Messenger systems compared by security, privacy, compatibility, and features • Hacker News Board

Re: Messenger systems compared by security, privacy, compatibility, and features

#221

Post by Leace » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 8:12 AM UTC

lvh wrote: post #68

arendtio wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your points are valid but you didn't mention that OMEMO [1] implements Double Ratchet for XMPP. You can find a list of clients which support OMEMO on https://omemo.top [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMEMO

That's a fair point, but the fact that there's yet another protocol, not mentioned on the XMPP E2E wiki, kinda plays into the point itself: XMPP has E2E maybe with a bunch of random protocols and the stars (and the people you talk with) need to align _just right_ for all of it to work. I think it would be fair to say that everyone uses WhatsApp and I know what they get, and at this point only XMPP people use XMPP (ex…

> I think it would be fair to say that everyone uses WhatsApp and I know what they get, and at this point only XMPP people use XMPP (explicitly) and maybe they get some kind of E2E but who knows which one and what properties that has.

That sentence reveals that you only know WhatsApp.

Imagine this argument:

> I think it would be fair to say that everyone uses Google Chrome and I know what they get, [the other people] maybe they get some kind of security but who knows which one and what properties that has.

Re: Messenger systems compared by security, privacy, compatibility, and features

#222

Post by dijit » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 11:14 AM UTC

lucideer wrote: post #207

dijit wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However; compiled versions and binary distributed versions would not suppport E2E chats together if there were any significant difference.

This isn't true. A trivial example of a significant difference in which they would still interoperate would be a binary distributed version which phones home the shared key.

Then it’s still end to end encrypted. It’s just that one side is compromised.

Re: Messenger systems compared by security, privacy, compatibility, and features

#223

Post by lvh » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 1:25 PM UTC

saurik wrote: post #204

lvh wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "this phone number sent a message to this phone number at this time" (information that is even stored, at least temporarily, on their servers in order to implement rate limiting) This claim appears to be unsupported by both Signal's privacy policy and public evidence. Unless I misunderstand, they've claimed to use IP addresses for rate limiting. Messages only necessarily contain the recipient's identifier for delay…

You do realize that their code is open source, right? Here's the line of code that does exactly what I "claim": their message rate limiter implementation uses string keys that are constructed using the source and destination phone numbers . https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/blob/e26e383bd7a6... Frankly, the fact that people like you believe so strongly that Signal doesn't do this should be damning for Signal…

Well, shit: you're right.

I do realize that Signal is open source, yes (and I'm guessing from your phrasing you know I know that), but I don't feel a moral imperative to source dive every time someone says something weird. Putting that burden on the claimant seems pretty reasonable. This set of threads alone was exhausting enough without having links to GitHub with every message :-)

In particular: I interpreted your "stored (at least temporarily)" claim as in like, a logfile that's rotated daily or something. I think we can both agree that would be much worse than a 60 second leaky bucket and hence I interpreted that as more outlandish than what you intended.

But regardless, you're right: that's not how it works today, I read that code an extremely long time ago (when it was really just sender ID limited), and having both sender and receiver in plaintext is clearly worse than having just one, and having a leaky bucket with a timer is clearly a much higher resolution timestamp than the day previously claimed. I'm guessing the distinction is between what's stored and what's not? But I'm definitely uncomfortable and will make a note to follow up. In particular, now I would like to know under what circumstances that Redis cluster will attempt to persist. I think the answer is "never--it only has caches and the directory", but you've definitely shaken my confidence in that answer :)

Re: Messenger systems compared by security, privacy, compatibility, and features

#224

Post by pvg » Wed, Oct 17, 2018, 4:38 PM UTC

lrvick wrote: post #219

tptacek wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you probably understand where I am coming from at this point. When I think about "audits" for secure messengers, I think about professional, specialized, contracted assessments with dedicated teams of experts (I'm a little biased, since that used to be my line of work). And my two objections to this discussion are: 1. I think LVH is right to point out that "audit" doesn't have much meaning in the document you…

I don't know that I made any extrodinary claims. You did ask me if I audited things before and I answered honestly. I frequently report vulnerabilities in a range of open and closed systems and read a lot about those others find. I also don't consider myself an expert and generally distrust people that claim they are in this space because it is, as you say, really hard. I initially started a spreadsheet to document t…

I don't know that I made any extrodinary claims.

You published a spreadsheet listing messaging apps 'ordered by security' in which Signal, Whatsapp and iMessage are shown as way less secure than IRC. It also still says, and you've repeatedly argued here, that things like whether, say, WhatsApp uses E2E encryption is essentially unknowable.

Re: Messenger systems compared by security, privacy, compatibility, and features

#225

Post by smbullet » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 4:27 AM UTC

pvg wrote: post #224

lrvick wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that I made any extrodinary claims. You did ask me if I audited things before and I answered honestly. I frequently report vulnerabilities in a range of open and closed systems and read a lot about those others find. I also don't consider myself an expert and generally distrust people that claim they are in this space because it is, as you say, really hard. I initially started a spreadsheet to document t…

I don't know that I made any extrodinary claims. You published a spreadsheet listing messaging apps 'ordered by security' in which Signal, Whatsapp and iMessage are shown as way less secure than IRC. It also still says, and you've repeatedly argued here, that things like whether, say, WhatsApp uses E2E encryption is essentially unknowable.

