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Comment by itchyjunk | Hacker News Reader

They are also distributing physicals masks? It's not even a filtering type mask is it? How odd.

Is the blurring some type of encryption that the user can unblurr or is this a one way road? I am just thinking off some odd circumstance where say they realize they had a picture of a vandal somewhere. But I guess you can then be forced to unblurr everything by law enforcement which might be undesirable in some cases.

Slight off topic from the article, I was reading about the sting ray discussion here on HN yesterday. Signal supports some sort of mesh network communication right? Is that a work around for sting rays? Thanks.

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I don't think Signal has any mesh networking there are other apps like Firechat and Bridgify (haven't used either of them just googling).

As for the mask it'll do a little bit for CS and mace probably with eye protection but the goal is mostly protecting protesters by keeping them from being identified and retaliated against later. It's also way easier to make a buff style covering and it can be worn over many types of filtering masks.

If you're looking for mesh network encrypted chat, check out Briar.

https://briarproject.org/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRJ8vIh3dVU

>> “ Slight off topic from the article, I was reading about the sting ray discussion here on HN yesterday. Signal supports some sort of mesh network communication right? Is that a work around for sting rays?”

Believe you’re talking about Signal using “domain fronting” - which is unrelated to stingrays; more information is here: https://signal.org/blog/doodles-stickers-censorship/

As for stingrays, here’s recent article on countermeasures: https://puri.sm/posts/taking-the-sting-out-of-stingray/

I was also surprised by the physical masks. It seems they are intended to 'encrypt your face' which gives me the impression it should make you unidentifiable.

When peacefully protesting, I can't imagine why you would need to hide your face.

If not peacefully protesting and/or looting, such a mask has use for criminals, but I can't imagine that's the intention of Signal.

I think in free, democratic countries, you shouldn't be allowed to hide your face, so you can be held accountable for your deeds.

In non-free countries I can imagine you would need to hide your identity, but would Signal be able to distribute them there?

Questions, questions ;)

Saying only criminals would want to cover their face is the equivalent of saying only criminals worry about privacy. The old "if you aren't doing anything wrong then you have nothing to worry about" argument. I've never looted a store in my life and I don't ever plan to but I still don't want images of my face stored in a police database or used in facial recognition software. Wanting to protect my right to privacy is not and cannot become a presumption of criminal intent.

As the looks of it, US is pretty non-free when it comes to peacefully protesting. So I guess this feature is very timely and directed towards users there ;)

It's most certainly not just the US. In the (western European) country where I live, for instance, even a static protest or demonstration with no chanting or marching and only a few participants requires non-trivial and somewhat expensive police approval ahead of time. Most larger spontaneous events seem to just ignore this and the police haven't generally responded violently, to their credit.

> As the looks of it, US is pretty non-free when it comes to peacefully protesting

What is your definition of peaceful protest? What we see in the US now is definitely not within my range.

Thrashing stores, looting, torching vehicles.

What makes you thinks that?

When I think non free, I think of the CCP prohibiting peaceful rememberance of Tianamen square.

Is a police office in a free, democratic country allowed to hide their badge number?

Depends what you mean by "allowed". If the rules say "you definitely can't do this", but there is no penalty for going ahead and doing it anyway, is it allowed?

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