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21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

bugzilla.mozilla.org

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Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#81

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

capableweb wrote: post #41

> For reasons associated with U.S. export restrictions, no cryptographic security of any kind is likely to be included in the original sources https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22687#c1 Creepiest thing with seeing this ticket (again?) is noticing that the first comment is about that is used to be illegal to write anything with cryptographic security in the US and sell/give it to the outside world. https://…

Wow, now I feel dated, I remember tons of discussion around this at the time and I remember that T-shirt from the Wikipedia article very well.

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#82

Post by AlexCoventry »

rendx wrote: post #56
skyfaller wrote: post #50

I used to love PGP, but I now think encrypted email is a bad idea. https://latacora.micro.blog/2020/02/19/stop-using-encrypted.... Better to use a protocol designed with encryption in mind, like Signal, to get forward secrecy, avoid leaking metadata, and have encryption always on by default. UPDATE: I have been reminded that PGP does not have to be used with email. I meant to say that I used to love using PGP with em…

That is the single most common misconception around PGP, and it comes up every time: (Open)PGP is first and foremost a flexible packet format (and other specs), and GnuPG is more of a CLI "library" to interface with it -- all of it. You can build something that hides metadata, you can have forward secrecy, and encryption always-on by default with PGP (and GnuPG). You can use it for whatever trust model you want, neit…

> Moxie even openly argues against standards [x] and still calls himself an "anarchist".

On the face of it, that sounds like exactly the position an anarchist would take...

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#83

Post by rendx »

Quekid5 wrote: post #76
rendx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the single most common misconception around PGP, and it comes up every time: (Open)PGP is first and foremost a flexible packet format (and other specs), and GnuPG is more of a CLI "library" to interface with it -- all of it. You can build something that hides metadata, you can have forward secrecy, and encryption always-on by default with PGP (and GnuPG). You can use it for whatever trust model you want, neit…

> GnuPG is more of a CLI "library" to interface with it It abjectly fails at that. It's just awful to interface with.

Agreed. It has been long overdue that alternative OpenPGP implementations exist that try to address some of the peculiarities of GnuPG -- most of which are [still] there because its founder wants to preserve compatibility at all costs to support some of its long-term institutional users. And, yes, dealing with these peculiarities should not the responsibility of end users, but of further abstraction layers built on top of it (of which there are only a few, and all of them focused on the email use case).

The constant confusion between OpenPGP (the standard) and GnuPG (one implementation) has led many users to look elsewhere, which is unfortunate, but has also led many developers to look elsewhere, which is just sad.

Yes, trying to work within the existing standardization bodies can be very painful and disheartening, but the few people who try and survive in that space can use every good soul willing to assist.

The OpenPGP community has done hundred times more than Signal for the state of security on the Internet, and I'm sure it will continue to do so. Signal is great, and pushed the limits quite far (and still does), and I'm very grateful that it exists and use it every day.

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#84

Post by zajio1am »

skyfaller wrote: post #55
mapgrep wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is great as an all in one solution if encrypted messaging is a hobby. It is also very good for mobile and encrypted occasional messages. If you try to actually build a secure environment within a group that tries to maximize security while getting real work done you find you want to be encrypted by default at least with each other. Signal is pretty suboptimal for heavy volumes of messages. If you and I have th…

So you're saying that if you're building a professional secure environment, you don't need forward secrecy and it's ok to leak metadata? This doesn't make sense to me. The US gov't kills people based on metadata: https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/why-metadata-matters It's not possible to make email secure, the flaws are on the protocol level. To fix it, you would need to change it until it is no longer email.

> and it's ok to leak metadata?

How could Signal (or other client-server protocol) not leak metadata? It is true that OpenPGP leaks more metadata than necessary (e.g. Subject), but seems to me that any efficient message protocol needs to leak at least three most important metadata - source, destination, time.

One could avoid leaking destination by broadcasting encrypted to many receivers (when only the true one can decrypt it) and therefore server does not need to know true destinations, but that is rather inefficient.

