Twilio incident: What Signal users need to know

It's not a "permit", though. And there are no special limits on who can own one - if you can legally own a gun, you can legally own a DD or any other NFA item. One doesn't even need to be a US citizen or a permanent resident for that, even people on student and work visas can do it.

I think this is misguided, and confuses the truth. Data collected and stored remotely is being "collected and stored remotely" regardless of how well protected it is.

I will however concede that it is possible to design a system where data is encrypted on a device and then uploaded to the cloud in such a way that simply having that encrypted data on a remote server doesn't put that data at risk. Signal did not design their system in that way.

> If we take your definition of collected where handling encrypted data is collecting it, then "the internet" collects all data. Uh oh.

Again, this isn't about handling encrypted data - it's about the long term storage of highly sensitive but encrypted data - and as I said above, even that is fine if it's done correctly. Signal has done a poor job of designing their system which leaves user's data at risk.

> What signal does is route encrypted messages between principals in a system. That's all they do.

That used to be "all they do". Then, about two years ago they decided they wanted everyone to have profiles which would be kept on the cloud. As soon as you install the software, before you try to send any message to anyone you're asked to provide a pin to secure you data. Once you set one (or opt out of setting it yourself) it collects a bunch of data from your device (not needed for routing anything - remember you've just installed the app and are not trying to send or receive any message at this time) and having collected that data it encrypts it on your device using the pin, then it uploads that data to their cloud. That data can be recovered by you (or anyone else for that matter) by providing the pin that you set. The data they just collected and stored is not used to transmit, route, or delver messages. This data collection takes place in addition to any information needed temporarily to transmit, route, or delver messages.

> Read their subpoena responses, they publish all of them.

That's incorrect. They publish the ones they are allowed to publish under the law (look up "national security letters" for more info) and their refusal to provide one agency with data says nothing about the requests they are forced to comply with. Their favorite examples involve cases where Signal was unable to hand over the data because they didn't collect it in the first place. Today, because of changes in their data collection practices, they now collect exactly the kinds of data they were not collecting before and were therefore unable to provide.

It's unlikely that Signal would be compelled by a standard subpoena to brute force their users pins to access the encrypted data. It is far more likely that the data is already being collected by an agency on-site, and that the data collection is continuous and ongoing (look up "Room 641A" for an example of on-site data collection by the state).

The fact that it is unlikely that Signal would be compelled by a standard subpoena to brute force their users pins does not mean:

- Signal employees can't do it themselves any time they feel like it.

- State actors can't do it whenever they feel like it

- A hacker couldn't gain access to a server and do it

Because of the sensitive nature of the messages sent over the platform, and because they have explicitly marketed themselves to vulnerable groups like whistleblowers and activists it is critical that Signal be honest about the risks of using their software. They insist they don't collect any data, while in practice they do. They say they secure the data they have, in practice that data is exposed by way of multiple vulnerabilities that could very well endanger the freedom or even the lives of the people using Signal.

> So surely then there has to be some technical limitation because what other legitimate reason is there?

It's like people aren't reading the whole thread and just responding to specific comments they don't like. The premise of Signal, or at least what's made it practically useable, is that the short identifiers are immediately available and verifiable on a mobile device. When I first reach out to someone on Signal I know the person I'm reaching out to is the owner of the identifier I used unless their phone carrier is actively compromised when I exchange the first message. To Signal's users, this is an acceptable compromise. On top of that, I don't need to do a key exchange dance every time I want to talk to a new person because I have a contacts list of their phone numbers, which Signal has verified and bound to their keys.

Signal is really pretty simple: trade key exchange parties for the phone numbers already acquired though countless years of past parties and have locally grown crypto sans intrusive cloud services. And, do it explicitly not-for-profit so there's no possible motivation to abuse this contract with users in service of shareholders.

Obviously Signal could implement whatever random people felt the need for at any given moment. But they don't and it doesn't seem like whining about it is changing anything. If you don't like that then go use one of the many alternatives or build a replacement. I'm honestly surprised nobody's built one at this point. Literally spin up a signal server, make a build of their mobile app, and let users paste in pubkeys instead of phone numbers when starting a message. See how many people use your product. Or just change the phone number db to a shortname db and remove the verification step.

Yes, these conversations are exhausting. What's even more exhausting is the perpetual outrage from "hardcore" "security" "nuts" and absurd anons driveling on about why all the practical solutions that work for users are nonsense and how they could be made "better" but who balk at actually building the solution they think the world deserves. It's a tale as old as time in the security community, sadly.

It's funny, Moxie actually did something about it and it still isn't good enough. Signal is probably the closest thing to a PGP+email replacement we've ever had. What more do people want?

I've never regarded a phone number as something extraordinarily personal. The amount of spammers that happen across my phone number is ridiculous. It's nice when you interact with a real human using your phone number (unless it's a recruiter ffs), so the more I give it to the more likely that is to happen. I guess I just don't understand what's personally revealing about a phone number. I give my phone number to mundane things all the time so people can communicate with me. The "need to know" bar for my phone number is pretty low. It plays about the same role as an email address in my life.