[xyzzy123]

Funny how wanting to keep your personal correspondence private is now being conflated with “above the law”.

The concrete bunker thing is a ridiculous diversion. Why are you even bringing that up?

I understand that privacy is a difficult problem especially when subject to legislation but bunkers have nothing to do with it. You will obviously provide user information to government on request, you and your staff maintain the ability to access user information at all times, and you have some procedures in place to try and make sure none of this is misused.

That’s ok.

[brongondwana]

"We don't place ourselves above the law" - AKA we don't believe we are better placed than a judge to know whether sufficient evidence has been presented to allow law enforcement access to data about a user of our platform.

Unless you're starting from a premise that bad actors don't exist, and the police never do anything of value, there needs to be a facility by which police perform the role we expect of them in a civilised society, which includes following chains of evidence and requesting assistance of third parties they find along the way. The warrant system is a check against abuse of that process, not a repudiation of the idea that police also have a job to do.

[xyzzy123]

Sorry, I edited my comment a lot.

I guess if a judge wants they should be able to watch you poo, pity we don’t have mandatory poo cams yet.

The judge should according to the laws be able to hear what you say to your wife at night.

Just that technology hasn’t caught up with what the law dictates yet.

After all, who are we to say what’s right? That’s for the professionals like the people who passed the AAA bill.

[brongondwana]

It's easy to create hypotheticals.

Who would you suggest should decide, when shown evidence that a spear phishing that stole thousands of dollars came from an email account, whether the provider should be requested to hand over data.

Policing isn't all poo cams.

I'd prefer that a judge tell me whether the police have sufficient evidence for a data request than have to make that call myself.

[wav-part]

> a judge

Thats the problem here. Computers (smartphone/laptop/server/toaster/etc) are/will continue to hold most intimate and private data about a individual. Do you want all that disclosed on one person's word ? I dont. I dont think there can be any check-and-balance that absolutely prevent any person from giving a malicious order. One bad disclose order can be enough to ruin a life. Is that jurisdiction willing to be liable for the compensation (if compensation is even possible) ?

I believe Internet is a country of its own. Its a virtual world, it has no physical manifestation. There is no need to invade Internet to secure physical world.

[brongondwana]

That's a nice theory - but computers exist in the real world. I have a sticker on the back of my laptop from our NYI datacentre which says "there is no cloud, it's just somebody else's computer".

There's also no check and balance the absolutely prevents somebody punching me in the face and ruining my life, but I still walk down busy streets.

If you have a problem with the concept of judges as the arbiter of limits on the powers of law enforcement, I am keen to hear your workable alternative that doesn't have worse downsides.

[wav-part]

You can recover from a punch. You cant undelete your data once it falls on wrong hands and gets used against you (eg debt/purchase history).

As I said there are already enough physical measures (defence, surveillance etc) that can ensure public safety. However If I were to compromise: We can have multiple judges. An order should be vouched by more than one judge. It would be even better if the user can whitelist/blacklist judges to submit. Less bureaucratic liability for the state if data gets leaked/misused.

[brongondwana]

I'm not sure what's more unrealistic, that you can recover from a punch or that it's viable to have per-user judge blacklists...

https://www.smh.com.au/national/teenager-daniel-christie-die...

I guess it's the punch then.

[wav-part]

Ok how does having access to sucker puncher's phone help me here ? I will still die.

[brongondwana]

On the bunker issue, many people seem to expect us to be like some Sealand with armed forces fighting off hostile government ships. No service actually works like that, and the aren't really jurisdictions where you can just tell the police to go jump. You'll get your uplinks disconnected and your payment systems frozen if there's a high enough value target in there. A Sealand-like service makes no sense as a product for regular people because the cost/benefit doesn't match their needs.

[xyzzy123]

I’m genuinely sorry if I have been a bit rude, dismissive and sarcastic in my comments.

My point, I suppose is that there are ways to architect systems such that concrete bunkers are un-necesary and irrelevant.

The simplest such systems do involve trust in you. I suppose to a first order you are trustworthy since you have explained you will hand over user data upon request according to the laws you are subject to. This is a sane business decision.

Finally, a solid stance against at least business surveillance is a great start.