back to article Facebook's Latin America veep set free by appeals court

The Facebook executive briefly jailed in Brazil has been released. Zuck's veep for Latin America, Diego Dzodan, was locked up on March 1 for refusing to hand over WhatsApp user data to a drug investigation. An appeals court has now overturned the order that put Dzodan behind bars. Facebook has told Reuters “Diego's detention …

  1. Ole Juul

    Hostage taking

    Is there something missing in this story or is it really true that the Brazilian authorities actually expected Facebook to break encryption in return for a hostage? That really takes this to a whole new level.

    1. Lysenko

      Re: Hostage taking

      To be fair to Brazil: one judge who was instantly slapped down by the next Court in the chain.

      Given that (some) judges still need explanations of the "popular beat combo" variety, it is at least plausible that His Excellency didn't realise that cryptography has moved on since the days of Julius Caesar and that anyone with a "VP" title is (almost by definition) incapable of doing anything requiring actual technical skills.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Hostage taking

        anyone with a "VP" title is (almost by definition) incapable of doing anything requiring actual technical skills

        FIFY. You could even just end the sentence after "anything".

        Sorry, hangover from again watching The Big Short and realising the muppets involved have returned to their usual modus operandi without *any* change whatsoever. I see Apple/FBI in the same context: it's just reverting to established behaviour without any examination if that is really a good idea.

        Carry on.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hostage taking

      s there something missing in this story or is it really true that the Brazilian authorities actually expected Facebook to break encryption in return for a hostage? That really takes this to a whole new level.

      It was admittedly a bit amateurish for a first try, but why should only the US have access to that data and be able to blackmail its way in the world? The good man was simply trying to level the playing field a bit but it's too full of trenches and craters (to butcher this analogy).

  2. Brian Miller

    "What, you mean that this wasn't written by script kiddies?"

    I do wish that those in power would understand things like math, but that wish would require several tons to pixie dust to implement. Nice that the appeals court freed him after only one day in jail, though.

    1. Pseu Donyme

      Re: "What, you mean that this wasn't written by script kiddies?"

      > ... those in power would understand things like math ...

      The Guardian piece linked to would seem to say that WhatsApp has simply ignored the Brazilian requests: "Investigators first contacted WhatsApp, which was bought by Facebook in 2014, about four months ago but have yet to receive a response". If so, the fault lies with WhatsApp / Facebook not the judge's understanding IT issues. Also, the detained executive seems to have gotten out on a legal technicality: "A judge ruled he was wrongly detained because he was not named personally in the legal proceedings".

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What would happen if the judge said to facebook, "Look we've seen the Snowden files and it appears you pass all user data to the NSA so why can't you give it to us from that"?

    If that is true then it can't be end to end encryption or in the least it's broken by design.

  4. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Facebook actually can comply

    message content from a WhatsApp messaging group, geolocation information, and other data.

    Let's break that down.

    1. Messaging group content - that is not encrypted end-to-end.

    2. Geolocation information - F**book probably has it

    3. Other data - not clear

    The interesting part is that Facebook is choosing deliberately not to comply with this and other requests because it knows that Brazil will not risk ban it. That takes some hubris and IMHO pride goes before the fall. While Brazil state will not risk banning it, it is in the possession of all the means to ensure Facebook earns no money from the country.

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