Telegram faces consequences. Right way: Signal cooperates. They give two Unix timestamps. One for when the account was created and the date the account last connected to the Signal service. https://signal.org/bigbrother/cd-california-grand-jury/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/cd-california-grand-jury/ See also: https://signal.org/bigbrother/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/

thelastparadise 2y ago
How do we know Signal actually does that?
- sunbum 2y ago
  Did you even click the link?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- nabla9 2y ago
  They simply can't collect much. Plus keeping secret records would be massive legal liability, especially in the EU. The protocol is public. Signal software is free and open-source. Its mobile clients, desktop client, and server are all published under the AGPL-3.0. Any modifications for the app binaries and protocols would be quickly noticed. Hackers and cybersecurity companies are not fools.
  - sva_ 2y ago
    > Any modifications for the app binaries and protocols would be quickly noticed. Hackers and cybersecurity companies are not fools. Would it though? The Signal server source repo was once not updated for almost a year until somebody noticed and called them out on it: https://lemmy.ml/post/55595 https://lemmy.ml/post/55595
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      It's the client code that tells you if they could have any of the plaintext.
  - fsflover 2y ago
    > Any modifications for the app binaries and protocols would be quickly noticed Signal doesn't support reproducible builds, does it?
    - cpach 2y ago
      It’s entirely possible to inspect a binary even if the build isn’t reproducible. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41361609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41361609
      - fsflover 2y ago
        "Entirely possible" is a misleading argument. I don't understand why Signal is not pursuing the reproducible builds. It looks suspicious. Verification of a binary takes a huge effort and can only be done by knowledgeable people. Case in point: nobody noticed or cared about the lack of undisclosed binary updates of Signal without released sources.
    - sunbum 2y ago
      There are reproducible builds on android, and reproducible builds are simply not possible on iOS due to Apple's own decisions.
- cpach 2y ago
  If you want to know what an application really does, you should grab a copy of IDA Pro or Ghidra and inspect the binaries.
OutOfHere 2y ago
What you're saying in effect is that any random country should be able to subpoena records for anyone. To be logically consistent, what if say Iran wants the records of the head of the CIA? The concern is not limited to Telegram; it generalizes to any messaging app.
- ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  "rules for thee not for me" EU has been doing a lot of really bad stuff regarding the freedom of private communication recently (last few years), but they still manage to complain about others.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  If the head of the CIA stepped foot in Iran, you bet your butt that they'd be at serious risk of arrest. The only reason this wouldn't be the case is Iran not having Nukes.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - codedokode 2y ago
    How one country having "nukes" makes something more or less legal? I don't see the connection here. Crime is a crime no matter what is the nationality and position of a person. If critisizing Communist Party is a crime, it doesn't matter who commits it, everybody should be treated equally.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Crime is a crime no matter what is the nationality and position of a person Iran apprehending an American official crosses from criminality and law into the anarchy of geopolitics. For example, the fact that we have nukes is probably one among many considerations a foreign power might weigh when thinking about kidnapping the President.
- surfingdino 2y ago
megous 2y ago
"Signal enables crime and hinders police work in much more clever ways than Telegram." Great argument. :)
codedokode 2y ago
Will you cooperate if you receive a legal warrant from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea? Also, Telegram is accused in other things, like importing uncertified cryptographic tools. If you go to Gtihub, there are large deposits of uncertified cryptographic tools. Why ssh or openssl developers are not arrested? I am sure they do not have a proper certificate. As I guess, this is a typical case when the law enforcement bends the vaguely written laws. A law saying something like "it is illegal to assist commiting a crime" is a typical example of such vague law: until there is a court decision you cannot even know if some event was legal or illegal. And "assist" is also a very vague term.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Will you cooperate if you receive a legal warrant from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea? No. But after refusing it, I sure as hell wouldn't go there.
  - danuker 2y ago
    > I sure as hell wouldn't go there. Don't even go close: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/23/belarus-diverts-ryanair-plane-to-arrest-blogger-says-opposition https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/23/belarus-divert...
    - mc32 2y ago
      When Snowden was escaping capture form the West, err, I mean, US, we, the US, err, the Obama admin, wanted to know which plane he was in to see of they could have it "diverted". Also, don't pretend to "go hiking" along the Iranian border...