The apps listed in the spreadsheet are clearly sorted by number of features supported (with weights). I don't think OP is necessarily claiming IRC is more secure than Signal.

Re: Messenger systems compared by security, privacy, compatibility, and features

#226

Post by pvg » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 4:53 AM UTC

smbullet wrote: post #225

pvg wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that I made any extrodinary claims. You published a spreadsheet listing messaging apps 'ordered by security' in which Signal, Whatsapp and iMessage are shown as way less secure than IRC. It also still says, and you've repeatedly argued here, that things like whether, say, WhatsApp uses E2E encryption is essentially unknowable.

The apps listed in the spreadsheet are clearly sorted by number of features supported (with weights). I don't think OP is necessarily claiming IRC is more secure than Signal.

They are sorted largely by security, according to the author.

"It is currently roughly sorted by security. Usability is subjective and people can work down the list to the most secure tool they feel they can comfortably use."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18233721

Re: Messenger systems compared by security, privacy, compatibility, and features

#227

Post by gaff33 » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 8:32 AM UTC

lrvick wrote: post #109

gaff33 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Use WhatsApp to talk to normal people. Use Signal for nerds. This has been my go-to advice for a while now too! The key driving point is that amazing crypto is 100% useless if the person you're talking to doesn't use it, or uses it incorrectly. The only sticking point with the above advice is the nerds who think they understand crypto but don't and insist on you using some crazy app :/

Consider that security you can't possibly verify is just marketing. Maybe try listening to those nerds and try out some open alternatives with security that is possible to verify. You might be surprised to find both tools are pretty low on the list in respect to security and privacy compared to tools with smaller marketing budgets.

Given the amount of noise that politicians and law enforcement are making about WhatsApp - there's very good circumstantial evidence that their EndToEnd encryption works.

I am a nerd - I went through a phase of trying to get people to use PGP and then XMPP. Both are technical masterpieces but a complete disaster for actual users.

Here's the crux: I'd rather have all my conversations encrypted than just the ones I have with other nerds. In this respect WhatsApp has been the best thing that's happened to messaging since the invention of the internet.

Re: Messenger systems compared by security, privacy, compatibility, and features

#228

Post by smbullet » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 12:53 PM UTC

pvg wrote: post #226

smbullet wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The apps listed in the spreadsheet are clearly sorted by number of features supported (with weights). I don't think OP is necessarily claiming IRC is more secure than Signal.

They are sorted largely by security, according to the author. "It is currently roughly sorted by security. Usability is subjective and people can work down the list to the most secure tool they feel they can comfortably use." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18233721

Oops, I guess I missed that comment. Thanks!

Re: Messenger systems compared by security, privacy, compatibility, and features

#229

Post by mwcampbell » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 2:25 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #189

lrvick wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously I was just attempting to make a simple and easy to reason about example here, but yes of course there are a wide array of more practical approaches and tooling today depending on the type of binary and platform we are talking about. I also fully agree you need to get people that specialize in the gotchas of a given framework to be able to spot the vuln. In fact that kind of bolsters my point, that you need…

Have you used any of these tools? Have you done a binary reversing engagement? Have you found a vulnerability in closed-source software? Can you tell us more about the tools you used to do this work? What kinds of vulnerabilities did you find? You have very strong opinions about what's possible with open- vs. closed- source applications. I think it's reasonable to ask where the frontiers of your experience are. It's…

On the topic of phone sysadmin, I agree it's unreasonable to expect a large proportion of people to sysadmin their phones directly. But what if we advocated for a world where we tech-savvy folk volunteer to be sysadmins for our family and close friends? They would trust our motives more than they can trust the motives of platform and device vendors.

Re: Messenger systems compared by security, privacy, compatibility, and features

#230

Post by lawnchair_larry » Thu, Oct 18, 2018, 3:03 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #210

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal using phone numbers is almost as anti-anonymous as you can possibly get. A phone number leaks nearly everything about you to anyone who has access to the right data sources. Most people would be more anonymous providing a SSN than a phone number in practice.

You just said the same thing LVH did, just with more emphasis. It's tough to reason about on a message board. Signal does some important privacy things better than anyone else does; for instance, Signal cares more about metadata that I think any mainstream messenger does. On the other hand, Signal made a conscious, deliberate choice to ensure that it works for ordinary users. It is not a goal of Signal's to mollify t…

You are way out of touch here. Disclosing a phone number is absolutely not a nerd problem and very much a normal people problem. Particularly women or vulnerable people.

I don’t even need to warn people about it, they already don’t want to share their phone number with strangers. That’s in spite of them not even knowing a fraction of what a dangerous person can do with your phone number.

Journalists and nerds know how to get burner numbers. They have less to worry about. I know people who have been sim-jacked to bypass their 2FA and steal their savings, which they did not get back. I know people who have been stalked using cell tower geolocation. I know (of) people who have hacked LexisNexus accounts and can get your whole life with a phone number. Hell, I know which forums I could spend $20 on to get that info.

Aside from the really dangerous stuff, many people don’t want harassing texts or calls from creepy nerds, so they have reservations about sharing their phone number (and rightly so). The set of people I want to casually message is far larger than the set of people who I want to have my number, and I’m not even particularly worried about these things.