
WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge - tshtf
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/02/whatsapp-used-by-100-million-brazilians-was-shut-down-nationwide-today-by-a-single-judge/
======
soneca
I'm here to defend the judge's ruling, a position very unpopular among all my
friends here in Brazil.

Brazilian law regarding regarding privacy of users of internet services is
very recent and clear: if a judge order the company to share a specific user
data, the company must comply. You can disagree with the law, but the law is
there.

Now, the judge ordered Whatsapp to share a particular user conversation (a
suspect murderer - edit: drug dealer). But the problem is: Whatsapp have no
offices or operations in Brazil. The order was sent to Facebook, who ignore as
Whatsapp is another company. So, without any executives in Brazil that could
be held responsible for disobeying the law, the judge fine the company. They
continue to disobey the order (for months). The judge suspends Whatsapp
activity (for 24h a few months ago, but that order was suspended itself after
a few hours). Now Whatsapp continue to disobey the judge's order until this
day. The judge suspend the company again.

All arguments I hear against the judge is in the line that Whatsapp is "too
big to fail". That's not a valid point in my opinion. If they disobey the law,
it must have consequences, no matter how big and important to brazilian
society they are. If they had operations and executives in Brazil this would
never had happened at the first place. They would have lawyers fighting
against the decision to share the user data and this would be solved by the
justice system (never coming to have its activity suspended). But Whatsapp
simply ignored brazilian justice system as if it was above the law.

It is very unfortunate that it came to this point, but it is not like a judge
decided yesterday that Whatsapp should sufer for whatever reason. They got a
lot of months of warning for this. And he is acting completely according to
the law. For me, all of this is Whatsapp fault.

~~~
envy2
There seem to be a few problems with this analysis.

First, WhatsApp is a US company and has no presence in Brazil. Under many
readings of US law (specifically, ECPA), US companies are in fact _prohibited_
from complying with requests from foreign law enforcement for content, except
in emergencies. Instead, foreign law enforcement must make a request for
assistance to the US DoJ, which will then (eventually, and maybe) process it
and serve it on the US company. This is one of the reasons why MLAT reform,
such as the proposed UK-US agreement[1], is so important because it would
allow US companies to directly respond to foreign law enforcement requests.

Second, apparently, the data does not exist. WhatsApp publicly stated,
including in testimony before the Brazilian Congressional Committee on Cyber
Crimes[2], that it does not and has not retained any message content once
messages are delivered, even before the recent full roll-out of E2E. Based on
these statements, it would seem that WhatsApp is indeed unable to comply with
the court's request, regardless of any jurisdictional arguments.

[1] [https://www.justsecurity.org/29203/british-searches-
america-...](https://www.justsecurity.org/29203/british-searches-america-
tremendous-opportunity/)

[2] [http://www2.camara.leg.br/atividade-
legislativa/comissoes/co...](http://www2.camara.leg.br/atividade-
legislativa/comissoes/comissoes-temporarias/parlamentar-de-
inquerito/55a-legislatura/cpi-crimes-
ciberneticos/videoArquivo?codSessao=55221&codReuniao=42467#videoTitulo)

~~~
devishard
> First, WhatsApp is a US company and has no presence in Brazil. Under many
> readings of US law (specifically, ECPA), US companies are in fact prohibited
> from complying with requests from foreign law enforcement for content,
> except in emergencies. Instead, foreign law enforcement must make a request
> for assistance to the US DoJ, which will then (eventually, and maybe)
> process it and serve it on the US company. This is one of the reasons why
> MLAT reform, such as the proposed UK-US agreement[1], is so important
> because it would allow US companies to directly respond to foreign law
> enforcement requests.

This is all WhatsApp's and the US's problem, not Brazil's. In fact, it's kind
of insensitive for foreigners to suggest that a judge of a sovereign nation
must consider US law in his rulings. If anything, I think this would justify
ruling against WhatsApp more harshly, as it sends the message to the US that
policies which don't respect the sovereignty of Brazil will hurt US economic
interests in Brazil.

That said:

> Second, apparently, the data does not exist. WhatsApp publicly stated,
> including in testimony before the Brazilian Congressional Committee on Cyber
> Crimes[2], that it does not and has not retained any message content once
> messages are delivered, even before the recent full roll-out of E2E. Based
> on these statements, it would seem that WhatsApp is indeed unable to comply
> with the court's request, regardless of any jurisdictional arguments.

If this is true, that's a solid argument and stands on its own.

~~~
Retra
>In fact, it's kind of insensitive for foreigners to suggest that a judge of a
sovereign nation must consider US law in his rulings.

It's just as insensitive for a judge of a foreign nation to suggest that all
foreigners must consider his rulings when making decisions under their own
sovereign laws.

~~~
marklgr
If a business wants to operate in a foreign country, it seems natural to me to
follow the rules of that country; the fact that the business did not open an
office in that country looks irrelevant--otherwise, do not open any office
abroad and do what you want.

