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We can do better than Signal

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Re: We can do better than Signal

#181

Post by xrisk »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #174
xrisk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copy pasting my comment: Consider this paragraph from the Signal protocol > ...For example, they may compare public key fingerprints manually, or by scanning a QR code. Methods for doing this are outside the scope of this document. > If authentication is not performed, the parties receive no cryptographic guarantee as to who they are communicating with . Nobody I know in practice does this authentication. If an activ…

Matrix has the same problem. It requires out-of-band communication to trust the E2E encryption. Indeed, EVERY decentralized communications system will have this problem. There's no way to establish trust over a compromised channel without either a centralized pre-trusted agent (like the CA system in TLS) or an out-of-band secure channel (like Signal, Matrix, PGP, etc).

Sure it does, but I'm more inclined to trust my own server than trust Signal's server (thus reducing the need for that verification to happen in the first place)

Re: We can do better than Signal

#182

Post by perardi »

jeltz wrote: post #84
busythrowaway22 wrote: post #34

>Another response I usually see is “But Signal is all we have!”. While that is somewhat true — at least by the metric of “secure messengers your granny can use”, there are some promising alternatives who are especially focused on decentralizing E2EE communications. So the author readily admits that these alternatives aren't actually good enough for the average user. Newsflash: This IS for the average user! This is fo…

If the average user was fine with the terrible clients which are Skype, Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger why should we hold Element to a higher standard?

Define terrible.

Oh, I’ll grant you the UI of these clients can be terrible. Facebook Messenger takes a shocking amount of resources.

But what’s the job to be done for most people? Chatting with friends. FB Messenger has the network effect built in. You can just message your friends. And send them goofy stickers.

What will get people to transition to an encrypted messenger where they have to duplicate their social network? Privacy? Yeah, OK, I am definitely going to get a friend to download a new app, create a new account, and go through whatever dance is necessary for encryption to ask if we want Mexican or Thai for dinner.

Re: We can do better than Signal

#183

Post by xrisk »

maxerickson wrote: post #142
xrisk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copy pasting my comment: Consider this paragraph from the Signal protocol > ...For example, they may compare public key fingerprints manually, or by scanning a QR code. Methods for doing this are outside the scope of this document. > If authentication is not performed, the parties receive no cryptographic guarantee as to who they are communicating with . Nobody I know in practice does this authentication. If an activ…

I can't see how this is a problem on its own. If they were eschewing some better option than "don't trust the server", that would be a problem, but is there a better option?

Yes, the solution is … allow the protocol to let people run their own servers?

Re: We can do better than Signal

#184

Post by foobiekr »

stavros wrote: post #10

I'm a bit annoyed at "we can do better than X" when, you know what? Maybe we can't. Yes, it's nice that you and I can install Element and deal with the finicky crypto handshake that for some reason always shows red for me because a friend opened the web UI and closed it before he completed the handshake and now we can never actually make that check go green, and it's nice that Mastodon is distributed but mastodon.hos…

I agree with this. Even Signal is just barely this year entering in the realm of practically useable for most of my friends and family.

Re: We can do better than Signal

#186

Post by hiq »

SignalNotSecure wrote: post #35

For the longest time, Signal wouldn’t work without Google Play Services, but Moxie (the founder of Open Whisper Systems and maintainer of Signal) finally fixed this in 2017. There was also a long time when Signal was only available on the Google Play Store. Why do I make a big deal out of Google Play and Google Play Services? Well, some people might trust Google, the company. But up against nation states, it’s no con…

> Moxie, why haven’t you put Signal on F-Droid yet?

There's no security benefit in having Signal on F-Droid instead of using https://signal.org/android/apk/.

I don't think Signal would say much if F-Droid distributed this APK directly (instead of a recompiled version with a different signature). It's just complicated to set up, which is why (I think) nobody has done it.

> But we have to trust that Moxie is running the server software he says he is.

I don't understand what you're suggesting instead. There's no practical solution to this problem.

