Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption • Hacker News Board

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#91

Post by closeparen » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:13 PM UTC

ricksharp wrote: post #85

Can someone correct me if I am wrong, but it seems relatively easy to make an encrypted peer-to-peer messaging system. I mean, simply use a public/private encryption algorithm that has proven to be highly secure: - Share your public key openly - Anyone can send a message to you using your public key to encrypt the message - You decrypt with your private key on device Do all the encryption/decryption on device and vio…

Who do you trust to distribute the keys? This person is empowered to MITM.

Who do you trust to know the metadata about how encrypted messages are flowing?

Who do you trust to get the crypto implementation details right?

How will you support use of multiple devices? People generally expect seamless switching between phone and laptop these days.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#92

Post by adrianN » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:14 PM UTC

ricksharp wrote: post #85

Can someone correct me if I am wrong, but it seems relatively easy to make an encrypted peer-to-peer messaging system. I mean, simply use a public/private encryption algorithm that has proven to be highly secure: - Share your public key openly - Anyone can send a message to you using your public key to encrypt the message - You decrypt with your private key on device Do all the encryption/decryption on device and vio…

For example you're missing forward secrecy: Do old messages stay secure or not if a key is leaked?

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#93

Post by idlewords » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

akerro wrote: post #89

aluhut wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even "the Internet" was originally a government funded project

and yeah, currently Internet is a spying tool of USA.

It's a spying tool for American corporations far more than it is one for the government.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#94

Post by kasey_junk » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:17 PM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #90

permanentdecaf wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pavel Durov wants everyone to think security is about trust in people. Most companies in that business do the same, because it's easier than building something that doesn't require trust in people. The way Pavel Durov and others like him present "trust" is (ironically) shady corporate structures[1], shell companies, or use of the word "Switzerland." They want people to think like that because they've built businesses…

I read the WP article you cited, titled, "The secret American origins of Telegram, the encrypted messaging app favored by the Islamic State". If Telegram isn't that secure, then why are extremists like IS using it over Signal or WhatsApp? I know Telegram has better features for big groups and much better multi-platform support, so is that the reason? I'm legitimately asking without any snark.

Because they have fallen for the marketing hype and are not secure messaging systems experts? We know some extremists still use SMS which is definitely not secure.

Also, is there evidence that extremists aren't using Signal and WhatsApp?

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#95

Post by tptacek » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:21 PM UTC

custos wrote: post #82

Option 1: Could be Russian/Telegram propaganda. Option 2: Could be true because seriously, who trusts the FBI/NSA not to violate our privacy anymore? Really not sure what to believe about this one.

Option 2 requires you not just to believe that the FBI and NSA would want to compromise Telegram (I have no trouble believing that) but that they'd be comfortable disclosing that to Pavel Durov. I have a very hard time believing that any branch of the US IC is comfortable trusting secrets to Pavel Durov.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#96

Post by openasocket » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:21 PM UTC

sndean wrote: post #88

openasocket wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still gets a large portion of its funding from the USG

And there's lots of Tor posters hung up at USG labs (e.g., https://www.torservers.net/wiki/_media/tor-relay-poster.resi... ). I was pretty surprised, at first

Tor has probably saved more than a few CIA agents' lives, not to mention free access to the Internet being a powerful tool for undermining authoritarian regimes.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#97

Post by sipos » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:23 PM UTC

ricksharp wrote: post #85

Can someone correct me if I am wrong, but it seems relatively easy to make an encrypted peer-to-peer messaging system. I mean, simply use a public/private encryption algorithm that has proven to be highly secure: - Share your public key openly - Anyone can send a message to you using your public key to encrypt the message - You decrypt with your private key on device Do all the encryption/decryption on device and vio…

One thing missing is that most users cannot be trusted not to lose their key and still want a way to recover it.

LastPass, for example, provides ways to do that, for example by using devices they have used recently but, I don't think it is particularly secure.

Spreading the key to multiple devices so that you have a copy of it on another device helps obviously, as does allowing an unencrypted backup of the key, for example on a USB key you store securely.

