Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torrent site

Re:Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torren... by morsch on Friday July 22, 2016 @07:19AM (#12142893)

Brazil wants Facebook (WhatsApp) to release information it doesn't have -- it's not clear to me what data exactly, but presumably message content which they historically did not store and now, due to e2e encryption, cannot store; or maybe message metadata which I'm not sure they store (does anybody know?).

This is about data Facebook, like most web sites, does store (site access logs including IPs). Though I wonder how long they store these kind of logs; different jurisdictions may have both minimum retention times as well as maximum retention times for personal data such as IPs.

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Re:Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torren... by htaunay on Friday July 22, 2016 @07:42AM (#12142967)

Brazilian authorities have actually already accepted that previously sent messages are forever out of reach. Their last blockage of WhatsApp happened because they where requesting that a specific group of users to be tracked with previous notice.

If this is technically feasible I can't say, but I don't imagine FB creating a precedent so that any state authority can require tracking of specific users. IMHO, this solution wouldn't take so long to start being exploited.

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Re:Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torren... by morsch on Friday July 22, 2016 @07:47AM (#12142984)

Thanks for the correction. Most (recent) articles annoyingly only go about the blocking and unblocking, and don't actually say what the Brazilian authorities want.

Do you know what "tracking" entails? That could mean anything from revealing message contents to revealing social networks or tracking a user's geoposition or reporting all the IMSI/IMEIs associated with any given WhatsApp user.

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Re:Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torren... by gpribeiro on Friday July 22, 2016 @08:25AM (#12143107)

The last case involved a judge asking Whatsapp to implement a backdoor in its services.

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Re:Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torren... by simbalion on Friday July 22, 2016 @09:23AM (#12143329)

Kudos to facebook for resisting the government of brazil but why would they help the U.S. government nail media pirates and not help another government nail terrorists? This does not add up.

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Re:Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torren... by Jtsummers on Friday July 22, 2016 @09:37AM (#12143392)

The method of assistance involved is different between these two cases.

One case wants them to introduce a deliberate backdoor into their software. Negating the entire point of their recent move to end-to-end encryption and a major reason they're such a big player in the communication service market.

The other case was a warrant for, "What IP addresses accessed this account?".

The second one is trivial to comply with and to compile. The first is going to require them to alienate most of their customers, destroy their business, and spend a few man-weeks (minimum) to put together.

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Re:Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torren... by meira on Friday July 22, 2016 @10:13AM (#12143599)

Bullshit. The first makes them have less power and profit less, the second do the opposite. It's a "fair" choice, don't you think? At least if you are the billionare owner that don't care with anyone and pretends that he is pursuing an open world.

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Re:Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torren... by Jtsummers on Friday July 22, 2016 @10:30AM (#12143712)

Sure. Let's go with that then.

EDIT: That was just straight snark. Sorry.

Want a better response? I've seen your other comments regarding WhatsApp/Facebook on past related discussions. If you really think Brazil is being held back by these companies (WhatsApp in particular) make a competitor. Win over the Brazilian market. And deliberately make it insecure so your government can eavesdrop on any conversation. Good luck at keeping that market.

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Re:Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torren... by meira on Friday July 22, 2016 @11:28AM (#12144121)

Yeah, I'm developing a competitor. Guess what? We don't have zillions of dollars and if we don't answer the justice right, we bankrupt. Facebook don't. So yeah, it's part of the development of my product to stop the unfair benefits foreign technology companies have in my country.

EDIT: FB eavesdrop to US gov didn't stopped their growth. Actually, I would bet that it helped.

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Re:Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torren... by Jtsummers on Friday July 22, 2016 @12:12PM (#12144443)

WhatsApp, before it was owned by Facebook, didn't have zillions of dollars, which was also when it exploded in Latin America.

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Re:Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torren... by meira on Friday July 22, 2016 @10:15AM (#12143610)

I think "implement" is misleading. The brazillian justice asked to use the same mechanism the US gov already use ;)

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Re:Apple and Facebook helped bust the world's biggest torren... by morsch on Friday July 22, 2016 @01:45PM (#12145248)

Source? What kind of backdoor are we talking about here?

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