Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 403 posts

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#221

Post by azornathogron »

eganist wrote: post #161
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…

Question: do you guys have a software or product security team? I suggested the roles to workwithus @ Signal on 5/18/2018 and have never seen a public follow-up in the form of career postings. Asking because such a team may be best equipped to serve as both the support and internal accountability function for such while minimizing business conflicts when engineering is facing challenges integrating security into DevO…

Given Signal's raison d'être, I would think nearly their entire team is the "security team".

I'm not being entirely facetious either - security is the USP of the product, I really would expect security knowledge and a feeling of responsibility for the product's security to be pervasive throughout the whole team.

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#222

Post by hnarn »

lwhi wrote: post #87
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…

I appreciate that this was a difficult and rare bug, but for an app that sells itself as 'secure', it feels like this isn't acceptable. How can users be assured that this type of issue won't occur again?

Users are not entitled to a guarantee that this will never happen again, because Signal is free and open source software provided free of charge and without warranty.

The Android app is GPL licensed. The license clearly states:

> For the developers' and authors' protection, the GPL clearly explains that there is no warranty for this free software.

If you feel let down by open source software, you have many options available to you to make that software more reliable.

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#223

Post by lopatin »

I have no horse in this race. I don't use Signal or any of its competitors, so allow me to ask some basic questions.

Could some users explain why you currently use Signal, and additionally, why you would continue to do so? It appears to me that not only this bug, but more importantly, the laissez-faire resolution of it is the opposite of what a privacy based app should do.

Based on their homepage, it looks like they're proud of the fact that Snowden uses the app. I'm interested if he, as a person with "real shit" to hide, still does.

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#224

Post by jeroenhd »

jchook wrote: post #85
jeroenhd wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does delta deal with new chats, fallback and other standard email client stuff? Does it allow mixing encrypted and unencrypted messages? What happens if I use an alternative mail client, will I still be able to read email from people after the project dies and the clients stop working? I don't think people will appreciate it when I suddenly start using email as a standard communications method, but it's worth a s…

> Does it allow mixing encrypted and unencrypted messages? What happens if I use an alternative mail client, will I still be able to read email from people after the project dies and the clients stop working? Yes. It uses the AutoCrypt standard, which exists independent of delta chat and has standalone software, + plugins for various email clients. I use a plugin for mutt so I can read my delta chat messages without…

> Did PGP and S/MIME fail? Services like ProtonMail use that tech to great effect. IMO it never hit the main stream because mainstream mail providers, etc want to read your email. There's some argument about usability but after using ProtonMail I don't buy those arguments.

In my personal experience, I've never seen anyone use PGP extensively for more than a month or so. The lack of PGP in most common mobile mail clients certainly doesn't help; switching email apps is annoying.

I don't think companies reading your email is the main incentive for companies to not implement PGP. It's perfectly possible to do PGP server side for free mail accounts like Gmail or Outlook, with proper PGP support in Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, etc.

PGP is complex, especially for people who don't know cryptography, and the lack of cloud sync of private keys and central account management makes it much harder to use than modern chat applications even for non-novice users.

I've never used ProtonMail and I don't know anyone who does, so my experience may not be representative. Then again, the fact I don't know anyone who uses ProtonMail might also indicate that PGP still hasn't gained that much market share.

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#225

Post by afroboy »

LurkersWillLurk wrote: post #160
aadjklskljads wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Signal does not get to play the limited resources card when they so firmly discourage 3rd parties from working on their project.

Could you explain what Signal is doing to discourage contributions?

By not allowing 3rd parties apps to coexist with official signal app. (Using same servers)

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#226

Post by maqp »

colesantiago wrote: post #90
detaro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying you should recommend Signal, just pointing out that "there are audits, why does it have such bugs" doesn't tell the entire story.

> just pointing out that "there are audits, why does it have such bugs" doesn't tell the entire story. So? Isn't that the point though? Having regular audits should have caught this issue? I thought this being 'open source' this would made this even easier. Which leads me to believe a team that has $60M~ in funding is unable to fix this issue in a matter of urgency. Remember this issue was open for half a year with u…

>So? Isn't that the point though? Having regular audits should have caught this issue? I thought this being 'open source' this would made this even easier.

You have it the wrong way. Testing, audits, and open source are all best practices. They should be done. None of them are guarantees of security.

Open source is not guarantee of finding all bugs, it's a necessity to allow anyone to look for bugs (and backdoors).

Audits can not be passed. They can only be failed. Kind of like how RNG tests can not be passed, they can only be failed. Example: Use SHAKE256 to extrude any keystream on initial value 0x00. It will not be secure, but it will pass any statistical test.

>this issue does not give me any more confidence in Signal being secure.

No application can actively prevent a bug like this. As an author of high assurance comms system, see what I wrote under threat model:

"If hardware such as computers/optocouplers user has bought is pre-compromised to the point it actively undermines the security of the user, TFC (or any other piece of software for that matter) is unable to provide security on that hardware."

This also applies to software issues that actively undermine the security of the user. So the thing is, a software bug that outputs sensitive data to wrong contact, can not be absolutely prevented. You would need a friendly MITM-guard node that runs a Google-grade image recognition algorithm that detects you're trying to output a legal document to the wrong client, or a nude to not-your-SO.

Again, bugs are unavoidable, what matters is the incident response, and is Signal actively trying to protect you from everyone, including themselves.

Another PoV: If you punitively fire people that get caught in social engineering pentests, you're replacing a person who now has real-life experience with social engineers, with someone who may or may not have such experience.

Sure, if the person fails multiple times, it's time to let them go, but Signal's reaction is indication of a good employee who takes personal responsibility in making sure it won't happen again.

I'm extremely careful about what I recommend, and I have serious trouble finding a way to agree with your assessment that just because a rare bug is open 6 months is of serious concern. It wasn't being sat on for six months. But you're very keen on giving that idea. Would you care to elaborate?

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#227

Post by rplnt »

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…

This happens to me all the time in Messenger. Just locally though. Like if I sent an image and delete it from the phone, the app shows some other random image instead.

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#229

Post by hutzlibu »

tylermenezes wrote: post #219
hutzlibu wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selective quoting? "As soon as we were able to pick up a scent, it was all we worked on, and we were able to get a fix out very quickly."

It's not at all selective. This should have been "all they worked on" from the moment they got several confirmations, not from the moment people beat them over the head with data. If they couldn't fix it they should have pulled the app. This is a company that aggressively markets itself to people needing privacy, and mistakes can ruin lives. And before you say it, they have tens of millions of dollars in funding.

Well yes, maybe they should have put more people on it, from day one. But even though they have solid funding, doesn't mean they can throw it out the window.

And non reproducible bugs can be hard, even when you throw money at them.

But your quote was almost a textbook example of selective quoting, because you said, that they said they did a quick fix, when it really took over 6 months. But they did not say this - they said "once they pick up the scent" they delivered a quick fix. This is something very different.

Re: Signal on Android: Images sent to wrong contacts

#230

Post by afroboy »

lopatin wrote: post #223

I have no horse in this race. I don't use Signal or any of its competitors, so allow me to ask some basic questions. Could some users explain why you currently use Signal, and additionally, why you would continue to do so? It appears to me that not only this bug, but more importantly, the laissez-faire resolution of it is the opposite of what a privacy based app should do. Based on their homepage, it looks like they'…

I live in authoritarian country. so yeah Signal is the answer and my country does fear it and trying to block it. They don't fear whatsapp, telegram or facebook but they do fear signal.

And weird this bug never encountered with me.

Post reply on HN