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Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end Encryption for Allo

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Re: Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end Encryption for Allo

#121

Post by Arathorn »

ryukafalz wrote: post #110
ThatGeoGuy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And interesting enough, Matrix faces a different problem than Signal: It doesn't have many good clients at all (at least, last I had checked a few months back). I will agree it would be very nice if Matrix was the dominant messaging protocol that everyone needed to speak with their friends. However, that's not feasible until somebody makes an easy-to-use, beautiful Android and iOS client that doesn't require the user…

Vector is now out on both Android[1] and iOS[2], and the web version of Vector has improved significantly. It doesn't have end to end encryption support yet, but they're working on it. 1: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.vector.alph... 2: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vector.im/id1083446067

Yup, it's very true that until recently native Matrix clients have been geared up for developers. Hopefully the arrival of FOSS yet polished apps like Vector (https://vector.im) changes that - and meanwhile one can always benefit from Matrix via bridges from existing polished apps (e.g. Slack!)

Re: Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end Encryption for Allo

#122

Post by baby »

robert_foss wrote: post #28

To me it seems like Open Whisper Systems are accepting a lot of concessions in order to have Signal included into products. The trust I once had for moxie is quickly dissipating. * Privacy is only provided in Allo in a secondary mode. Not by default. * Federation of the Signal protocol has been rejected for non-technical reasons. Also, on a personal note, the desktop client requiring chrome is pretty awful.

> the desktop client requiring chrome is pretty awful

That's rubbish. They are a small company with not enough person-time to develop native versions for all OS. Would you prefer only to have a windows version available? Developing with Chrome/NW.js/Electron allows you to have an app that runs on 3 OS's from the start. I think it's pretty awesome.

Plus you only need chrome installed, it doesn't have to run if I understand correctly. Who doesn't have Chrome installed? Or why would you not install it?

Re: Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end Encryption for Allo

#123

Post by kevincox »

superkuh wrote: post #57

Does this require a phone number like the rest of Open Whisper Systems products?

Ugh, I hate this phone number as identify business. My pone number changes every time I move and I have to keep paying to have it. I see the benefit to a number that I can easily share but I don't like tying it to the telephone system.

I'll keep using something like hangouts that allows me to keep my contacts when I move as well as a number of other benefits.

Re: Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end Encryption for Allo

#124

Post by nandhp »

StavrosK wrote: post #80
robert_foss wrote: post #28

To me it seems like Open Whisper Systems are accepting a lot of concessions in order to have Signal included into products. The trust I once had for moxie is quickly dissipating. * Privacy is only provided in Allo in a secondary mode. Not by default. * Federation of the Signal protocol has been rejected for non-technical reasons. Also, on a personal note, the desktop client requiring chrome is pretty awful.

I lament the fact that we're moving more and more to closed chat protocols. Shortly, nothing will work with Pidgin/Adium any more, and it's a shame because it's by far the best way to chat.

Moving to closed protocols isn't the whole problem. Everyone used to use AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, which were all* closed protocols. And yet, the developers of gAIM (now Pidgin) and Trillian both developed clients that interoperated with all of these services and others.

Sure, we had five years when everyone was on XMPP. But given that rich history of protocol investigation, what's surprising to me is that progress on support for closed protocols is so much slower now than it was ten, fifteen years ago. Support for Skype, Facebook, Slack, Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram -- is poor or limited, and some of these are even open protocols. (Plus, there's still SMS to support, both natively on phones and via services like Pushbullet on the desktop.)

Is there simply no call for unified messaging anymore? Do people enjoy having to use four different messaging apps now? Are the protocols so much harder to figure out? Or are there simply not enough volunteers?

* AOL had two protocols: TOC was mostly open, but the closed OSCAR protocol offered many more features.

Re: Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end Encryption for Allo

#125

Post by nxzero »

bad_user wrote: post #22
p0ppe wrote: post #18

Why didn't Google just develop this in house? It almost feels like they're admitting to having no credibility on privacy without an external partner.

That's nonsense. In-house proprietary encryption is not peer reviewed and untrustworthy by definition and if you're going to work in the open, especially for a new proprietary chat app, it makes better sense to build on an open platform that's already proven and is handled by people that really know their stuff. More secure and probably cheaper as well.

Being open source or closed source doesn't make code more secure. What make code more secure is making it more secure. Have you audited the code?