Incidentally, I wonder how the situation would be handled and what the opinion
would be if some big foreign company operating in the US were shut down in the
same way.

~~~
hrktb
> otherwise, do not open any office abroad and do what you want.

Isn't this a fair position ? Imagine you are a lone dev creating a service
that has no specific limitations. You are subject to your countries law, but
should also be liable under each single law of every country where your users
might happen to be ?

It seems to me that countries should have the right to do what they want
within their borders (including shutting down access to some services) but go
the diplomatic route if they have to interact with people out of their
borders.

~~~
patall
What is your problem here? He does not shut down WhatsApp in total or request
info for US user or anything like that, only in Brazil. This does not affect
you at all. If they do not obey the law in another country, they do not get
access there. Their activities in any other country do not change.

~~~
newjersey
One problem I have is free trade. Can the US just randomly ban one of Brazil's
exports? I mean the US likely exports more to Brazil than imports from it but
if this weren't the case...

~~~
marklgr
The US have always strictly controlled what they imported (if only via tariff)
and what they exported.

------
myth_drannon
Unlike in N. America, in Brazil a lot of businesses depend on WhatsApp. You
can talk with your doctor, call a plumber, claim insurance. On billboards no
one puts a website address or an email, just phone number and WhatsUp. That's
an economy cripling move and it's shocking how one judge can do it.

~~~
meira
More important. Why aren't congressmen creating rules to prevent these
monopolies ?

~~~
Jtsummers
?? Can't tell if serious.

Unless whatsapp did something to wreck their competition in Brazil, any
effective monopoly they possess is by virtue of people choosing to use their
system over other systems.

This sort of effective monopoly cannot and ought not be stopped unless the
monopoly power is abusing their position. And how would you when it's a choice
people have made? Mandate that every 5th person mustn't use WhatsApp?

~~~
dmix
Monopoly isn't even about market size it's about companies exploiting their
market position using anti-competitive practices. There is no indication
WhatsApp has done any of this except being the most popular product in a
highly competitive and open market.

~~~
Jtsummers
Principally, a monopoly is precisely about market share. Anti-trust and
monopoly laws exist for situations where such monopolies are created by
unethical or illegal means or when they abuse their monopoly position
(directly with ability to charge customers for products and services, or
indirectly by somehow shutting down competition).

And that's where, as you point out, WhatsApp hasn't done anything wrong. Even
if they have a de facto monopoly in Brazil, unless they've done something
other than what I've seen in the US, it's almost certainly the result of
network effects and nothing to do with illicit practices.

~~~
dmix
Indeed, most monopoly rulings have happened in markets with competing
oligopolies.

------
bikamonki
Do we need more proof? The Internet is broken. A few months back there were
protests against government in my country (also in South America). That day I
witnessed how Twitter images were selectively blocked. (I remember reporting
it here on HN). What was really scary is how they could select the
pictures/videos to block, almost in realtime. Here we have about 5 ISPs
serving 95% of the market (counting both mobile and landline) and all hook to
a couple of bigger pipes to move ALL Internet traffic in/out of the country.

Try as I might but can't understand why we do not break free from centralized
communications, given that we already have both the hardware and software
technology to do so.

I like an old saying: when banging your head against a stonewall, you will
always break the head and never the wall. So, what do we gain from discusing
politics? What do we gain with laws written on paper but bent for the best
bidder? Let's be pragmatic, in particular on a site like HN. We shouldn't be
talking about the law, whether it is right or wrong, we should be discusing
how many nodes do we need on a mesh network to solve communications for a city
like Sao Paulo. Is the tech there yet? Can it get there? Who's advancing on
these subjects? How can we help? (like really help not writting useless
letters to congressmen)

Don't bang your head on the stonewall...

~~~
paavokoya
Apps exist that route around censorship. People need to inform themselves. We
are in an era where encryption and self-sustenance are deemed scary and
suspicious.

If all of these 100m users were on FireChat, this headline wouldn't exist.

~~~
bikamonki
Not sure, we tried Firechat among friends and family on the last aftermath of
an earthquake and some had problems installing or activating it. Also, it just
drains the battery. However, I agree with you, the technology to circumvent
centralized and censored communications is already there, it just needs
adoption and improvement. But we need to think bigger, not only chats, we need
a free Internet.

------
makecheck
I am so tired of these “takedowns” and other brute-force methods that are used
to essentially squash ants. It always seems _way, way too easy_ to do, and the
collateral damage is way too high.

The Internet needs to start acting like a series of dumb pipes again: so dumb
that you have _no idea_ where information really is, and so huge so as to be
impractical for anyone to control.

Consider highway systems. For roads, the only way to “shut down” somebody’s
access without controlling _every road, everywhere_ is to have some idea where
your target is. And even then, you probably have to control several access
points to really keep that target from moving. And unless they live at the end
of a single country road that you control, being draconian about road control
is usually going to be very hard and probably impossible. And that is a good
thing, because if shutting down highways made any sense then a hell of a lot
of people would be inconvenienced on a regular basis (or worse than
inconvenienced, if they were in an ambulance or something).

Blocking Internet tools is arguably far worse than blocking highways because
networks transport an almost incomprehensibly-large amount of information and
the effects are vast. By the same token, seizure of a device is arguably far
worse than seizure of something like a truck because a device can effectively
provide access to someone’s _entire life_ and not just the little bit of
information that an authority is seeking.

Enough paranoid blocking and seizure, let’s try to focus on world progress.

