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WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete

whispersystems.org

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Re: WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete

#151

Post by AgentME »

zxexz wrote: post #93
jamesdwilson wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

without the source, it is not verifiable. it could be making a copy and sending it in an encrypted side-channel for example to their overlords.

You can definitely verify the code without the source. It may often be much harder, but it is not un-verifiable. Please stop spreading misinformation like this. With all the wonderful reverse-engingeering tools, dissassemblers, debuggers, etc. available, and the numerous massive communities that use them, it seems pretty out-there that you could seriously think such a thing...

It's much easier to verify the source of a program once, and then verify the future changes to the source code with the aid of a diff. With a binary, a change can result in a very different binary that takes a lot of effort comparable to the original verification all over again.

Re: WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete

#152

Post by ge0rg »

davorb wrote: post #97
mike_hearn wrote: post #14

This is really excellent. A few thoughts: 1) They seem to have replaced TLS/SSL between client and server with "Noise Pipes". Based on a couple of minutes Googling this seems to be a brand new one-man protocol from Trevor Perrin (the same guy who did Axoltl on which Signal is based). At least, I'd never heard of it. I wonder if this is the first inkling of a post-TLS future? http://noiseprotocol.org/noise.html 2) It'…

> What's the next step? Imho one thing that the Signal project suffers from -- and that a lot of open-source projects suffer from -- is poor documentation. They need document their protocol better, to make it easier for third parties to integrate with their system. Signal still lacks a working desktop client (no, the one that you can use if you're running Chrome doesn't count), and I'm sure tons of people would be ea…

+1 for documentation. The XMPP community is trying to get "OMEMO"[0,1] rolled out, which is an XMPP adaptation of Axolotl, but fails due to missing specs[2].

[0] https://conversations.im/omemo/

[1] https://conversations.im/xeps/multi-end.html

[2] http://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/standards/2015-November/030...

Re: WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete

#153

Post by tptacek »

zanny wrote: post #150
tptacek wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you're saying. I don't think source is bad thing! Source is good. But I think you're a little confused here. The cryptographic building blocks of the new WhatsApp protocol are available in source code. You can get source for the Signal Protocol (fka Axolotl). You can get source for the Noise framework. WhatsApp borrowed these tools from a very open secure messaging project. You're unhappy that the s…

> Nobody does this, of course. Every Linux distribution out there compiles everything in their repo by hand. If you use an AUR package of almost everything on Arch, you are building the software by hand locally from source. You can pull build scripts from launchpad, the Suse OBS, or almost every distros package repository (they all have automated build systems for everything, and you can do it all yourself). Oh, and…

I'm not interested in the argument about your freedoms and I don't much care about things that work only for people running Gentoo. That stuff is a game. When security really counts, it's used by people who don't build their software.

That's what happened when Snowden started talking to Greenwald. Unfortunately, because our field is completely incoherent about security, instead of using a secure messenger, they used Cryptocat. Oh, the source code for Cryptocat was easy to get at, by the way! Didn't do much to keep those messages safe.

Re: WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete

#154

Post by tptacek »

aw3c2 wrote: post #131
tptacek wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is killing me that you didn't rename Signal to Axolotl.

Why? "Axolotl" at least has seriously pronunciation issues so I am glad it is not used "user-side".

For my part: because "Axolotl" is one of the most widely name-dropped terms in hipster cryptography, and because it's been adopted by other projects, and because it's distinctive, and because they basically own the term. In a stroke, everyone doing secure key ratchets would have been using their product.

It's also just a cool name.

Re: WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete

#155

Post by pgeorgi »

avn2109 wrote: post #91
stormbrew wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like there could be a lowest-common-denominator set of phonemes that such a system could be built on, with translations into symbol groups for different languages. As long as those symbol groups are relatable by two people who speak the same language, that might be sufficient?

>> "lowest-common-denominator set of phonemes" They already spent a bunch of time and effort finding these phonemes to build Esperanto, right?

Esperanto was designed to be partially understandable by people across Europe by lifting words from various languages liberally.

Lojban is designed to be well-defined on phonemes, but that still only works when knowing its (rather simple) pronunciation rules.

Re: WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete

#156

Post by MrMullen »

moxie wrote: post #140
sidcool wrote: post #127

How does this compare with Telegram?

By default, Telegram stores a plaintext copy of every message you've ever sent or received on their servers. WhatsApp does end to end encryption using the Signal Protocol by default, and doesn't store anything server side.

Don't forget that Telegram uses custom in house encryption and they say "trust us", it's good. Telegram encryption can't be verified.

Re: WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete

#157

Post by narrowrail »

mtgx wrote: post #81
moxie wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They seem to have replaced TLS/SSL between client and server with "Noise Pipes". WhatsApp was already using a custom protocol instead of TLS. We worked with them to transition over to Noise Pipes, which has some advantages over what they were doing before. Also, we've renamed Axolotl to Signal Protocol: https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-inside-and-out/

Moxie, what do you say to this? https://twitter.com/JZdziarski/status/717399098563891200 Is that true? Are the messages decrypted server-side for iOS users?

This post illustrates how silly it is to link to a tweet, and not just paste the text of the message directly. This tweet has been deleted.

And for anyone else that hates visiting these social networks, Moxie's reply was, "I'm sure, but it'd be to everyone's benefit for you to verify."

Re: WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete

#158

Post by levelpublish »

Question for me is still around iCloud backups. Per http://www.popsci.com/whatsapp-now-encrypts-all-messaging-fo...:

> However, WhatsApp on iOS still backs up chat logs to iCloud, and despite any effort by Facebook, those could be given to a law enforcement agency. It's not known whether the backups are encrypted, but we've reached out to Open Whisper Systems and will update with any new information.

Apple stores iMessage backups unencrypted and hands them out when given a lawful request (per https://thehackernews.com/2016/01/apple-icloud-imessages.htm... WhatsApp needs to store encrypted backups to prevent this attack.

Re: WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete

#159

Post by kbwt »

tptacek wrote: post #63
wyager wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need the source, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier.

Only if builds are fully reproducible, which is rarely true. Otherwise, the source can make it harder, by lying to you.

Then demand reproducible builds from software with security claims?

Re: WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete

#160

Post by slasaus »

tptacek wrote: post #143
slasaus wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see that but I think the self authenticating nature of Tor Onion Services and therefore bypassing bgp, dns and CA weaknesses is worth something†. Maybe in the future when prop224†† is implemented the encryption will be more solid. † https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7322-tor_onion_services_more_use... †† https://gitweb.torproject.org/user/asn/torspec.git/tree/prop...

Stipulate that Tor's encryption is modernized and drastically improved. I still don't think it's a good idea to build a messaging application directly on top of that, for some of the same reasons that it isn't a good idea to simply run a messaging application on top of TLS or Nacl. The service model and security requirements for a simple transport are different from those of a messenger. That's what's so exciting abo…

(I've updated the parent about bypassing bgp/dns etc. before I saw your reply)

The nice thing about using the onion address (transport layer) is that you have mandatory e2e authentication with only one id that solves multiple real world problems with bgp/dns/tls.

How would you propose to go further from current state-of-the-art WhatsApp to stop leaking meta-data? I know Ricochet is open to use a stronger encryption layer on top of Tor †.

† https://github.com/ricochet-im/ricochet/issues/72

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