Re: Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end Encryption for Allo

#126

Post by colemickens »

dave2000 wrote: post #40
dmix wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> on a personal note, the desktop client requiring chrome is pretty awful. Why? I haven't had any issues with it. I even have a shortcut on linux for dmenu, typing "signal" opens the chrome extension URL, opening the app in a new popup window (not a full browser, just the app in a chromeless window). So it functions just like a normal app to me. This is the `signal` bash script: #!/usr/bin/dash /opt/google/chrome-uns…

I don't use chrome for a number of reasons, the main one being I can't imagine using a browser which doesn't support the blocking of ads, and on Android there are no plugins at all, and given that I use firefox on multiple desktops, all syncing passwords, tabs etc, I'm not about to make an exception for this or that chrome-only feature. I have no idea why chrome doesn't support plugins on Android; they said they'd do…

>the main one being I can't imagine using a browser which doesn't support the blocking of ads

This hasn't been true for... ~6 years? And even then, it could block them, it just couldn't block their network download until... like 6 years ago or longer.

>I have no idea why chrome doesn't support plugins on Android; they said they'd do it years ago.

Chrome is removing all support for all plugins [see the deprecation policy they're about to introduce for Flash], but I suspect you're talking about extensions. I suspect they're coming very, very soon. They've been changing the desktop extension UI slightly and slowly and I suspect it's about enabling extensions on other form factors.

Not to mention this discussion is about using an app written for Chrome, not about somehow being forced to use Chrome for day-to-day browsing. I could (and do) use Chrome apps at times without actually using Chrome. I flip flop between Chrome and Firefox for months sometimes.

Re: Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end Encryption for Allo

#127

Post by supergreg »

baby wrote: post #122
robert_foss wrote: post #28

To me it seems like Open Whisper Systems are accepting a lot of concessions in order to have Signal included into products. The trust I once had for moxie is quickly dissipating. * Privacy is only provided in Allo in a secondary mode. Not by default. * Federation of the Signal protocol has been rejected for non-technical reasons. Also, on a personal note, the desktop client requiring chrome is pretty awful.

> the desktop client requiring chrome is pretty awful That's rubbish. They are a small company with not enough person-time to develop native versions for all OS. Would you prefer only to have a windows version available? Developing with Chrome/NW.js/Electron allows you to have an app that runs on 3 OS's from the start. I think it's pretty awesome. Plus you only need chrome installed, it doesn't have to run if I under…

I've used NW and electron based applications and don't have chrome installed. Why is Chrome needed at all for those to work?

Re: Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end Encryption for Allo

#128

Post by cyphar »

chinathrow wrote: post #10

That is awesome - now we also need to kill metadata collection. Is this feasible? Oh and off-the-record was there on Hangouts/Gtalk before - I used it but the chats were replicated across clients (e.g. Pidgin vs gmail.com) - so not really off-the-record (i.e. they lied).

"Off The Record" is a technical term to describe a cryptographic scheme for allowing deniable authentication (meaning that only the two parties involved in a communication can be sure the other sent a message - they cannot prove to anyone else that the other person sent them a particular message). The Signal protocol is based off a similar system (Axolotl) which provides similar guarantees.

It has nothing to do with "off the record" check boxes in some UI.

Re: Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end Encryption for Allo

#129

Post by comex »

tptacek wrote: post #103
jsnell wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly why I wrote "anything in the code itself". Yes, they made a mass commit adding that attribution to every file 9 days ago to conclude a messy lawsuit. That doesn't make the two codebases themselves appear any more related in isolation. If there's GPL violation and code was copied, there should be some traces of that. Is it truly so unreasonable to ask what those traces were?

"To conclude a messy lawsuit"? They're the ones who filed the lawsuit!

I hadn't heard about this case before, and so I don't know the details, but just from your own description, filing a preemptive lawsuit in response to an explicit copyright demand doesn't sound unreasonable - the advantages of doing so over waiting to be sued include venue selection and, perhaps more importantly, forcing the claimant to make their case, rather than letting it turn into a frozen conflict (with the possibility of them filing DMCA notices against app stores at any time). That doesn't imply they actually wanted to go to court.

Though I did just Google it, and throwing an extortion claim on top sounds... well, like a big mess.

Re: Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end Encryption for Allo

#130

Post by tptacek »

comex wrote: post #129
tptacek wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"To conclude a messy lawsuit"? They're the ones who filed the lawsuit!

I hadn't heard about this case before, and so I don't know the details, but just from your own description, filing a preemptive lawsuit in response to an explicit copyright demand doesn't sound unreasonable - the advantages of doing so over waiting to be sued include venue selection and, perhaps more importantly, forcing the claimant to make their case, rather than letting it turn into a frozen conflict (with the pos…

They didn't need to do anything to "resolve their messy lawsuit" other than to withdraw the lawsuit.
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