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Brazilian court orders suspension of Elon Musk’s X after it missed deadline (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by merde@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Late on Friday afternoon, Justice Alexandre de Moraes – who has been engaged in a dispute with X’s owner, Elon Musk, since April – ordered the “immediate, complete and total suspension of X’s operations” in the country, “until all court orders … are complied with, fines are duly paid, and a new legal representative for the company is appointed in the country”.

He gave Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency 24 hours to enforce the decision. Once notified, the agency must pass the order on to the more than 20,000 broadband internet providers in the country, each of which must block X.

In an interview with the TV channel Globonews, the agency’s president, Carlos Manuel Baigorri, said the order had already been passed on to internet providers.

“Since we’re talking about more than 20,000 companies, each will have its own implementation time, but … we expect that probably over the weekend all companies will be able to implement the block,” he said.

Justice Moraes also summoned Apple and Google to “implement technological barriers to prevent the use of the X app by users of the iOS and Android systems” and to block the use of virtual private network (VPN) applications.

The decision imposes a daily fine of R$50,000 (£6,800) on individuals and companies that attempt to continue using X via VPN.

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[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 92 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

sounds feasible except the "blocking the use of vpn apps" part?

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 46 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, that line was particularly concerning. I'm all for watching Elon get a Brazilian beatdown, but that feels like a pretty large overstep.

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 78 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Justice Moraes had also said that any person in Brazil who tried to still use X via common privacy software called a virtual private network, or VPN, could be fined nearly $9,000 a day. But after swift backlash across Brazil, including from academics who have supported him, he reversed that move in an amended order late Friday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/world/americas/brazil-elon-musk-x-blocked.html

[–] ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 36 points 2 weeks ago

Good to see someone listening to people more knowledgeable than them.

[–] el_hache@lemmy.world 24 points 2 weeks ago

He went back on that part (in Portuguese):

https://www.cartacapital.com.br/tecnologia/moraes-mantem-suspensao-do-x-mas-recua-da-ordem-de-bloquear-download-de-vpn/

[–] EleventhHour@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

At best that’s just unclear. Blocking VPNs isn’t impossible, just impractical. And it’s not like Brazil just became China. At worst, the just made accessing X impracticality expensive for its users— which, in Brazil, is a lot of people. In typical Brazilian fashion, they’re hitting Elon in the wallet.

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

The main goal is to get the convicted offenders to not make posts anymore, and if they do the law will be able to find and punish them after the fact.

I'm talking about the accounts that the courts asked X to suspend but X denied.

[–] new_guy@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, this left a bad taste.

At least he revoked this section of the decision a couple hours later.

[+] suction@lemmy.world -8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Why? VPN is not a magic bullet. Wait, did you believe their marketing??

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

can you elaborate?

as it is, your comment is not comprehensible. Why what? Whose marketing? Marketing for VPN? "Magic bullet" for what purpose?

[–] suction@lemmy.world -3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

VPNs can be blocked by governments or worse, the data can be decrypted giving you a false sense of security. In any case if the governments wants to it can easily see if you connect to a VPN and give you trouble just for that. Same goes for TOR.

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

TOR, you write. How are they going to block TOR?

when a government blocks one vpn server, another sprouts in its place. Not like some governments aren't trying. Yes, they "give trouble" to some people in some places for VPN or TOR use but that may be preferable to those people, compared to what they may have to go through if their connection wasn't encrypted.

here the question was about blocking VPNetworks to prevent Xitter use and that sounded implausible (the judge also understood this afterwards).

VPNs can be blocked by governments or worse, the data can be decrypted giving you a false sense of security.

How would they decrypt this data without having access to the VPN server itself (or probably your device)?

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

The handful of people so addicted and desperate for xitter that they turn to TOR to get their daily dose of poison can probably just be ignored.

[–] suction@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Never said they can block TOR. They run TOR entry nodes as honeypots. They run “cool looking” VPN servers as honeypots. They definitely have backdoors for many encrypted services. Dude, this isn’t 2005 anymore.

And don’t forget, authorities can and will use just metadata (what you connected to when) to prosecute you without ever caring what you actually transmitted.

But go ahead and call me clueless, I am not trying to educate here. Just annoyed that people trust these technologies so much without really understanding how they get caught.

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Never said they can block TOR

that's what my first comment you replied to was . I wrote that blocking VPN (or TOR) wasn't feasible

VPNs can be blocked by governments or worse, the data can be decrypted giving you a false sense of security. In any case if the governments wants to it can easily see if you connect to a VPN and give you trouble just for that. Same goes for TOR.

👆

They run “cool looking” VPN servers as honeypots. They definitely have backdoors for many encrypted services. Dude, this isn’t 2005 anymore.

some authorities try to use metadata for prosecution, yes, but it doesn't suffice. They have to correlate undeniably that metadata and whatever information they may have collected from other nonencrypted platforms.

one entry node on TOR that collects the crumbles that passes through this node… good luck to anybody trying to make sense of that mess.

But go ahead and call me clueless, I am not trying to educate here. Just annoyed that people trust these technologies so much without really understanding how they get caught.

I've been following these cases for years now, you write "i'm not trying to educate", but it seems like you're trying to inform the clueless among us about the dangers of using VPN or TOR. With a claim like that, it would be nice to have some reliable sources linked in your comments

[–] suction@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Maybe you should provide sources for your hilarious stance that VPNs and TOR provide absolute protection for anyone in any situation. I guess the l33t hax0rz influencers you follow on TikTok told you to think that so now you want to defend VPNs and TOR against all critical thought wherever you can, and that’s cute as fuck, but those people are only trying to sell their VPN to you. Don’t be so naive, or are you 12?

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

i knew your reply would be of this kind

hide your ignorance and insufficiency using aggression, good strategy 👍