Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

whispersystems.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 225 posts

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

#141

Post by lawnchair_larry »

cm3 wrote: post #106
tptacek wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? Oracle? Maybe this cultural reference will be clearer: https://frinkiac.com/gif/S07E18/362795/366966/IExvb2sgb3V0IE... This is FUD.

This cultural reference I get even less than the first one, but I'll just ignore the references. I'm not sure if you're missing the context. This branch of the thread forked off me asking the same thing as another poster, namely the likelihood of being bothered by IP or Copyright claims for a real, proper clean room implementation of the protocol, zero code copied, assuming there is sufficient documentation available…

Explanation for the wife beating comment: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/212706/on-using-phra...

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

#142

Post by uola »

tptacek wrote: post #137
dcposch wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nadim had a legitimate and reasonable question. For those who don't know, here was Thomas Ptacek recently joking about Nadim's penis: https://mobile.twitter.com/tqbf/status/705825790529662976 Here he is telling Nadim "go fuck yourself, forever": https://mobile.twitter.com/tqbf/status/705900243313758208 This is unprofessional. That kind of bullying is especially unacceptable coming from someone who has a lot of money…

You know what? It's not part of my argument that I'm above all the vitriol and venom in amateur secure messaging. You're doing a fine job of positioning yourself right in the middle of it as well. As long as the typical HN reader leaves this thread understanding how much bullshit drama is attached to this field, I don't really care one way or the other what their opinion of me is. The knives are out for Signal. It's…

"Signal is probably the only one that has a chance of relevance 5 years from now"

Which is exactly why I, even though I don't care much for drama (infosec drama especially), find myself "complaining" about Signal from time to time. Because we are going to have to live with it. If I could go back and "complain" about PGP, before that became the preferred "just use" argument, I would.

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

#144

Post by lawnchair_larry »

tptacek wrote: post #137
dcposch wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nadim had a legitimate and reasonable question. For those who don't know, here was Thomas Ptacek recently joking about Nadim's penis: https://mobile.twitter.com/tqbf/status/705825790529662976 Here he is telling Nadim "go fuck yourself, forever": https://mobile.twitter.com/tqbf/status/705900243313758208 This is unprofessional. That kind of bullying is especially unacceptable coming from someone who has a lot of money…

You know what? It's not part of my argument that I'm above all the vitriol and venom in amateur secure messaging. You're doing a fine job of positioning yourself right in the middle of it as well. As long as the typical HN reader leaves this thread understanding how much bullshit drama is attached to this field, I don't really care one way or the other what their opinion of me is. The knives are out for Signal. It's…

I think perhaps the worst thing you've done here is deprive the viewers at home of their closure to the question of whether or not kaepora knows what his ultimate transgression was, or if he is feigning ignorance to elicit sympathy from the audience.

What did he do? Does he know what he did? Do we ever get to find out? The people want answers.

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

#145

Post by strcat »

moxie wrote: post #135
chrisballinger wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been pretty quiet about this, but over the last couple of months I have been trying to negotiate with Moxie a way to distribute the GPL licensed AxolotlKit on the iOS App Store in ChatSecure (which is open source). After being denied a license, I was told by Moxie that I would be unable to write a non-GPL AxolotlV3 implementation because there is not publicly available documentation, and that any re-implementati…

Hey Chris, as you know, we have no problem with you distributing our GPL software through the app store. Most of your communication has centered around asking us to change the license on our source base to something other than the GPL. We like the GPL for the quality control that it provides. If someone publicly says that they're using our software, we want to see if they've made any changes, and whether they're usin…

The FSF and SFLC take the position that the GPL is incompatible with the iOS App Store restrictions, since it forbids adding additional restrictions. However, GPL3 has official support for "additional permissions" and it's still FSF / OSI approved with those added. It permits dropping the additional permissions and using the software as pure GPL3. So that seems like the best approach, but Apple's restrictions are probably a moving target and it would erode the copyleft aspect of the license.

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

#146

Post by nkobeissi »

moxie wrote: post #135
chrisballinger wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been pretty quiet about this, but over the last couple of months I have been trying to negotiate with Moxie a way to distribute the GPL licensed AxolotlKit on the iOS App Store in ChatSecure (which is open source). After being denied a license, I was told by Moxie that I would be unable to write a non-GPL AxolotlV3 implementation because there is not publicly available documentation, and that any re-implementati…

Hey Chris, as you know, we have no problem with you distributing our GPL software through the app store. Most of your communication has centered around asking us to change the license on our source base to something other than the GPL. We like the GPL for the quality control that it provides. If someone publicly says that they're using our software, we want to see if they've made any changes, and whether they're usin…

That's somewhat helpful but doesn't fully address Chris's story. Would Chris be able to write his own implementation, interoperable with AxolotlKit (the iOS Signal Protocol implementation), from scratch, without any explicit code reuse, and then publish it under whatever license he chooses?

If the answer is yes, I strongly encourage you to publish an official statement from OWS stating so. I know for a fact that FOSS projects are losing their funding because of the impression that even if they write their interoperable implementation from scratch there would still be licensing questions.

You've clarified this somewhat on Twitter before, but if you can publish a short statement on behalf of OWS, that would go a long way into clearing up the issue for a lot of free software developers. Thanks.

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

#147

Post by superuser2 »

kevincox wrote: post #123
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.

Why does it change? In my experience most people keep their first cell phone number for their entire lives. Area codes are indicative of nothing, except where you lived in 2005 [1].

[1] https://xkcd.com/1129/

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

#148

Post by dave2000 »

newjersey wrote: post #78
dave2000 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why would you have to use Chrome? You just need Chrome as a platform to launch your chrome app... I don't get it

Why would I want to use a browser to do non broswery things? It's bad enough that we have to use browsers in the first place. Wouldn't we be better starting from scratch and developing a secure, standards-friendly way of deploying text, images and video rather than taking something which was designed to display just text and try and make it useful?

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

#149

Post by tuyguntn »

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.

Having exactly same feelings towards moxie. He wrote a lot about Telegram and how they are not using encryption by default and security is optional, now he is accepting Allo, which is not going to use encryption by default, otherwise it cannot answer to questions like this[1]

[1] - https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/1ai7j4RhAwXDz33dFcS5xcxk1I...

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

#150

Post by noja »

mike_hearn wrote: post #41
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.

WhatsApp makes a lot of sacrifices to have encryption by default, like no backup of messages, no real ability for the servers to do anything smart, no real search functionality, desktop client that requires the phone to be on, etc. An incognito mode allows the default mode to have more functionality, and matches their approach with Chrome. It's not a bad tradeoff.

> WhatsApp makes a lot of sacrifices to have encryption by default, like no backup of messages

Huh? I have backup of messages.

> no real search functionality

I can search on my phone.

> desktop client that requires the phone to be on, etc.

I want this: the messages should live on my phone.

Post reply on HN