Amazon Defends Its Use of Signal Messages in Court | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Defends Its Use of Signal Messages in Court

geekwire.com

13 pointsbelter15 comments

At first read it does seem suspicious that they used Signal, however at the very end the reason is explained - it's due to the Jeff Bezos hacks in 2018. That seems very reasonable. I fully support what the FTC is doing here, however I don’t support them claiming that they expected to see incriminating messages and when they did not, claimed deletion with no proof.

It would be nice if the federal government would go after the City of Seattle for deleting all of the summer 2020 messages. Both Jenny Durkan and Carmen Best broke public records laws far more flagrantly than Amazon.

Washington's law that there can be no private discussions among Councilmembers sounds like a good idea, but it just makes for bad government. It makes it impossible for them to horse-trade to find a deal. What does happen is every member grandstands their position instead.

It's a scary precedent if they successfully argue that the absence of evidence is evidence of deletion. Where/how do you ever stop that train once it leaves the station?

Exactly, you have an encrypted drive? Maybe you forgot the password? Well we will just assume it’s literally the worst possible content and go from there!

Australia already passed a law years ago that forces companies to weaken their encryption. Not long before TLS is outlawed entirely at this rate.

> Amazon says it has acted properly in response to FTC demands to ensure the preservation of relevant evidence. The company says it gave executives “explicit instructions on how to disable Signal’s DM [disappearing messages] feature.” A copy of those instructions has been provided to the FTC, according to Amazon’s filing.

Amazon's 'explicit instructions' on keeping messages visible: either a move for clarity or a masterclass in corporate subtlety.

This from the same company that insists on auto-deleting all old Slack and e-mail messages, to limit discoverability. And refuses to give you a larger e-mailbox than 4GB, for the same reason.

Hmm.

Maybe the government should require all business executives to wear a microphone and record all their conversations, too? Do we really want a surveillance state?

we don't want a surveillance state but you have to admit that auditing and investigating is at times necessary, no? what if everything at enron was encrypted?

I don’t think this is a fair retort. Personal communication is not what is being looked at here.

No business I’ve ever worked at has encouraged or tolerated the use of personal messaging platforms for business.

Why do these execs get an exception? What are they doing that warrants hiding? I think any normal bystander would see this as suspicious.

Why are so many companies trying to hide their executive decision making? It keeps showing up in the news.

Why did Arthur Anderson and Enron shred all those documents? Who knows? I have no idea what was in those reams, and nobody ever will. I’d bet it would not look good for the folks at the top if we could.

With the amount of power these businesses yield, they absolutely should be held to basic record keeping standards. Companies are groups of people, their lifeblood is communication. The only way they can perpetrate large scale wrongdoing is via communication.

Our elected government representatives should be able to inspect and question how these powerful entities are run and respond to any wrongdoing they find.

We ask a lot from our elected representatives. Likewise, we must ask a lot from our unelected corporate overlords. Yes this is uncomfortable for them. Being powerful should be.

A disclaimer about me: I work for a megacorp as a leaf node IC. Opinions are my own and I don’t speak for anyone else and all that.

If two executives talk across a table during lunch, is it required to record it? What if they sit across the table from each other and send text messages over Signal instead of talking... is that somehow different where it would be required to record the conversation for all to see?

Where does personal privacy start and end?

I made this same argument last time the story was posted but I don't think it's really possible to answer. Even the best lawyer could only tell you something like "it's only technically legal if a judge says it is", and even then it does not automatically apply to all future instances.

Like it or not, law is all about subjective interpretation and "well ackshually" arguments.

It's tough because absence of evidence should never be incriminating but I feel like capturing these exchanges are the only way executives get nailed for bad behavior.

Its tough because its hard to nail them otherwise but its still an easy decision. Do not do stuff that erodes the right to private communication.

The feds always lean very heavily on the conspiracy part in investigations, I guess the cause and measurable outcome of a crime is never good enough for them. They demand total access to everyone's information.

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