> Signal doesn’t have a warrant canary

Warrant canaries are legally untested.

> Truly secure systems don’t require trust.

Can you give an example of a truly secure system? What's your threat model?

Re: We can do better than Signal

#187

Post by xurukefi »

stavros wrote: post #10

I'm a bit annoyed at "we can do better than X" when, you know what? Maybe we can't. Yes, it's nice that you and I can install Element and deal with the finicky crypto handshake that for some reason always shows red for me because a friend opened the web UI and closed it before he completed the handshake and now we can never actually make that check go green, and it's nice that Mastodon is distributed but mastodon.hos…

> Users value their convenience, and security and privacy are inconvenient.

True. A messenger will be widely adopted if it offers features that WhatsApp et al. don't have. And by that I don't mean security or privacy, but something that people actually care about, like the stickers in telegram for example. And then that messenger just needs to be secure without interfering with functionality, convenience or UX ... problem solved.

Re: We can do better than Signal

#188

Post by smolder »

stavros wrote: post #10

I'm a bit annoyed at "we can do better than X" when, you know what? Maybe we can't. Yes, it's nice that you and I can install Element and deal with the finicky crypto handshake that for some reason always shows red for me because a friend opened the web UI and closed it before he completed the handshake and now we can never actually make that check go green, and it's nice that Mastodon is distributed but mastodon.hos…

I'm not so sure. It really hasn't been that long in a generational sense that the internet has been around. Society may still be in the honeymoon phase of it's relationship with the internet. If building network services was like building houses, we may not be anywhere near drywall.

Who is the "we" who can't do better, just technologists? Or humanity as a whole? Is it all just a demand side problem, and the people chose centralization, or was centralization a matter of policy for some group of sufficient influence? Is it just a byproduct of unfettered capitalism? A conspiracy to make the internet less 'libre' by a powerful special interest looking to profit (or a three letter agency looking to snoop) isn't outside the realm of possibility, is it?

Anyway, I guess my point is that there are a lot of different factors that got us to this moment, and as people say, change is the only constant. I don't think anyone should give up on their ideas for the future, even if they've been tried without success before in some form.

Re: We can do better than Signal

#189

Post by number6 »

perardi wrote: post #179
BillyTheKing wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, I think WhatsApp's value proposition is and was as little more than 'just' oh wait, sms etc. is completely insecure. I don't think the majority really cared about that (especially since end-to-end encryption was a later addition). I think most people primarily started using WhatsApp because a) it was (is) free b) cross-platform c) worked very reliably

Most people profoundly do not understand or care about the vagaries of how their messaging is encrypted. They do care about SMS fees, especially across international borders. They do care about sending group texts between Android and iOS and not having things go slowly haywire as messages don’t come across. They do care about sending messages over wifi if they’re somewhere without a cell signal. (OK, bit of a Canadia…

> They do care about sending messages over wifi if they’re somewhere without a cell signal. (OK, bit of a Canadian thing, but the cottage has wifi and no cell signal.)

That you have to explain why you might be without cell signal shows that you are blessed up there. Today I talked with someone a few miles outside of Frankfurt (Germany) - huge financial hub - and the line broke down almost 3 times due to bad signal...

Re: We can do better than Signal

#190

Post by akvadrako »

jeltz wrote: post #84
busythrowaway22 wrote: post #34

>Another response I usually see is “But Signal is all we have!”. While that is somewhat true — at least by the metric of “secure messengers your granny can use”, there are some promising alternatives who are especially focused on decentralizing E2EE communications. So the author readily admits that these alternatives aren't actually good enough for the average user. Newsflash: This IS for the average user! This is fo…

If the average user was fine with the terrible clients which are Skype, Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger why should we hold Element to a higher standard?

Personally I think element has a ways to go before it reaches the user friendlyness of even skype, the worst of those three.

The iOS app is a the most confusing chat app I've tried, especially if you run your own identity server.

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