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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

What metadata? All they were able to produce was whether or not a phone number was associated with Signal at all, and the last time that phone number's account pinged the Signal service for any reason. They produced virtually no metadata to the investigation.

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Only because they don't store it. They are able to choose to store it at any point; we can only rely on their honesty (and lack of compulsion). It's better to have a protocol in which there isn't any significant metadata to choose to store.

I don't distrust them today, but I have no way of knowing what their future behaviour will be. I'd prefer not to have to trust.

The client is open source[1], we can at least define a limit to what information can be stored that is not end-to-end encrypted.

https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android

How many people build from source? Moxie worked to stop distribution of binaries outside the Play Store, which is not unreasonable in itself but leaves a nice central point to target individuals.

Who owns Open Whisper Systems? I know Twitter bought WhisperSys, and with it Textsecure and Redphone though unsure who currently owns Open WhisperSys and it's products Signal (I assume Twitter does). Twitter is also rumoured for sale with Microsoft looking at aquiring it, so the future of Signal not keeping this metadata depends on who aquires it.

Open Whisper Systems is a nonprofit founded by Moxie Marlinspike in 2013, and it's a different entity than the "Whisper Systems" Twitter bought earlier.

Yeah, I wish he went with another name, too. Not only is Open Whisper Systems making it more confusing, but it's also quite a mouthful.

Is this something OWS could be subpoena'd for? Or something that the government would just subpoena Google for?

(I mean, given a phone number, can't you identify someone's Google Play account anyway? That sounds more useful.)

> Is this something OWS could be subpoena'd for?

Not by subpoena alone, but in theory a court order could order them to modify their software (server or client) to collect data. They could fight that court order, and in particular it seems like they'd have a good case on the grounds that such an order would destroy their entire business, but legally a court could at least attempt to issue such an order.

I'm more concerned about this NSA/FBI partnership that secretly forces cooperation somehow. It might apply up to and including forcing a backdoor into the binary. Here's the program for US cooperation:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/leaked-documents-expose-secret-...

The interesting part is in this table from the TS/ECI leaks from Core Secrets:

https://theintercept.com/document/2014/10/10/eci-whipgenie-c...

Notice how the lower levels of secrecy talk about how the companies cooperate or are partners. Then, you hit TS/COMINT and TS/ECI to find additional detail:

"the fact that FBI provides assistance with compelled and cooperative partnerships associated with WHIPGENIE"

"details of FBI assistance with compelled and cooperative partnerships with WHIPGENIE"

So, it's a backdooring program with major U.S. companies that the FBI "compels" assistance with for those that don't willingly cooperate. I have no idea what that entails but it works. It might work better on smaller firm with less resources but also maybe less as I think damaging income stream matters to greedy CEO's at public firms more. So, who knows.

Personally, I think they're pulling a variation of Escobars silver or lead policy. You take generous bribes to do what they want or you take generous donations of lead. In this case, legal fines or imprisonment rather than actual lead.

Ah, I understand now. Thanks.

And thank you for replying so nicely — it's a sign that HN hasn't yet become /. or reddit. Best!

They would also be able to figure out what phone numbers it was communicating with, at what times and how often - they do the routing. We're relying on them not to store that metadata, which is the problem.

We're relying on them not being successfully compelled to retain that metadata -- which is a significantly different proposition.

No, not really - they can decide at any time to start storing that metadata of their own will, use it internally, sell it to advertisers or turn it over via a direct law enforcement portal if they want. Their access alone is in many ways a problem.

Of course, we are agreeing. But as the other front page story shows us, even companies with the best of intentions and made up of people with strict moral codes devoted to providing their users a secure product can be usurped by government forces with ulterior motives.

I believe Whisper doesn't want this data. I can even trust that they would never collect it of their own volition. But it's irrelevant if they can simply be compelled to collect it, or even worse, someone within their organization can be compelled to secretly collect it and may even do a better job at this secret collection than Mayer's lackies at Yahoo!.

How would they be able to do that? Can you quote where in the article you got that and how that would happen?

"Notably, things we don't have stored include anything about a user's contacts (such as the contacts themselves, a hash of the contacts, any other derivative contact information), anything about a user's groups (such as how many groups a user is in, which groups a user is in, the membership lists of a user's groups), or any records of who a user has been communicating with."

If they don't store the contacts, or even a hash of the contact, how can you figure out who was talking to who?

Yes, but zeveb makes the following points:

1. "the contacts, or even a hash of the contact" are being not stored by choice rather than by necessity.

2. If OWS chose to start storing these metadata in the future, they could.

3. A protocol where the metadata could not be stored intrinsically would be preferable.

> If they don't store the contacts, or even a hash of the contact, how can you figure out who was talking to who?

Think of it like email. The body is encrypted, the subject is encrypted, any attachments are encrypted, but in order for them to route the message to the correct destination every message you send still has a "To:" field - their server still decides who to send the notification to.

They don't need to read the contacts or anything of the sort - they just read the "To:" field.

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