  - mistercheph 2y ago
    I don't know if I should be sad that the West is trending towards treating humans as China/Russia/Iran/NK do, or if I should be happy that geopolitical powers have one less thing they disagree about.
- deleted 2y ago
hn1986 2y ago
Among one of the many charges... "Complicity - Detention of the image of a minor of a child-pornographic nature." Him being charged is as simple and standard as an administrator being shut down and it's owner charged for propagating illegal content. As standard as a Tor drug site being shutdown and it's owner charged. Worse, Durov was involved with CSAM material and did nothing about it. For this, he is immoral and in my opinion, a disgusting human being. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-arrest-founder-one-world-s-largest-hacker-forums-and-disruption https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... https://www.threads.net/@cyndiborowski/post/C_JSEuByAVQ?xmt=AQGziv6_KegsAvk6tayI3R_ieN-L3DqZjuhlW5_P1iDz5Q https://www.threads.net/@cyndiborowski/post/C_JSEuByAVQ?xmt=...
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Durov was involved with CSAM material and did nothing about it Source?
  - emptysongglass 2y ago
    They're just another commenter making a comment with unqualified confidence.
    - hn1986 2y ago
      Those are the charges and the core argument. Do you disagree? "Telegram is a key component of the ecosystem of individuals trading and selling child sexual abuse materials, and is the only major platform to implicitly allow the exchange of CSAM on private channels, many of which are not end-to-end encrypted.” Stamos is now chief information security officer at cybersecurity company SentinelOne. A June report from the Stanford Internet Observatory found that Telegram was the only major platform not to forbid illegal material in private channels and chats. “Telegram has also been observed by SIO as failing to perform even basic content enforcement on public channels, with instances of known CSAM being detected and reported by our ingest systems,” the report said. Jean-Michel Bernigaud, secretary general of Ofmin, a French police agency focused on preventing violence against minors, said in a LinkedIn post Monday that Durov’s arrest was related to the app’s inability to deal with offensive content against minors. “At the heart of the case is the absence of moderation and cooperation on the part of the platform,” Bernigaud said, “especially in the fight against child sex crimes.”
hottakes99 2y ago
we don't know what he has been asked. the french authorities are testing the waters and see how much they can control the guy. given the uproar, it seems its not the time and so they claim they are only concerned about csam.
cynicalpeace 2y ago
It's amazing how many on HN are actually closet authoritarians. It was made extra clear during the pandemic and becomes clearer with every one of these posts
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > amazing how many on HN are actually closet authoritarians Signal responding to a subpoena with, in essence, a fuck you is authoritarian?
  - codedokode 2y ago
    Signal is not very popular and maybe because of this haven't yet observed the full power of law bending and interpretation. Given the accusations against Telegram, many of the points apply to Signal equally, including importing uncertified cryptographic tools.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Given the accusations against Telegram, many of the points apply to Signal equally, including importing uncertified cryptographic tools The DoJ has its own Telegram channel [1]. [1] https://t.me/US_DOJ https://t.me/US_DOJ
  - cynicalpeace 2y ago
    Signal being unable to provide information to a subpoena is very different than arresting its CEO. The comparison was only made to justify arresting Telegram's CEO. Which, yes, is authoritarian.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Signal being unable to provide information to a subpoena is very different than arresting its CEO If Signal had blown off the court completely, yes, that would have resulted in arrest warrants. That's at least what France alleges Durov did in the warrant.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
The result of this is that users, especially any the government might be interested in, would use the services that don't keep any information. Which in general is good -- services shouldn't be keeping data for no reason -- but sometimes there's a reason. Maybe an ordinary user would like to have a cloud backup, but not if it could create legal liability (and then their lawyers order them not to do it). So we should be asking if this makes sense. If the government can snatch the data from third party services without a warrant then the people interesting to them will use the ones that don't store it, and then the government can't get the data with only a subpoena anyway. They may not even be able to get it with a warrant. But it also means that people can't have any features that require a trusted third party if they're concerned about legal liability from e.g. prosecutors taking things out of context, which should be everybody because they do that all the time.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
raxxorraxor 2y ago
Some of these warrants and subpoenas are senseless and come from deliberate political prosecution though. This seems to be the case in France, not a good look at all, especially with these accusations. But Signal did get it right too, this is basically malicious compliance. But making a state make a fuss is another.