~~~
pas
The reality is still a few big telcos/ISPs operating the infrastructure, so
government has zero problems mandating filtering/wiretapping/blocking.

And since laying fiber is expensive, and putting up sats is even more
expensive, and running a mesh through the continent is pretty unfeasible,
we're stuck with these economically optimal big targets (the ISPs/telcos).

As long as there is a network operator with access to core and edge routers,
blocking is easy. And by the nature of BGP and the Internet you'll always know
who to ask next to filter something.

Or you can use Tor and-or a VPN. Multi-homing for times like this should be
set up by default in operating systems.

------
cm3
This is exactly why operating many small Murmur and/or XMPP servers is a
better approach than relying on a single big-co's proprietary service with
which you no signed SLA. Just like game servers, it's easy to operate a
community Murmur server and it's also possible to set up one on your home
router given the low bandwidth and hardwre requirements.

Yet, if I suggest that I prefer Mumble over closed source voice chat or
centrally provided WebRTC service like appear.in, people downvote me or treat
me a like a luddite.

But I do understand that given the comfort of a centrally managed WhatsApp,
it's hard to resist.

The only reason there are no fancy mobile clients is that those who would
build them are doing it for the silo'd Vibers, Skypes, and WhatsApps.

Comfort seems to trump reliability.

~~~
bsder
> Comfort seems to trump reliability.

Everything is centralized because of one simple reason: you can't monetize
distributed.

So, as a developer, if I want paid, I'm going to make a centralized system.
The fact that the centralized system is way easier to develop/debug is just a
bonus.

As a user, I'm going to use the system that has the easiest
installability/usability cross section. That app is likely to be the one that
gets the most developer time. The one that gets the most developer time is
likely to be the one that lets the developers get paid.

And thus, the circle is closed, and the feedback loop begins.

~~~
MichaelGG
Distributed means spam. That's not a solved issue. Email sorta gets around it
with tons of filtering. On IM, spam is much more annoying (it's assumed you'll
get lots of junk email even if not spam).

~~~
cm3
In what way does a centralized server prevent spam? You'll only receive
messages after you've accepted the contact request, so the worst that can
happen is contact request spam.

------
lxe
> The Telephone, Used by 300M Americans, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a
> Single Judge

Try rationalizing this headline. All communication services, whether they are
"apps", "networks", "utilities", etc... should fall in some category of
protection where such things cannot happen.

------
verganileonardo
2nd time in less than 12 months. probably, we are going to see a surge in
telegram downloads/usage today.

~~~
r0muald
A true shame since Telegram is just as centralized as WhatsApp, minus the
strong end-to-end encryption. Should it become the de facto messaging app for
Brazilians, the next judge will just block Telegram instead.

But decentralized communication networks that work mobile first are hard, we
all know it, so there's room for improvement, randomizing server addresses on
a daily rotation, or whatever may render pointless these blockades.

~~~
MichaelGG
WhatsApp could incorporate obfuscation proxies if they wanted to. Like the Tor
connection bridges that exist to help get around a Tor block.

Maybe only activated once they detect a threat or something.

------
x0054
The solution to this isn't a legal one, unfortunately. We can no longer trust
the government, of what ever nation, period. In US we have Clinton and Trump
as the presumptive nominees, both will be terrible for privacy and liberty.
The solution is for WhatsApp (and others) to design a protocol that runs over
common ports and encrypts end to end the communication and the protocol. Make
it impossible to block without costly deep packet inspections and banning of
thousands and thousands random relays, and it will not be blocked.

------
vezycash
Would a p2p architecture thwart this kinda blocking?

~~~
gnaritas
You can't fix social problems with technology. The issue here is Brazilian law
and the failure to understand the implications of encryption by the courts,
not WhatApp's connection architecture.

~~~
stale2002
Sure you can!

Imagine if Brazil tried to ban Bitcoin. How successful do you think they would
be?

~~~
bsder
Very. For the moment, you have to take your salary in your local currency.
Therefore, you need an exchange to get Bitcoins, and the exchanges can be shut
down.

People said The Great Firewall would never work. They were wrong about that,
too.

The real world _CAN_ infringe on the networked world--quite strongly.

~~~
aianus
Drugs are (highly) illegal but most people I know are at most two phone calls
away from scoring whatever they want whenever they want.

I imagine if some third-world countries with capital controls banned Bitcoin,
it would look similar (having to call your Bitcoin dealer and pay a markup to
move money out of the country but otherwise easily accessible to those in-the-
know).