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#85

Post by pvg »

rendx wrote: post #56
skyfaller wrote: post #50

I used to love PGP, but I now think encrypted email is a bad idea. https://latacora.micro.blog/2020/02/19/stop-using-encrypted.... Better to use a protocol designed with encryption in mind, like Signal, to get forward secrecy, avoid leaking metadata, and have encryption always on by default. UPDATE: I have been reminded that PGP does not have to be used with email. I meant to say that I used to love using PGP with em…

That is the single most common misconception around PGP, and it comes up every time: (Open)PGP is first and foremost a flexible packet format (and other specs), and GnuPG is more of a CLI "library" to interface with it -- all of it. You can build something that hides metadata, you can have forward secrecy, and encryption always-on by default with PGP (and GnuPG). You can use it for whatever trust model you want, neit…

(Open)PGP is first and foremost a flexible packet format

That makes an even better case that PGP is not much of a modern secure system generally, rather than it just being bad for secure email.

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#86

Post by rendx »

pvg wrote: post #85
rendx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the single most common misconception around PGP, and it comes up every time: (Open)PGP is first and foremost a flexible packet format (and other specs), and GnuPG is more of a CLI "library" to interface with it -- all of it. You can build something that hides metadata, you can have forward secrecy, and encryption always-on by default with PGP (and GnuPG). You can use it for whatever trust model you want, neit…

(Open)PGP is first and foremost a flexible packet format That makes an even better case that PGP is not much of a modern secure system generally, rather than it just being bad for secure email.

Because packet formats are bad?

I don't understand what you're trying to say here.

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#87

Post by rendx »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #82
rendx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the single most common misconception around PGP, and it comes up every time: (Open)PGP is first and foremost a flexible packet format (and other specs), and GnuPG is more of a CLI "library" to interface with it -- all of it. You can build something that hides metadata, you can have forward secrecy, and encryption always-on by default with PGP (and GnuPG). You can use it for whatever trust model you want, neit…

> Moxie even openly argues against standards [x] and still calls himself an "anarchist". On the face of it, that sounds like exactly the position an anarchist would take...

If you believe in abolishing hierarchy and institutions where they have no legitimacy, _all_ you are left with is communication, community, and open standardization as practiced in anarchist bodies such as the IETF.

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#89

Post by rendx »

skyfaller wrote: post #55
mapgrep wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is great as an all in one solution if encrypted messaging is a hobby. It is also very good for mobile and encrypted occasional messages. If you try to actually build a secure environment within a group that tries to maximize security while getting real work done you find you want to be encrypted by default at least with each other. Signal is pretty suboptimal for heavy volumes of messages. If you and I have th…

So you're saying that if you're building a professional secure environment, you don't need forward secrecy and it's ok to leak metadata? This doesn't make sense to me. The US gov't kills people based on metadata: https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/why-metadata-matters It's not possible to make email secure, the flaws are on the protocol level. To fix it, you would need to change it until it is no longer email.

Signal pumps all traffic across AWS infrastructure, where the simplest of all traffic analysis can deanonymize its users. Signal relies on phone numbers (for reasons), which again is not exactly the best "metadata" to carry around. If you look at the NSA material in the Snowden cache, it becomes clear that the whole "US kills based on metadata" is fed by piggybacking exactly on such systems, like deanonymization of simple VPNs and other "streams of data with simple proxies in between".

PGP can be used to encrypt headers such as Subject. Mail addresses can be temporary and pseudonymous much more easily than phone numbers. One could imagine building something like "Signal" on top of PGP and "email" that has all the "metadata hiding" properties of Signal, and more, e.g. by introducing delays and random relaying order on SMTP level.

Deltachat is an example of an open project in that space: https://delta.chat/

Re: 21 years after the request OpenPGP support gets added to Thunderbird

#90

Post by skyfaller »

zajio1am wrote: post #84
skyfaller wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying that if you're building a professional secure environment, you don't need forward secrecy and it's ok to leak metadata? This doesn't make sense to me. The US gov't kills people based on metadata: https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/why-metadata-matters It's not possible to make email secure, the flaws are on the protocol level. To fix it, you would need to change it until it is no longer email.

> and it's ok to leak metadata? How could Signal (or other client-server protocol) not leak metadata? It is true that OpenPGP leaks more metadata than necessary (e.g. Subject), but seems to me that any efficient message protocol needs to leak at least three most important metadata - source, destination, time. One could avoid leaking destination by broadcasting encrypted to many receivers (when only the true one can d…

Signal has been working on features like "sealed sender", which encrypts the source metadata: https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/

I don't know if they can do anything about destination or time, but even hiding the source seems like a significant advancement.

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