5 ms·

That appears to be the case to me too. There are so many similar services that people use that could fall victim to this same issue of privacy . We should have

by Alive-in-2025 1y ago

That appears to be the case to me too. There are so many similar services that people use that could fall victim to this same issue of privacy . We should have extremely strong privacy laws preventing this, somehow blocking over-broad court orders. And we don't. Imagine these case: 1. a court order that a dating service saves off all chats and messages between people connecting on the service (instead of just saving off say the chats from a suspected abuser) 2. saving all text messages going through a cell phone company 3. how about saving all google docs? Probably billions of these a day are being created. 4. And how has the govt not tried to put out a legal request that signal add backdoors and save all text messages (because there will no doubt be nefarious users like our own secretary of defense). I think it would take a very significant reason to succeed against a private organization like signal. The power and reach of this makes me wonder if the US govt already has been doing this to normal commercial services (outside of phone calls and texting). I recall reading back in the day they were "tapping" / legally accessing through some security laws phone company trunks. And then we learned about tapping google communications from Edward Snowden.

chrisweekly 1y ago
"saving off"? this is a strange turn of phrase
- TheDong 1y ago
  Maybe it's a regional dialect? You can find a lot of examples of it in the wild, for example on microsoft forums: 1. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/saving-off-a-column-of-calculated-values-each-week/00fa5d37-583b-4667-a8ba-0e37bc4614dd https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/savin... 2. https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Service/End-User-Saving-Custom-Copy-of-Report-in-App-without-Consent/m-p/1524776 https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Service/End-User-S... In both cases it's being used for "copying". We can also see it was used as early as 15 years ago on this very site ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182478 ), so it's not a new turn of phrase. My experience has definitely been that I've heard it more online and in San Francisco, and not very often in Germany, Texas, or Russia. Are you in one of those areas? I feel like the etymology is something like "print off a few sheets" becoming "copy off a sheet with the copier", and then to the more general digital copy meaning.
  - chrisweekly 1y ago
    Huh. I'm from the Boston area, 50yo, avid reader, former English teacher, fairly well-travelled...
    - danaris 1y ago
      I've definitely been using phrasing like it ("save off a copy", etc) for at least the past 20-25 years (upstate NY, moderately online, avid reader, parent is an English professor, fairly well-traveled). Conceptually, I think that the "off" serves the purpose of aligning it with something like "split off"—you're essentially forking the history by creating a separate saved copy.
      - Alive-in-2025 1y ago
        Today I learned I am using a less common expression. ;-) I'm just an ordinary engineer.
- Alive-in-2025 1y ago
  It wasn't the best way to express what I was thinking, but I did mean it to refer to "storing" or saving the text message contents (and metadata - source and destination and time ...)
salawat 1y ago
>2. saving all text messages going through a cell phone company Point of order, phone companies already do that. Third Party Doctrine. I don't believe they should, but as of right now, that's where we're at.
- Alive-in-2025 1y ago
  Yes, agree that's long been the case that they do, but it's not forever afaik. My understanding is they only save the last few years and then purge old ones. I wonder if through some reason or another the us govt gets all our text messages and saves them forever? Perhaps you have more information.
delusional 1y ago
> We should have extremely strong privacy laws preventing this, somehow blocking over-broad court orders Quick question. Should your percieved "right to privacy" supersede all other laws? To extrapolate into the real world. Should it be impossible for the police to measure the speed of your vehicle to protect your privacy? Should cameras in stores be unable to record you stealing for fear of violating your privacy?
- gridspy 1y ago
  Your two examples don't map to the concern about data privacy. Speed cameras only operate on public roads. The camera in the store is operated by the store owner. In both cases one of the parties involved in the transaction (driving, purchasing) is involved in enforcement. It is clear in both cases that these measures protect everyone and they have clear limits also. Better examples would be police searching your home all the time, whenever they want (This maps to device encryption). Or store owners surveilling competing stores / forcing people to wear cameras 24/7 "to improve the customer experience" (This maps to what Facebook / Google try to do, or what internet wire tapping does).
  - delusional 1y ago
    > searching your home all the time, whenever they want What? How does OpenAI map to your home at all? This is pure nonsense. You seem to have entirely dismissed the comparison to driving a little too out of hand. The internet is, like the roads, public infrastructure. You can't claim that encryption makes all traffic on the public infrastructure as private as staying home. You sound like one of those "free man of the land" guys: "I'm not driving your honor, I was traveling."
    - gridspy 1y ago
      Okay, so lets move back to a driving metaphor, since you seem to prefer that. If you drive in the US, the contents of your car are somewhat protected by law. It's not trivial for authorities to obtain the right to search your car, though I understand it's common for some to flout the rules and search anyway. But there are not gates on the highway which scan all cars and subject the contents of all the cars along with details of the drivers to government scrutiny. Not just the number plates, everything in and about the car. However, it is the goal of several agencies to perform this level of searching to all data transmitted. Why do you claim that people have less right to privacy when transmitting data in the virtual vs the physical world?
lodovic 1y ago
This is like storing copies of all physical mail because one letter could contain a Xerox of a newspaper.