~~~
gnaritas
> Drugs are (highly) illegal but most people I know are at most two phone
> calls away from scoring whatever they want whenever they want.

And yet most people don't. Knowing you can do something illegal, and doing it,
are vastly different things.

~~~
aianus
> And yet most people don't.

If people's life savings depended on circumventing capital controls, they
would find a way. It's already a reality in China [1] and (until recently)
Argentina [2].

Hell, where I'm from (Canada) 43% of people admit to having smoked marijuana
in their lifetimes. And that's just breaking the law for fun, not serious
practical reasons like saving $xx,xxx when your crappy central bank decides to
inflate away your bank account.

[1] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-02/china-s-
sm...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-02/china-s-smurfs-beat-
cash-controls-sending-real-estate-soaring)

[2] [http://www.buenostours.com/getting-the-best-exchange-rate-
fo...](http://www.buenostours.com/getting-the-best-exchange-rate-for-your-
dollars-in-buenos-aires)

~~~
gnaritas
You're looking at the actions of a very few people and making unjustified
sweeping conclusions about what everyone is willing to do. A very small
minority of the populations in both those countries are breaking the law to
get their money around capital controls, that doesn't in any way challenge the
point that most people won't.

Most people break drug laws at some point in their lives just for fun, still
not relevant to the fact that most don't most of the time.

Most people obey most laws most of the time, especially ones that can get them
into serious trouble. No amount of anecdotes of some people this or some
people that changes that fact. Laws matter.

~~~
aianus
> Most people obey most laws most of the time

I think you're inverting the causation. Of course things that most people do
most of the time would not be illegal, those laws would be very difficult to
introduce and sustain politically.

> especially ones that can get them into serious trouble

It's not enough for a law to carry a heavy penalty, people have to believe
they can/will get caught and the penalty will apply to them. Which is true for
robbery and capital murder but not so with drug use, capital controls, porn
bans (click here if you're 18), copyright, etc.

> Laws matter.

Only if someone has the ability, will, and the resources to consistently
enforce them. Which is to say, they would not matter in third-world countries
with mismanaged economies where people need to break the law to buy BTC/USD.

~~~
gnaritas
It's true for drug use as well, but that's not the point. The point is laws do
deter, they don't prevent everyone, but they can easily kill mass adoption of
anything. You can try to skirt around that all you like, but it's true none
the less. Bitcoin is not special in this regard, if the US outlawed it, mass
adoption would not be an option. And no, you don't need consistent enforcement
of laws to make them intimidating, selective enforcement does that too.

------
bluefox
Nations seem to care alot about "cyberattacks". Yet a single well-positioned
person has the power to disrupt a mass communication service for 72 hours.
Without a single keystroke. Impressive.

------
rgo
My sister worked closely with many of the parties involved in the "Marco
Civil", Brazil's brilliant Internet Bill of Rights. Two years later, I feel
much of her work was in vain. No significant legislation was enacted from it
and lately judges are trying to circumvent common sense by brute force. Now
over 100M people are unable to use their communication platform of choice for
72h. In the meanwhile, congressmen are busy impeaching the president and
calling it an act of god, probably as a device to expiate their own sins. It
would make a good argument for a Game of Thrones clone series, some would say.
And my sister, she's been out of the job since last January. She was let go
when local NGOs ran out of money for fighting for an open internet. It seems
freedom is the first thing that runs out in a recession. Scarcity is a bitch.

------
morsch
Seems like a hint that we should design our means of communication to resist
single points of failure.

------
dmix
For the record, WhatsApp has had end-to-end encryption enabled for
Android<>Android since 2014. And 92.4% of smartphones in Brazil use Android:
[http://www.statista.com/statistics/245189/market-share-of-
mo...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/245189/market-share-of-mobile-
operating-systems-for-smartphone-sales-in-brazil/)

So it is very unlikely they have any plaintext data for the users in question.
Especially if the investigation happened recently since the roll-out of E2E on
all devices.

