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Wire open-sourced

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Re: Wire open-sourced

#61

Post by ZenoArrow »

niftich wrote: post #35
grizzles wrote: post #25

A bold move by Wire. Open source is still a very disruptive play, and the world needs something like this. If they manage this well and triple down on developer engagement, it could work out quite nicely for them. EDIT: Thread title is slightly misleading. It looks like they did a Telegram. There is no server here.

Correct, there's no server. I will avoid blockquoting large amounts of text but on their open source summary page [1], they give you two options: 1. you point your implementation to their server and you have to abide by their additional terms (which is exactly what I'd expect) - or - 2. you point your implementation to somewhere else, unspecified, and you're only bound by GPLv3 Right now, #2 is moot because there is…

Does the Wire licence agreement allow you to create a standalone server though?

https://github.com/wireapp/wire/blob/master/README.md

"Additionally, if you choose to build an Open Source App, certain restrictions apply, as follows:

a. You agree not to change the way the Open Source App connects and interacts with our servers"

Even if the company behind Wire seems trustworthy, if I cared about security I wouldn't want any interaction between clients to go through a server I didn't have control over.

Re: Wire open-sourced

#62

Post by walterbell »

gfosco wrote: post #2

A link to a GitHub organization isn't great.. I'd say this is better: https://medium.com/@wireapp/you-can-now-build-your-own-wire-... but even that doesn't clearly explain what Wire is. Visit https://wire.com to find out it's an encrypted video and group chat app.

From http://fortune.com/2016/07/22/wire-open-source/:

... the move has two main objectives: transparency and building an ecosystem of secure services that can talk to one another ... there is scope for organizations to design Wire-based apps that are tailored to different use cases, such as enterprise communications and digital health, and even automotive and the Internet of things ... "You can register with email and it doesn’t require mobile.” He also pointed out that the apps don’t need to be interoperable, though federation at some point would be nice. “It’s a shame we have so many islands in the communications space,” he added.

HN comments from Wire marketing: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Siimteller

Re: Wire open-sourced

#63

Post by niftich »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #61
niftich wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, there's no server. I will avoid blockquoting large amounts of text but on their open source summary page [1], they give you two options: 1. you point your implementation to their server and you have to abide by their additional terms (which is exactly what I'd expect) - or - 2. you point your implementation to somewhere else, unspecified, and you're only bound by GPLv3 Right now, #2 is moot because there is…

Does the Wire licence agreement allow you to create a standalone server though? https://github.com/wireapp/wire/blob/master/README.md "Additionally, if you choose to build an Open Source App, certain restrictions apply, as follows: a. You agree not to change the way the Open Source App connects and interacts with our servers" Even if the company behind Wire seems trustworthy, if I cared about security I wouldn't want…

If you read it in context, they say:

"If you compile the open source software that we make available from time to time to develop your own mobile, desktop or web application, and cause that application to connect to our servers for any purposes, we refer to that resulting application as an 'Open Source App'."

Then, they say the part you quoted, so the gist is that if you elect to use their servers, you have to use them the out-of-the-box way.

But you're not required to use their servers, if you can somehow procure a compatible one. They're not helping you with that, though.

Re: Wire open-sourced

#64

Post by Siimteller »

unicornporn wrote: post #39
deltaprotocol wrote: post #27

I must say that my first impression is beyond positive. One to one and group chats, group video and audio calls, GIF search built-in, doodles, the best implementation of photos in the message stream that I've seen, poking and playable Spotify and Soundcloud music by just sharing links? All with end-to-end encryption? I have that "too good to be true" feeling but, still impressed. Just waiting for possible audits and…

I've been using it with friends and family for awhile on Android and macOS and it's fantastic, in theory. It has however been plagued with lots of bugs. The calling functionality, which I've used a lot, often stalls at "joining" and then nothing happens. It's not as polished or flawless as Telegram. It does not have a feature to compress video before sending for instance. But I can only expect that to change. Especia…

Compress video before sending is there on mobile (at least on iOS, I need to double check Android, don't have that handy right now).

Re: Wire open-sourced

#65

Post by [deleted] »

unicornporn wrote: post #39
deltaprotocol wrote: post #27

I must say that my first impression is beyond positive. One to one and group chats, group video and audio calls, GIF search built-in, doodles, the best implementation of photos in the message stream that I've seen, poking and playable Spotify and Soundcloud music by just sharing links? All with end-to-end encryption? I have that "too good to be true" feeling but, still impressed. Just waiting for possible audits and…

I've been using it with friends and family for awhile on Android and macOS and it's fantastic, in theory. It has however been plagued with lots of bugs. The calling functionality, which I've used a lot, often stalls at "joining" and then nothing happens. It's not as polished or flawless as Telegram. It does not have a feature to compress video before sending for instance. But I can only expect that to change. Especia…

[deleted]

Re: Wire open-sourced

#66

Post by Siimteller »

abcd_f wrote: post #31
deltaprotocol wrote: post #27

I must say that my first impression is beyond positive. One to one and group chats, group video and audio calls, GIF search built-in, doodles, the best implementation of photos in the message stream that I've seen, poking and playable Spotify and Soundcloud music by just sharing links? All with end-to-end encryption? I have that "too good to be true" feeling but, still impressed. Just waiting for possible audits and…

Looking them up on zefix.ch shows that they appear to be only registered in Switzerland, with Luxembourg ownership and non-Swiss management. Alan, their CTO and (co-?)founder is Swedish.

We have a small office in Zug, main dev center in Berlin and a few people here and there around the globe.

Alan is originally from Croatia.

Re: Wire open-sourced

#67

Post by Siimteller »

jalami wrote: post #18

Side note, but it's kind of strange that images on their site require cookies enabled to view. I didn't dig into a reason, I just white-list the sites I want to use cookies and found it odd that there were big white spaces before doing so.

Weird, we'll check it out. Thanks for pointing it out.

Re: Wire open-sourced

#68

Post by lazerwalker »

mahyarm wrote: post #5

Now all this needs is a few good third party audits, verifiable builds and it's the holy grail of encrypted communications!

Unfortunately, they explicitly say that the App Store version of the app contains proprietary code.

Re: Wire open-sourced

#70

Post by moxie »

niftich wrote: post #19
stemuk wrote: post #7

I wonder how they encrypted their chat on the web client. Scince the Signal protocol is kind of the gold standard right now, probably their solution might in the end be the better one.

They use a Rust library [1] they wrote for the Axolotl protocol, which is the old name for the Signal protocol before it was renamed [2]. They refer to their implementation as 'Proteus'. [1] https://github.com/wireapp/proteus [2] https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-inside-and-out/ EDIT: Their webapp is written in Coffeescript, including their cryptography functions used in said webapp [3]. [3] https://github.com/w…

Wire does not use Signal Protocol. They used some of our code, but created a protocol of their own devising that we do not recommend.

We renamed the Axolotl ratchet and Axolotl protocol because there was a lot of confusion around what it meant to say "Axolotl." Some people who continue to use the term "Axolotl" do so because they seek to benefit from that confusion.

It is great that Wire has finally open sourced their software. They have been advertising themselves as open source for the past two years, though, so I guess they weren't really able to make an announcement about this.

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