by nabla9 2y ago

thelastparadise 2y ago

How do we know Signal actually does that?

sunbum 2y ago
Did you even click the link?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nabla9 2y ago
They simply can't collect much. Plus keeping secret records would be massive legal liability, especially in the EU. The protocol is public. Signal software is free and open-source. Its mobile clients, desktop client, and server are all published under the AGPL-3.0. Any modifications for the app binaries and protocols would be quickly noticed. Hackers and cybersecurity companies are not fools.
- sva_ 2y ago
  > Any modifications for the app binaries and protocols would be quickly noticed. Hackers and cybersecurity companies are not fools. Would it though? The Signal server source repo was once not updated for almost a year until somebody noticed and called them out on it: https://lemmy.ml/post/55595 https://lemmy.ml/post/55595
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    It's the client code that tells you if they could have any of the plaintext.
- fsflover 2y ago
  > Any modifications for the app binaries and protocols would be quickly noticed Signal doesn't support reproducible builds, does it?
  - cpach 2y ago
    It’s entirely possible to inspect a binary even if the build isn’t reproducible. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41361609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41361609
    - fsflover 2y ago
      "Entirely possible" is a misleading argument. I don't understand why Signal is not pursuing the reproducible builds. It looks suspicious. Verification of a binary takes a huge effort and can only be done by knowledgeable people. Case in point: nobody noticed or cared about the lack of undisclosed binary updates of Signal without released sources.
  - sunbum 2y ago
    There are reproducible builds on android, and reproducible builds are simply not possible on iOS due to Apple's own decisions.
cpach 2y ago
If you want to know what an application really does, you should grab a copy of IDA Pro or Ghidra and inspect the binaries.

OutOfHere 2y ago

What you're saying in effect is that any random country should be able to subpoena records for anyone. To be logically consistent, what if say Iran wants the records of the head of the CIA? The concern is not limited to Telegram; it generalizes to any messaging app.

ajsnigrutin 2y ago
"rules for thee not for me" EU has been doing a lot of really bad stuff regarding the freedom of private communication recently (last few years), but they still manage to complain about others.
Der_Einzige 2y ago
If the head of the CIA stepped foot in Iran, you bet your butt that they'd be at serious risk of arrest. The only reason this wouldn't be the case is Iran not having Nukes.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- codedokode 2y ago
  How one country having "nukes" makes something more or less legal? I don't see the connection here. Crime is a crime no matter what is the nationality and position of a person. If critisizing Communist Party is a crime, it doesn't matter who commits it, everybody should be treated equally.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Crime is a crime no matter what is the nationality and position of a person Iran apprehending an American official crosses from criminality and law into the anarchy of geopolitics. For example, the fact that we have nukes is probably one among many considerations a foreign power might weigh when thinking about kidnapping the President.
surfingdino 2y ago

megous 2y ago

"Signal enables crime and hinders police work in much more clever ways than Telegram." Great argument. :)

codedokode 2y ago

Will you cooperate if you receive a legal warrant from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea? Also, Telegram is accused in other things, like importing uncertified cryptographic tools. If you go to Gtihub, there are large deposits of uncertified cryptographic tools. Why ssh or openssl developers are not arrested? I am sure they do not have a proper certificate. As I guess, this is a typical case when the law enforcement bends the vaguely written laws. A law saying something like "it is illegal to assist commiting a crime" is a typical example of such vague law: until there is a court decision you cannot even know if some event was legal or illegal. And "assist" is also a very vague term.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Will you cooperate if you receive a legal warrant from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea? No. But after refusing it, I sure as hell wouldn't go there.
- danuker 2y ago
  > I sure as hell wouldn't go there. Don't even go close: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/23/belarus-diverts-ryanair-plane-to-arrest-blogger-says-opposition https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/23/belarus-divert...
  - mc32 2y ago
    When Snowden was escaping capture form the West, err, I mean, US, we, the US, err, the Obama admin, wanted to know which plane he was in to see of they could have it "diverted". Also, don't pretend to "go hiking" along the Iranian border...
- mistercheph 2y ago
  I don't know if I should be sad that the West is trending towards treating humans as China/Russia/Iran/NK do, or if I should be happy that geopolitical powers have one less thing they disagree about.
deleted 2y ago