Additionally, it's possible WhatsApp did not even store old messages for non-
encrypted devices beyond a certain timeframe.

~~~
simonh
WhatsApp have said they don't store the messages anyway, whether they were
sent in plain text or not.

Also any such records would be stored on servers in the US, not Brazil, so
would be subject to US law. The Brazillian judge should be entering a request
with the US DOJ but is either too much of an idiot or too busy doing political
grandstanding with stupid futile gestures like this.

------
yason
They should shut down access to the whole internet in Brazil, then. It happens
to be full of companies, forums, services and data networks which probably
don't give a rat's sit-upon about what the law in Brazil or any other country
says but just keep on transmitting messages and bits from user to user.

I don't think being a messenger should come with obligations to divulge
private persons' conversations or, more generally, bits to anyone. Local laws
can force local companies to do so but it has nothing much to do with
internet: a letter remailing company (or, the post office, as we used to say
in the 1900's) could provide similar service.

To generalise, all private communications reduce down to talking in private.
If you really had to, you could talk to your friend in private and there's
nothing any government could do to retrieve those conversations back after the
fact. Technological means just make the communication more flexible but it
should not mean the conversation should become less private just because it
happens on the internet instead of the local backwoods.

In fact, when governments (across the globe) do that it will only motivate
creating solutions which make it impossible for the company to hand over their
customer's data, with end-to-end and client-side encryption. Yet all
governments do see that it's their right to make demands because it's always
the easy thing to do.

------
gtirloni
This has nothing to do with massive surveillance, dragnets, etc. It's a simple
and very specific criminal investigation where people have been found to be
using WhatsApp to coordinate drug trafficking activities. The judge is just
following the law and asking Facebook/WhatsApp to cooperate in identifying
these people (and is being met with resistance).

Tech giants in this area are just facing their own karma for having allowed
dragnets schemes to be used in their networks. If they had denounced those
activities and continued to only allow targeted surveillance with a court
order, we wouldn't have this trust crisis that prompts them to throw the baby
out with the bathwater.

It's technically possible for these companies to come up with ways to identify
specific people targeted by court orders so criminals can be identified and
punished by their respective country's laws. They simply won't because it will
be their word against the vast evidence that they have allowed dragnet
activities in the past, which will cause a backslash everywhere.

~~~
cortesoft
Umm, but the issue is that WhatsApp CAN'T comply with the order, because they
do not have access to the communications (because they are using end to end
encryption).

I have no idea what you mean by "come up with ways to identify specific people
targeted by court orders"... they aren't being asked to identify anyone, they
are being asked to hand over unencrypted communication, which they do not have
access to.

~~~
marcosdumay
The details are under seal, you simply can not know that.

Brazil has no law ordering companies to collect communication contents (and it
would be against our Constitution). Instead, there is a law requiring them to
collect IP addresses of sender and receiver of messages, and storing them for
6 months in case a court requests them.

This is information Facebook has, and this is the law they broke last time the
service was blocked.

~~~
cortesoft
Ah ok. I guess I am misinformed.

------
twoarray
Brazilian here.

I've always used Telegram for privacy purposes.

It was amazing to watch the flood of friends "just signing up".

~~~
jaflo
Although it has to be said that Telegram does not offer true end-to-end
encryption by default. For general-purpose usage, WhatsApp may actually be
considered more secure than Telegram.

~~~
twoarray
Indeed Telegram is not more secure than WhatsApp, but I usually take into
account the position of each company and how that affects my particular use
case.

~~~
free2rhyme214
Telegram secure chats are more secure than Whatsapp's recent encryption
because the code is open source.

~~~
MrMullen
Whatapp's uses the Signal Protocol Java, which is open source.

[https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-
Whitepap...](https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-
Whitepaper.pdf)

[https://github.com/WhisperSystems/libsignal-protocol-
java](https://github.com/WhisperSystems/libsignal-protocol-java)

~~~
Spivak
Oh ffs, here we go again.

Yes, the signal protocol and signal's implementation are both open source, but
you have no way to actually verify that WA has actually implemented the
protocol correctly and securely. Sure you could do some basic packet analysis
but this wouldn't tell you about the presence of any remotely triggered
backdoors.

The only way for you as a user to actually verify the security is by reading
the source and compiling the software yourself, or reading the source and
verifying the signature via reproducible builds.

I really don't understand the business decision process here. If they just
copied Signal with OSS/FOSS code and reproducible builds they would just win
outright and tech people wouldn't have anything to complain about. The value
of the service is the network anyway -- why care so much about the client?

~~~
MrMullen
There are many ways that both WA and Telegram can be
subverted/backdoored/messed up. What it really comes down to, is who do you
trust? Do you trust WA or Telegram? Personally, I trust WA a lot more than
Telegram since WA has Moxie on their team and Telegram says, "Trust us" and a
very unreasonable security challenge. I naturally don't trust people that say
"Trust us" and put up unreasonable security challenges.

~~~
alias240
WhatsApp are owned by a company that is known to cooperate with PRISM. For
that reason, I can't trust them.

------
dceddia
The title makes it sound much worse than it is -- it's actually only a 72-hour
shutdown. From the beginning of the article:

> A BRAZILIAN STATE JUDGE ordered mobile phone operators to block nationwide
> the extremely popular WhatsApp chat service for 72 hours...

~~~
nv-vn
It is as bad as they make it sound. WhatsApp is the biggest form of
communication in Brazil. It would be effectively the same as SMS and phone
calls being disabled in the U.S. (or maybe just like the effect of blocking
StackOverflow for all programmers ;))

------
nxzero
Anyone know how WhatsApp is being blocked?

~~~
kawera
IP blocking at the carrier level.