The other problem is paying for it. To deliver messages quickly to all devices, even when they are offline, the messages obviously have to be stored serverside, which takes up space and bandwidth.

A federated system, where a user is on a particular server and, you deliver messages to that server, which delivers to their devices (possibly when they come back online) makes managing paying for it easier - you can get other people to host it or, people who can can host it themselves. It also removes the single central point of failure.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#98

Post by tptacek » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

ricksharp wrote: post #85

Can someone correct me if I am wrong, but it seems relatively easy to make an encrypted peer-to-peer messaging system. I mean, simply use a public/private encryption algorithm that has proven to be highly secure: - Share your public key openly - Anyone can send a message to you using your public key to encrypt the message - You decrypt with your private key on device Do all the encryption/decryption on device and vio…

Which public key algorithm? In what mode of operation?

What are you going to use to actually encrypt messages? You don't want to directly use the public key primitives to do this.

In what mode of operation are you going to use that second, bulk encryption algorithm?

How are you going to authenticate messages?

What will you do to validate the public keys of your peers? When you close the application, will it forget everyone's keys? How do you prevent MITM on first contact?

What happens when your peers change devices, and thus public keys? How do you authenticate those changes? If you get any of this wrong, remote attackers can MITM messages.

How will you handle file transfers (and images and videos and voice, which will probably need yet another cryptosystem)? How will you cryptographically bind those transactions to the (presumably, somehow) authenticated chat session you set up?

What happens when someone's device is compromised? Is every chat they've ever sent also compromised?

What happens if someone is briefly compromised? Is every message they send in the future also necessarily compromised?

How will you handle updating your software when, inevitably, someone finds a vulnerability in it? What happens if you have to upgrade the whole protocol?

None of this is easy. Most of these problems by themselves are hard in their own right, but there's a combinatorics to them as well.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#99

Post by WillyOnWheels » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:30 PM UTC

BoumTAC wrote: post #13

ghughes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. The CEO of Telegram likes to spread conspiracy theories that are good for business. In a recent tweet he claimed that Signal is "funded by the US government", [1] citing a ridiculous hit piece on OWS and Moxie. [2] [1] https://twitter.com/durov/status/872891017418113024 [2] https://surveillancevalley.com/blog/government-backed-privac...

Even wikipedia say it's founded by the governement ... As of October 2016, the project has received an unknown amount of donations from individual sponsors via the Freedom of the Press Foundation.[100] Open Whisper Systems has received grants from the Knight Foundation,[101] the Shuttleworth Foundation,[102] and the Open Technology Fund,[103] a U.S. government funded program that has also supported other privacy proj…

> Even wikipedia say it's founded by the governement ...

I bet you meant to type "funded".

Most of the funding for the foundation that funds Wikipedia comes from small donations from users.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#100

Post by lambdadmitry » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 5:33 PM UTC

kome wrote: post #61

ghughes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. The CEO of Telegram likes to spread conspiracy theories that are good for business. In a recent tweet he claimed that Signal is "funded by the US government", [1] citing a ridiculous hit piece on OWS and Moxie. [2] [1] https://twitter.com/durov/status/872891017418113024 [2] https://surveillancevalley.com/blog/government-backed-privac...

Good for business but what business? As far i know he is running telegram using his own money, and he has no businesses plan and he doesn't want one. Only the telegram server is closed source (for now), telegram client and protocol are open source.

How about a business of selling troves of data to Russian government, for example? The only thing that makes such "business" seem unlikely is trust in Durov. It can be unfounded given his claims like [1]

> No, because I never took money from the government. I left Russia and lost a $3bn business there because I defended users' privacy from it.

while he is often spotted in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Moreover, Telegram's developers themselves sit next door to Vkontakte's (that was allegedly taken from him), so he's hardly dissident.

I believe no Western media tried to look behind his bravado and this saddens me. I'll be happy to help with local sources if someone is interested, though.

[1]: https://twitter.com/durov/status/872902721401237506