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Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

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Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#191

Post by swiley »

MrAwesome wrote: post #39

Several years ago, when I worked at FB, I ran into a similar bug on an early internal version of a Messenger rewrite. Sent pictures to one chat, showed up in another. My bug report on it kicked off an absolute maelstrom of dev activity and investigation. High level engineers showed up in the comments. Lots of immediate followup. The severity was clearly understood and resolving it was clearly prioritized. I exclusive…

The older software probably spoke xmpp which meant people could just leave when it misbehaved. Signal has been against this from the beginning, it's against the ToS and the owner has asked devs of alternative clients to stop developing them.

No "apps" are ever good.

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#192

Post by rasengan »

greysonp wrote: post #78

Hi there, Signal-Android developer here. I updated the issue to reflect this, but this bug has been fixed. I was tracking it on a separate issue, and had forgotten to close this one. We do, in fact, take issues like this very seriously. This bug was extraordinarily rare, and because we have no metrics/remote log collection, there was an initial period where we had to spend time adding logging and collecting user-subm…

You should have shut down the servers while this was happening - especially because you couldn't track it down. Shame on you for not caring about your users or their privacy when they were specifically using Signal for privacy.

Edit: Anyone downvoting this also simply doesn't understand how serious this privacy leak really is. Shame on you too.

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#193

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

reinforcedpaper wrote: post #148
greysonp wrote: post #78

Hi there, Signal-Android developer here. I updated the issue to reflect this, but this bug has been fixed. I was tracking it on a separate issue, and had forgotten to close this one. We do, in fact, take issues like this very seriously. This bug was extraordinarily rare, and because we have no metrics/remote log collection, there was an initial period where we had to spend time adding logging and collecting user-subm…

From the explanation of the bug on github it seems to me like this is a client-side database issue and nothing was actually leaked. Database ids were reused so random images that were previously received were displayed in newly received messages. Is this correct? If it is then it's probably worth mentioning.

My understanding is that the database issue caused your client to send pictures A, B and C to person X, when you were trying to send picture C to person X (where A and B are pictures that were previously sent to someone else).

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#194

Post by hnarn »

varispeed wrote: post #189
hnarn wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some details on how this assumption was made would be nice, but I think it's pretty obvious that any developer involved in a project can make a reasonable assumption of how rare a bug is depending on the technical details on what is required for the bug to happen. For example, if we say for the sake of argument that a hypothetical bug requires you to have more than ten contacts of the exact same name and these also n…

Why would anyone think that re-use of ID was a good idea?

I'm not defending the practice of re-using a database ID, but it's absolutely something that can happen (or change) as an oversight rather than an active choice from the developer.

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#195

Post by [deleted] »

greysonp wrote: post #78

Hi there, Signal-Android developer here. I updated the issue to reflect this, but this bug has been fixed. I was tracking it on a separate issue, and had forgotten to close this one. We do, in fact, take issues like this very seriously. This bug was extraordinarily rare, and because we have no metrics/remote log collection, there was an initial period where we had to spend time adding logging and collecting user-subm…

[deleted]

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#196

Post by maqp »

ubercow13 wrote: post #35
rvz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've also recently had a probably unrelated issue where my mic was still audible to the other party after I hung up the call. That one there is a cataclysmic security land mine. Absolutely unacceptable. That was the last straw after [0]. I don't think I can recommend Signal at this time. To Downvoters: So these bugs are all fine then? They are not security issues then? Not only having images being sent to the wrong…

Yes. Signal's only selling point is privacy. Both of these bugs are huge privacy breaches that kill its value proposition. Which type of privacy breach is more likely to have tangible and direct negative effects on an average user's life - a nation state storing their communications in a database, Facebook graphing their contacts and using them for friend recommendations, or their friends/family/boss/acquaintances be…

>Yes. Signal's only selling point is privacy. Both of these bugs are huge privacy breaches that kill its value proposition.

Absolutely agree. However, you should always look at the bigger picture

a) How was the issue handled? What was the priority? Did they try to downplay it? Was the type of vulnerability patched altogether?

b) If a) merits for change, what's the alternative that has better overall security, UX, existing userbase, and track record.

Personally, I'd rather take a product with good public incident handling track record, than one without anything on public record.

>One of the main worries with companies having access to your unencrypted private data is that no matter how careful they are with it, it can still end up in the wrong hands. Signal is directly sending your data into the wrong hands.

Categorical label of "wrong hands" is unnecessarily ominous. Company with access to your private data can lead to that data being sold, or stolen by nation states / organized crime. You sending nudes / sensitive documents to your friend on Signal is less dangerous, although it can be much more embarrassing. Your peer probably isn't going to sell it to the highest bidder (or was it the case the recipient could be any Signal user? IIUC that was not the case)

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#197

Post by maqp »

egberts1 wrote: post #45
jerkstate wrote: post #11

Signal has been adding lots of silly social media like features lately, not surprising that they are messing up the core value prop. I’m shopping for a new encrypted messenger. They used to say every program expands in scope until it can read email, now every app expands until you can add Snapchat filters to your selfies.

Matrix, in non-federated mode, is by far the toughest messaging protocol to crack. Still dependent on proper UI engineering, like Signal failed to do.

>by far the toughest messaging protocol to crack.

Citation needed.

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#198

Post by godelski »

Arnt wrote: post #176
croes wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try fixing a rare bug quicker without constant user metrics.

Yes, indeed. This kind of bug is an argument for having metrics.

I'm not convinced. The bug is rare and requires a specific set of circumstances that not many people are going to perform. That is not an argument to collect metrics, or in other words, change the entire paradigm of Signal (no collection of Metadata). It does propose an argument for more audits, more eyes, and more care. But we do not expect Signal to be perfect, as no software is. Systematic failure, on the other hand, creates worry about Signal. But not individual.

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#199

Post by reinforcedpaper »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #193
reinforcedpaper wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the explanation of the bug on github it seems to me like this is a client-side database issue and nothing was actually leaked. Database ids were reused so random images that were previously received were displayed in newly received messages. Is this correct? If it is then it's probably worth mentioning.

My understanding is that the database issue caused your client to send pictures A, B and C to person X, when you were trying to send picture C to person X (where A and B are pictures that were previously sent to someone else).

The person reporting the issue specifically said that they couldn't find those pictures on their phone and don't remember ever sending them to anyone.

The recipient also wouldn't be able to find those images anywhere else because they have chat trimming enabled. The result is that because a newly received message happened to share the id of an old deleted message, the new message is now displaying pictures from the old message.

This does require the recipient to have received those pictures and also not remember them but I believe it is easier to forget a random picture you received than one you sent.

Again, this is me speculating with very limited knowledge of client internals but it makes sense to me. I would like to see a developer confirm this.

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#200

Post by maqp »

hkt wrote: post #26
jerkstate wrote: post #11

Signal has been adding lots of silly social media like features lately, not surprising that they are messing up the core value prop. I’m shopping for a new encrypted messenger. They used to say every program expands in scope until it can read email, now every app expands until you can add Snapchat filters to your selfies.

Delta chat starts from reading email and theb works backwards: https://delta.chat/en/

Cool, my contacts can keep using their gmail account and leak all communication metadata to Google without me having any say on that if I want to talk to them. Where can I sign up?
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