~~~
lucb1e
I feel a bit silly for asking, but do you have a source? There is loads of
misinformation going around in this thread. Are you from Brazil and do you
observe this, or did you read it somewhere?

~~~
kawera
Please, don't feel silly for asking anything! Yes, I'm brazillian and in
Brazil, work with telcos and follow the surveillance/censorship subject very
closely. I can point you to some legal documents if you want but they're all
in portuguese (and in baroque legalese to boot!).

~~~
lucb1e
Okay, thanks for the response!

------
banach
Good. Now they can all switch to Signal.

~~~
LXBWtEodYi2G
Why should that be any different? Signal and WhatsApp are functionally
equivalent from this perspective. Both are end-to-end encrypted and therefore
targets, and both are dependent on centralized, blockable servers and
therefore vulnerable.

~~~
banach
1) If people were to switch, it would bring more people onto a platform that
is not tied to Facebook, a company that loathes privacy.

2) Signal is free software, including the messaging server
([https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure-
Server](https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure-Server)). This makes it
less sensitive to take-downs (anyone could set up an alternate server), and
makes third-party security code audits possible.

~~~
LXBWtEodYi2G
Those are nice to have, but neither would change anything about this current
situation.

Servers are nice but questionably useful when each one would be living in its
own universe, in need of its own app, given Signal architecture.

------
smoyer
I'm going to guess that this isn't only affecting consumers. Governments and
businesses gradually (sometimes informally) adopt tools their employees use
outside work. Tools that are convenient, consistent and prevalent are
especially valuable.

If this becomes the "new normal", I'd expect to see criminals launching more
burglaries and terrorists launching more attacks during the service shut-
downs. If you know your target is in a weakened state, you're going to take
advantage of it.

------
rdl
This is why we need decentralization.

------
marcosdumay
And I'm sure we'll not grab the opportunity to use a descentralized messaging
protocol. It's like people want somebody to exploit them.

------
andywood
I hope that someday someone smarter than me figures out how to make a truly
free internet that isn't bound to be undermined by laws, ISPs, and hosting
providers. Of course you would still be free to program censorship into your
own walled garden, but the substrate would not be controllable by anyone. I
used to think that the Internet was that, but it's proven not to be almost
daily.

~~~
basicplus2
The only way is for every home to have its own node in a web so it is entirely
private, but one still needs to cross the oceans and deserts.

------
kiloreux
Is telegram also blocked, I think it sounds like a good alternative that
people can use now, if it's not already blocked.

~~~
uph
A better alternative would be Signal
[https://whispersystems.org/](https://whispersystems.org/)

Telegram is a terrible alternative. Messages aren't even end to end encrypted
by default and they're kept accessible on Telegrams servers. See the recent
news on how a russian activists Telegram account got hacked giving them access
to all stored messages: [https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2016/04/30/russia-
telegram-h...](https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2016/04/30/russia-telegram-
hack/)

Also this:

Thomas H. Ptacek: By default Telegram stores the PLAINTEXT of EVERY MESSAGE
every user has ever sent or received on THEIR SERVER.

Edward Snowden: I respect @durov, but Ptacek is right: @telegram's defaults
are dangerous. Without a major update, it's unsafe.

[https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/678065993587945472](https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/678065993587945472)

[https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/678271881242374144](https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/678271881242374144)

[https://twitter.com/moxie/status/678219238394298372](https://twitter.com/moxie/status/678219238394298372)

[https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/678274362609426432](https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/678274362609426432)

And the response from Pavel where he admits that security isn't a priority

[https://twitter.com/durov/status/678305311921410048](https://twitter.com/durov/status/678305311921410048)

~~~
tashkent
Sounds Telegram is the type of messaging system that the judge would like
Brazil to use.

------
satysin
How exactly are they shutting it down? Are all ISPs ordered to block it?

------
known
"Politics is the art by which politicians get money from the rich and votes
from the poor on the pretext of protecting each from the other" \-- Oscar

------
pietrasagh
Simple solution (just 4 steps).

Instal Orbot (tor proxy), run it, setup Settings->Select apps->What's up and
give the finger to your censors.

------
jeena
I'm not saying the judge did the wrong thing but I think one could avoid this
kind of problems by using decentralized services.

------
Yabood
What I find interesting the most is that they have 100M users in Brazil, yet
they don't have an office there.

------
return0
Maybe this is a great opportunity for whatsapp competitors? Especially
brazilian?

------
educar
Makes me wonder why people aren't making a self-hostable IM system that govt
can host and ask it's citizens to use. There can be a setting to switch end to
end enable/disable encryption.