hn1986 2y ago

Among one of the many charges... "Complicity - Detention of the image of a minor of a child-pornographic nature." Him being charged is as simple and standard as an administrator being shut down and it's owner charged for propagating illegal content. As standard as a Tor drug site being shutdown and it's owner charged. Worse, Durov was involved with CSAM material and did nothing about it. For this, he is immoral and in my opinion, a disgusting human being. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-arrest-founder-one-world-s-largest-hacker-forums-and-disruption https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... https://www.threads.net/@cyndiborowski/post/C_JSEuByAVQ?xmt=AQGziv6_KegsAvk6tayI3R_ieN-L3DqZjuhlW5_P1iDz5Q https://www.threads.net/@cyndiborowski/post/C_JSEuByAVQ?xmt=...

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Durov was involved with CSAM material and did nothing about it Source?
- emptysongglass 2y ago
  They're just another commenter making a comment with unqualified confidence.
  - hn1986 2y ago
    Those are the charges and the core argument. Do you disagree? "Telegram is a key component of the ecosystem of individuals trading and selling child sexual abuse materials, and is the only major platform to implicitly allow the exchange of CSAM on private channels, many of which are not end-to-end encrypted.” Stamos is now chief information security officer at cybersecurity company SentinelOne. A June report from the Stanford Internet Observatory found that Telegram was the only major platform not to forbid illegal material in private channels and chats. “Telegram has also been observed by SIO as failing to perform even basic content enforcement on public channels, with instances of known CSAM being detected and reported by our ingest systems,” the report said. Jean-Michel Bernigaud, secretary general of Ofmin, a French police agency focused on preventing violence against minors, said in a LinkedIn post Monday that Durov’s arrest was related to the app’s inability to deal with offensive content against minors. “At the heart of the case is the absence of moderation and cooperation on the part of the platform,” Bernigaud said, “especially in the fight against child sex crimes.”

hottakes99 2y ago

we don't know what he has been asked. the french authorities are testing the waters and see how much they can control the guy. given the uproar, it seems its not the time and so they claim they are only concerned about csam.

cynicalpeace 2y ago

It's amazing how many on HN are actually closet authoritarians. It was made extra clear during the pandemic and becomes clearer with every one of these posts

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> amazing how many on HN are actually closet authoritarians Signal responding to a subpoena with, in essence, a fuck you is authoritarian?
- codedokode 2y ago
  Signal is not very popular and maybe because of this haven't yet observed the full power of law bending and interpretation. Given the accusations against Telegram, many of the points apply to Signal equally, including importing uncertified cryptographic tools.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Given the accusations against Telegram, many of the points apply to Signal equally, including importing uncertified cryptographic tools The DoJ has its own Telegram channel [1]. [1] https://t.me/US_DOJ https://t.me/US_DOJ
- cynicalpeace 2y ago
  Signal being unable to provide information to a subpoena is very different than arresting its CEO. The comparison was only made to justify arresting Telegram's CEO. Which, yes, is authoritarian.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Signal being unable to provide information to a subpoena is very different than arresting its CEO If Signal had blown off the court completely, yes, that would have resulted in arrest warrants. That's at least what France alleges Durov did in the warrant.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

The result of this is that users, especially any the government might be interested in, would use the services that don't keep any information. Which in general is good -- services shouldn't be keeping data for no reason -- but sometimes there's a reason. Maybe an ordinary user would like to have a cloud backup, but not if it could create legal liability (and then their lawyers order them not to do it). So we should be asking if this makes sense. If the government can snatch the data from third party services without a warrant then the people interesting to them will use the ones that don't store it, and then the government can't get the data with only a subpoena anyway. They may not even be able to get it with a warrant. But it also means that people can't have any features that require a trusted third party if they're concerned about legal liability from e.g. prosecutors taking things out of context, which should be everybody because they do that all the time.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

raxxorraxor 2y ago

Some of these warrants and subpoenas are senseless and come from deliberate political prosecution though. This seems to be the case in France, not a good look at all, especially with these accusations. But Signal did get it right too, this is basically malicious compliance. But making a state make a fuss is another.