chrisweekly 1y ago

"saving off"? this is a strange turn of phrase

TheDong 1y ago
Maybe it's a regional dialect? You can find a lot of examples of it in the wild, for example on microsoft forums: 1. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/saving-off-a-column-of-calculated-values-each-week/00fa5d37-583b-4667-a8ba-0e37bc4614dd https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/savin... 2. https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Service/End-User-Saving-Custom-Copy-of-Report-in-App-without-Consent/m-p/1524776 https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Service/End-User-S... In both cases it's being used for "copying". We can also see it was used as early as 15 years ago on this very site ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182478 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182478 ), so it's not a new turn of phrase. My experience has definitely been that I've heard it more online and in San Francisco, and not very often in Germany, Texas, or Russia. Are you in one of those areas? I feel like the etymology is something like "print off a few sheets" becoming "copy off a sheet with the copier", and then to the more general digital copy meaning.
- chrisweekly 1y ago
  Huh. I'm from the Boston area, 50yo, avid reader, former English teacher, fairly well-travelled...
  - danaris 1y ago
    I've definitely been using phrasing like it ("save off a copy", etc) for at least the past 20-25 years (upstate NY, moderately online, avid reader, parent is an English professor, fairly well-traveled). Conceptually, I think that the "off" serves the purpose of aligning it with something like "split off"—you're essentially forking the history by creating a separate saved copy.
    - Alive-in-2025 1y ago
      Today I learned I am using a less common expression. ;-) I'm just an ordinary engineer.
Alive-in-2025 1y ago
It wasn't the best way to express what I was thinking, but I did mean it to refer to "storing" or saving the text message contents (and metadata - source and destination and time ...)

salawat 1y ago

>2. saving all text messages going through a cell phone company Point of order, phone companies already do that. Third Party Doctrine. I don't believe they should, but as of right now, that's where we're at.

Alive-in-2025 1y ago
Yes, agree that's long been the case that they do, but it's not forever afaik. My understanding is they only save the last few years and then purge old ones. I wonder if through some reason or another the us govt gets all our text messages and saves them forever? Perhaps you have more information.

delusional 1y ago

> We should have extremely strong privacy laws preventing this, somehow blocking over-broad court orders Quick question. Should your percieved "right to privacy" supersede all other laws? To extrapolate into the real world. Should it be impossible for the police to measure the speed of your vehicle to protect your privacy? Should cameras in stores be unable to record you stealing for fear of violating your privacy?

gridspy 1y ago
Your two examples don't map to the concern about data privacy. Speed cameras only operate on public roads. The camera in the store is operated by the store owner. In both cases one of the parties involved in the transaction (driving, purchasing) is involved in enforcement. It is clear in both cases that these measures protect everyone and they have clear limits also. Better examples would be police searching your home all the time, whenever they want (This maps to device encryption). Or store owners surveilling competing stores / forcing people to wear cameras 24/7 "to improve the customer experience" (This maps to what Facebook / Google try to do, or what internet wire tapping does).
- delusional 1y ago
  > searching your home all the time, whenever they want What? How does OpenAI map to your home at all? This is pure nonsense. You seem to have entirely dismissed the comparison to driving a little too out of hand. The internet is, like the roads, public infrastructure. You can't claim that encryption makes all traffic on the public infrastructure as private as staying home. You sound like one of those "free man of the land" guys: "I'm not driving your honor, I was traveling."
  - gridspy 1y ago
    Okay, so lets move back to a driving metaphor, since you seem to prefer that. If you drive in the US, the contents of your car are somewhat protected by law. It's not trivial for authorities to obtain the right to search your car, though I understand it's common for some to flout the rules and search anyway. But there are not gates on the highway which scan all cars and subject the contents of all the cars along with details of the drivers to government scrutiny. Not just the number plates, everything in and about the car. However, it is the goal of several agencies to perform this level of searching to all data transmitted. Why do you claim that people have less right to privacy when transmitting data in the virtual vs the physical world?

lodovic 1y ago

This is like storing copies of all physical mail because one letter could contain a Xerox of a newspaper.