I am not being entirely facetious. It's after all how Cisco made a lot of
money by selling IDS equipment.

~~~
Freak_NL
I suspect that most (neoliberalist) governments do not feel that it is their
job if the market is handling it. Also, people seem to trust megacorporations
like Facebook more than their own government for private communication,
although I am profoundly troubled by this naive majority view on privacy — I'd
rather have my communications end-to-end encrypted _without_ some huge
corporation _or_ any government harvesting my (meta)data; it's just too easy
to abuse.

------
blaquee
just a passing thought, would this happen to have anything to do with privacy
and surveillance concerns? seems oddly suspicious this comes after WhatsApp
announces end to end encryption

------
ryenus
Google, Used by 1B+ Chinese, Blocked Nationwide for Years by GFW.

------
known
First its iPhone/Apple. Now its WhatsApp/Facebook.

------
Dorian-Gray
Someone needs to create sane international e-commerce laws. I guess the
question is "Who?"

------
reachtarunhere
and I thought only India had technically laid back judges.

------
oruam
this is my shitty country and his shitty law.

------
notliketherest
What most people outside of Brazil don't realize is that WhatsApp is almost
universally used by Brazillians to communicate about EVERYTHING, even your
doctor [0][1]. My wife is Brazillian and uses it to communicate with her
family in Brazil every day. This will have disastrous consequences for
Brazilians domestically and internationally. This policy is being put in place
by unelected judges and cartel of monopolistic telcos - all at the expense of
the people.

[0][http://www.cityam.com/230372/digital-health-wearables-and-
ap...](http://www.cityam.com/230372/digital-health-wearables-and-
apps-9-in-10-brazilian-doctors-use-whatsapp-to-talk-to-patients)
[1][http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-brazilians-
use...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-brazilians-use-whatsapp-
to-connect-on-zika/)

~~~
samstave
It's almost like Brazil is the most technologically advanced poor-3rd-world-
nation

I know from my brief time at Facebook, they use Brazil user-searches in their
intro classes to tableau reporting on users' graphs - "show me everyone in
Brazil who is 18 years old and posted about subject-X"

~~~
soapdog
Samstave,

Just a bit of nitpick to save you some trouble in the future. Brazil is not
poor. Brazil is the seventh world economy, if you count the number of nations
in north america and europe, being the seventh world economy is a great deal.

Also the division in 1st world and 3rd world is schewed upon today. Its akin
to saying the N-word. There are much better, non-pejorative terms to be used.

Brazil is a part of the BRICS or the world emerging countries. Right now it is
in a huge political crisis and on the verge of a coup but it is not a
poor-3rd-world-nation, it is a the world seventh economy and also dictating
tendency for many emerging countries and a continental power in the south.

That being said, you are completely correct that Brazilians love technology.
Our smartphone revolution and expansion is awesome and we're keen to adopt new
tech. Still more than half of the country doesn't have access to net
infrastructure at their home and depends on cybercafes.

If you want some real data on the technology adoption and usage in the country
you can use the metrics and indicators from CETIC[0] which is the Brazilian
Institute for the study of information technology usage and adoption. Their
reports are awesome and will give you a much greater insight on internet usage
in the country.

[0]: [http://cetic.br/](http://cetic.br/)

PS: Sorry for the long rant, I work with digital inclusion and web literacy
programs here in Brazil, unlocking new digital skills in low-income
neighborhoods so I've been immersed in this type of thing for too long.

~~~
hkmurakami
The 1st world and 3rd world country can often be a strange one. South Korea is
technically considered a 3rd world country, even though it has quite a global
influence in industries such as consumer electronics, automotive,
semiconductors, and steel.

edit: Apologies, looks like I was completely wrong since the source online I
looked at incorrectly defined SK as economically undeveloped (I looked further
and SK is in the G20, which would clearly make it a developed nation), and I
was unaware of the Cold War era designation that commenters have pointed out
to me.

I was always confused why SK would be considered a 3rd world country when my
own impression from its industrial strength was that it should be a 1st world
country, so I'm glad that I've been corrected.

~~~
corybrown
South Korea isn't, but Switzerland and Sweden, by virtue of being neutral is a
third world country in the original defintion:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World)

Because it wasn't an economic criteria, you've also got countries like Angola
in the First World by the original defintion.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Because it wasn't an economic criteria, you've also got countries like
> Angola in the First World by the original defintion.

No, you didn't. Angola was never both a country and part of the First World
(Portugal was part of the First World when the term was coined, and Angola was
part of Portugal then; when Angola became independent, the regime was Cuban-
backed and Soviet-allied, and thus it was part of the Second World.)

------
askyourmother
Not unsympathetic to the brasileros affected, but this is not the first time
this happened over there - surely at this point the fragility of centralised
platforms, and becoming reliant on them, is well known by now?

~~~
zorked
It also points to the fragility of Brazilian institutions.

~~~
gtirloni
If the institutions were fragile, the Internet companies would just refuse to
comply and block WhatsApp. The fact that they complied shows how strong the
institutions are.

