Brazilian judge orders indefinite block of WhatsApp, affecting millions of users

Facebook should simply leave Brazil and tell them to get stuffed.

This won't end well.

Brazillian judge with little to no understanding of physics or cryptography, orders Facebook executive to jump over the moon, generously allowing a 10m runup.  Orders daily fine of $1 M for each day of non-compliance.

ceek74 said:

This won't end well.

It will probably end when word reaches the Judges ear that professors of mathematics at Brazillian universities have composed an open letter pointing out he's an idiot.

AppleInsider said:

A Brazilian judge on Tuesday ordered the country's five cellular carriers to block access to Facebook's WhatsApp indefinitely, disrupting access to the popular chat/VoIP app for tens of millions of people.

The block is the third leveled against WhatsApp in Brazil, which has refused to hand over conversation data in at least two legal investigations, both of them involving drug trafficking. Today's court action is the most severe however, given the indefinite timeframe. Tech companies have run into mounting conflicts with government officials over encryption. While companies like Apple have argued that encryption is important on moral, profit, and security grounds, people in law enforcement and spy agencies have complained about communications "going dark," and warned that criminals like kidnappers and terrorists can use it to hide their actions.

I think that judge needs to go after local municipalities and regional government authorities for not building the minimum number of sewage treatment plants to keep their population and visiting Olympic swimmers and boaters healthy during the Olympics. Brazil committed to building over a  half dozen such facilities as a requirement for receiving the Olympics seven years ago and they only built one. That's a much greater immediate need to the population of São Paulo than shutting down WhatsApp.