> So your solution is to get rid of speedy emergency requests entirely?

No?

Anecdotally, from what we are reading today, a typical EDR response time is on the order of an hour. So while someone on my team is gathering the requested data, someone else is doing the verification.

> Sounds like you’re just repeating the point that authenticating these requests is impossible, as that authentication would have to happen fast.

If anything, I'm implying that if the government mandates that EDRs exist, they should have to back it up with someone to handle authentication. A phone number at the state level would do the trick.

> And then you need to do this internationally. What will you do?

First I'd have to be convinced why I should do this in every jurisdiction, why that jurisdiction would have access to customer data from other jurisdictions, etc.

Sounds like you're saying the problem is that the government is mandating things and providing no rules about how it should work. That seems like such an un-government-like thing to do, they usually get weirdly specific.

> if the government mandates that EDRs exist

Q: Is government mandating this? At what level?

...and if so, why?

Well, I assumed that the only reason anybody was complying with an EDR was because there was a law mandating they do so. Otherwise, why aren't they just dropping these requests in the trash?

> the only reason anybody was complying with an EDR was because there was a law mandating they do so

Alternatively, it's possible that understaffed and overworked providers are more concerned about their company looking bad when "Missing Child X with schoolbag containing cellphone" isn't located before the next news cycle?

Doesn't due process exist for a reason? Even if that's occasionally a PITA for the authorities?

> So while someone on my team is gathering the requested data, someone else is doing the verification

The whole point is that verification will take much longer than hours.

> Sounds like you're saying the problem is that the government is mandating things and providing no rules about how it should work. That seems like such an un-government-like thing to do, they usually get weirdly specific.

The government is very specific when it comes to what is required of you. The government is not very specific when it comes to what is required of the government.

> The whole point is that verification will take much longer than hours.

How can it take longer than hours to reach the actual police department in $someSmallTown, USA ?

$Deity forbid you actually happen to live in $someSmallTown and need the police in a hurry...

Research the village constables in Alaska. There are also small towns that have only part time police forces. This sort of stuff really isn't uncommon.

FWIW I lived in a village with a part-time police presence. Based on our experiences they're great for helping local kids not get run over on the walk to school (and for closing down public spaces when Covid paranoia was at its highest in early 2020). Manhunts or major crimes? Not so much.

I'm struggling to get my head around how a tiny and/or part-time police force should be the (sole?) point of contact for an emergency data request when <drum roll> they're not even there for the majority of every 24h cycle.

"Dear $TelCo, you must immediately release location data for subscriber 1-800-555-2368, it's so important and urgent we haven't got time to find a judge. Since it's almost 4pm we're going off duty now and will be at our desks from 9am tomorrow. Yours, $PartTimeForce"

$someSmallTown might not even have a police department, how are you supposed to find out if the only one that comes up on the internet is fake?

Someone wearing a uniform turns up on your doorstep with a piece of paper that they claim is a search warrant. You say you want to talk to your lawyer. They say they're in a hurry and this is really important. At this point you decide to google the name of the person who signed the warrant, you phone the number you find on the internet, "Judge" Smith answers, so you let the "officer" into your house.

Really?

Nope, but for cities to be prepared for such emergencies before hand by completing some basics of bureaucracy by being properly authenticated, much like you expect a city fire department to have some fire trucks purchased already instead of expecting to purchase one in seconds when they need one from the dealership 1000 miles away.

Yeah, of course the federal government could legislate this problem away. Not gonna happen though.

It is literally impossible for request recipients to solve this problem.

> It is literally impossible for request recipients to solve this problem.

This I agree with. I'm trying to find the actual text of the law, I'm surprised the government isn't pretty specific about what constitutes a valid EDR, who can send them, etc. Bureaucrats love to write rules.

From the article, I couldn't see what actually compelled the need to comply with an "EDR". From what I could see, they were not actual warrants or subpoenas that legally compelled performance, they were requests. They do it out of not wanting to have bad PR in case it was real, because the consequences for a screw up are pretty much nil.

The end solution is either an authentication scheme, a $1000 rush processing fee that includes a verification process and the requirement to call it in (It is an emergency, isn't it? Emergencies do not happen often, so what is $1000 to an american organization funded by taxpayer dollars?) or E2E encryption that makes it they can't give data.

Another thing about the $1000 fee, is you get to see the payment information about the account it comes from, and you can further require it comes from a government account which matches the requesting organization. Thanks to governments being very gung ho about their financial surveillance infrastructure being a hard requirement for almost everything now.

>So your solution is to get rid of speedy emergency requests entirely?

Who said that?

That’s the implication. A lengthy verification process makes speedy processing of requests impossible.

A fake subpoena is not a home invasion. It's not like seconds matter.

Until you get in trouble for not complying with a real one.

Worst case scenario is probably a horrible PR disaster after a child dies because you couldn’t process a real request fast enough.

And we’re not talking about seconds, but easily days or weeks.

You think this is something someone can't figure out in a matter of weeks?

We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines.

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>Sorry, but this isn’t your first comment demonstrating severe struggles with reading comprehension.

This isn't reddit, you can't talk to people like that here. I'm not engaging this further.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Would you please stop perpetuating flamewars on HN and also please stop using HN primarily for political/ideological battle? We ban accounts that do those things because they destroy what the site is supposed to be for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

For some problems, there is no good solution.

That’s my point. The OP “riskable” claimed the opposite though.