~~~
HappyTypist
I see telcos choosing to comply with the order instead of fighting back (like
Apple) as a sign of fragility.

~~~
gtirloni
In countries with fragile democracies (or that have recently come out of a
dictatorship, like Brazil since 1985), when people say "institutions are
strong/weak" they are talking about Congress, the Legal system, Law
Enforcement, etc. They are often trying to say that "the law means something"
as opposed to elites/politicians/etc ruling the country as they wish,
according to personal interests.

Telcos and App providers can contribute to make a democracy strong. And so do
all citizens. But they aren't what is referred to by "institutions".

There is no widespread fragility in Brazilian institutions today. Recent
events have shown they are strong as ever. Telcos and App providers have all
their rights within the legal system to appeal the recent decision against
WhatsApp and get their arguments heard. WhatsApp has already appealed to this
judge's decision and this will be heard by an appeals court. This is business
as usual in a legal system that is working.

~~~
zorked
I'm talking about the institutions that defend Brazilians' access to basic
communications infrastructure in the face of any random judge trying to rule
against mathematics.

Check the US for example, Apple was able to fight the government's request and
prevail _before_ the government did anything about it, not after. In Brazil,
Tim Cook would have been arrested right away.

~~~
Cyph0n
If Brazil had an Apple equivalent, the situation would have been handled the
same way. I wonder how many smaller companies in the US had to comply or die?
See Lavabit [1]. I'm sure there are have been many other similar occurrences.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit)

------
venomsnake
Skype back in the day went to great lengths to be unblockable (mostly for
commercial reason, there was a time before smartphones that people actually
payed lots of money for international and domestic calls). It was pre MS.

Why are not the other messengers doing the same?

~~~
FroshKiller
I was never a big Skype user, but my understanding is that Skype relied on
individual users serving as "supernodes" in a peer-to-peer distribution
network for messages and calls. The Skype client's default configuration opted
you into serving as a supernode, and this was a supremely unpopular move.

~~~
venomsnake
It was more than that- there were antidebugger measures. The node list was
encrypted. Protocol obfuscated. Also people in skype network were nodes. The
supernodes were dedicated servers.

------
sickbeard
Keep electing terrible politicians Brazil

~~~
dboshardy
That's assuming there are fair elections in Brazil.

~~~
gnagatomo
Yep we're stuck to voting machines since 1996, so there's no way to know about
that

------
int0x80
You are full of crap. The seventh world economy in the terms you are refering
to is meaningless. By your logic, is Brazil welthier than Switzerland or
Netherlands? NOT even close. GDP is MEANINGLESS if you really want to know how
the average citizen lives in a country. The fact is that in Brazil the
prices/inflation are through the roof, housing and goods are extremly
expensive and their salaries are ridicusly low. Let alone the rampant and
systemic corruption. So no, maybe Brazil as a whole concept is not poor. But
the Brazilians? Yes, most of them are.

EDIT: BTW, this is a forum to discuss. If you think I'm wrong say why, don't
just downvote. And no, saying "crap" in the internet is not a reason to be
wrong.

~~~
soapdog
I didn't downvoted you, actually, I agree with you. GDP is not the best way to
measure or have this type of discussion.

GDP proves to us that the "country is rich", HDI tells us that "this richness
is not distributed" which means that we have an endemic and self-perpetuating
problem with wealth distribution and access to infrastructure, which I believe
you'd agree.

I completely agree with your statement that we have a rampant and systemic
corruption scheme in place here and that makes solving all of this mess an
extremely complex problem.

Being the seventh world economy is not meaningless, it proves that with the
correct measures in place, we have the economic power to move economy/jobs and
wealth forward. If we could pair that with proper access to education and
opportunities then we'd have a really marvelous place.

All the criticisms you made there are true and still, we're in a better place
than 20 or 25 years ago, specially when we're talking about the low-income
classes and impoverished. Lots of advancements there but nowhere close to
solving the problem...

~~~
int0x80
Oh, the EDIT wasn't targeted to you especifically, more of a general thing.

I agree with you, but I found the first comment misleading, thus my heated
response. By meaningless I meant regarding the "feel" that you get as a
citizen, or as a turist, or even as an outsider watching the news, which is
that the country and its people are in trouble (also relative, compared to UE
or US, not to central Africa for example). I completely agree that the country
has a lot of potencial, resources, and great people. It has vast amounts of
petroleum, the Amazonas etc etc. And I also agree that one of the problems is
the distribution of the wealth. And sure, you are improving the situation.

I think a somehow similar "rich" country in a bad situation is Argentina, with
lots of resources and also oil reserves. So is Russia. Bad management,
corruption, education etc are some causes of it. It is indeed a very complex
problem.

------
whatever_dude
Again?

------
ramon
I'm here to defend my rights, put the service back now! Fine WhatsApp or
Facebook or whatever, but don't block the service nation-wide!

------
ultim8k
Who gives a fuck about a bloody judge? Judges, politicians, governments are
all involved in huge scandals. Let's stop respecting them.

------
tn13
I don't know about Brazil but these sort of things happen routinely in third
world countries like India all the time because some judge could not
understand what the new technology is. The decision will be reversed in one or
two days.

