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Should notes be end-to-end encrypted?

supernotes.app

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Re: Should notes be end-to-end encrypted?

#51

Post by ilammy »

chrismorgan wrote: post #9

One other major downside of end-to-end encryption: everything has to be done client-side, and the server becomes very close to a dumb pipe and block storage. (The only parts the server can do anything with are those that aren’t encrypted, so the explicit goal of E2EE is to reduce the server to a dumb pipe and block storage.) Got ten gigabytes of stuff you want to search through? Without E2EE, the server can implement…

> With E2EE, all the server can do is hand you encrypted blobs.

Encrypted search is a thing. You need to know in advance what kind of queries you want to do against your DB, but there are off-the-shelf solutions for encrypted search which do not involve homomorphic encryption. Here's an overview: https://www.cossacklabs.com/blog/secure-search-over-encrypte...

Re: Should notes be end-to-end encrypted?

#52

Post by _8j50 »

chrismorgan wrote: post #9

One other major downside of end-to-end encryption: everything has to be done client-side, and the server becomes very close to a dumb pipe and block storage. (The only parts the server can do anything with are those that aren’t encrypted, so the explicit goal of E2EE is to reduce the server to a dumb pipe and block storage.) Got ten gigabytes of stuff you want to search through? Without E2EE, the server can implement…

Homomorphic search is a thing, new "web3" stuff shouldn't even store on a server, servers become app hosters and routers basically.

Re: Should notes be end-to-end encrypted?

#54

Post by eadmund »

chrismorgan wrote: post #22
coldtea wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One other major downside of end-to-end encryption: everything has to be done client-side, and the server becomes very close to a dumb pipe and block storage. That sounds like a feature...

It tries to be, but in practice as I say you mostly just end up with the worst of both worlds, because of perverse incentives (the software provider wants to charge a monthly figure and doesn’t want their server to be fungible). Anyway, it’s still much more commonly a limitation than an advantage. Perhaps the most obvious example: I want to be able to search through 10GB of emails without needing to download them all…

> the software provider wants to charge a monthly figure and doesn’t want their server to be fungible

Sounds like yet another reason to use free software and pay services for their actual services, like storage.

> I want to be able to search through 10GB of emails without needing to download them all (or a not-much-lighter index), because downloading it takes a long time, costs a fair bit (traffic isn’t generally), and requires that I have that much spare space on whatever device I’m using at the time

10GB is pretty much nothing nowadays, and once one has downloaded it then one only has to download the updates, not the whole thing from scratch. And local search is so much faster than remote search that it is incredible. Using notmuch for email is such an improvement over the Gmail web UI; it really has to be seen to be believed.

> I wish there was more acknowledgement of the fact that it’s seriously not the ideal goal

Hard disagree here. The ideal goal is not trust in a third party; the ideal goal is freedom from having to trust third parties to do more than one can verify. I can verify that a storage provider is providing me storage (I can write data, and randomly send read requests; one might even develop bandwidth-efficient proof-of-storage protocols); there is no way for me to ever be sure that a messaging provider is not reading my messages.

> if you run your own server, you don’t need E2EE

One still needs encryption from one’s server to another’s. To put that another way: from one’s end to another’s. Or … end-to-end encryption.

Re: Should notes be end-to-end encrypted?

#55

Post by yunohn »

ilammy wrote: post #51
chrismorgan wrote: post #9

One other major downside of end-to-end encryption: everything has to be done client-side, and the server becomes very close to a dumb pipe and block storage. (The only parts the server can do anything with are those that aren’t encrypted, so the explicit goal of E2EE is to reduce the server to a dumb pipe and block storage.) Got ten gigabytes of stuff you want to search through? Without E2EE, the server can implement…

> With E2EE, all the server can do is hand you encrypted blobs. Encrypted search is a thing. You need to know in advance what kind of queries you want to do against your DB, but there are off-the-shelf solutions for encrypted search which do not involve homomorphic encryption. Here's an overview: https://www.cossacklabs.com/blog/secure-search-over-encrypte...

It is possible, but it isn’t very feasible right now. Maybe in the future?

Re: Should notes be end-to-end encrypted?

#56

Post by fastball »

vbo wrote: post #48
fastball wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here! If you 100% need E2EE for your notes then not using Supernotes is actually our recommendation as well. But as I tried to show in the post, it's hard to do and arguably even harder to prove that it has been done correctly. And E2EE not done correctly might as well not be done at all. And yep, partly it is that don't have the time to dedicate to this. There are so many other features that I think would bet…

I don't think touting no E2EE is going to get you more users. Fine, don't do it, but I'm pretty sure the people who want E2EE (myself included) are likely very convinced it's what they need and will act accordingly. And those who don't care for E2EE won't care whether you offer it or not. Irrecoverable data loss is a real pain in the ass that needs to be dealt with but it's the only way to achieve true privacy. Knowi…

Yep, getting more users wasn't really the goal of this blog post. Mainly it was intended as a response to the many support requests we get asking about what kind of encryption is utilized in Supernotes, which frequently lacked a clear understanding of different types of encryption and what that means. That is why I tried to structure it as a helpful tutorial that anyone can read to hopefully gain a better understand of encryption basics.

Our current set of priorities means that E2EE is not going to be at the top of the list for the foreseeable future, so we want existing and potential users to be aware of that (and our rationale behind it). We prefer to have users that understand and align with our vision rather than trying to convince/trick people with different priorities to use Supernotes.

Re: Should notes be end-to-end encrypted?

#57

Post by crabmusket »

chrismorgan wrote: post #9

One other major downside of end-to-end encryption: everything has to be done client-side, and the server becomes very close to a dumb pipe and block storage. (The only parts the server can do anything with are those that aren’t encrypted, so the explicit goal of E2EE is to reduce the server to a dumb pipe and block storage.) Got ten gigabytes of stuff you want to search through? Without E2EE, the server can implement…

I pity the one who has 10GB of notes. It's a fair point though. E2EE is a tradeoff that may make sense in some cases but not others, and yes, it doesn't do away with the need for trust.

Re: Should notes be end-to-end encrypted?

#58

Post by crabmusket »

break_the_bank wrote: post #18
maksim-m wrote: post #6

> Should Your Notes Be End-to-End Encrypted? Yes. That's why I use Joplin (which is free and open source btw) and not some proprietary freemium app that to explains me that I don't necessary need E2E encryption for my notes.

Do you have something that allows you to publish that as well? Use case - I want to keep some notes for myself e2e on my laptop & phone but every now and then I'd like to publish a few of them under a pseudonym anonymously on the internet.

For this I use Standard Notes and Listed.to for E2EE encrypted writing as well as one-click sharing to either my little blog, or an anonymous link.

Re: Should notes be end-to-end encrypted?

#59

Post by samsquire »

vbo wrote: post #48
fastball wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here! If you 100% need E2EE for your notes then not using Supernotes is actually our recommendation as well. But as I tried to show in the post, it's hard to do and arguably even harder to prove that it has been done correctly. And E2EE not done correctly might as well not be done at all. And yep, partly it is that don't have the time to dedicate to this. There are so many other features that I think would bet…

I don't think touting no E2EE is going to get you more users. Fine, don't do it, but I'm pretty sure the people who want E2EE (myself included) are likely very convinced it's what they need and will act accordingly. And those who don't care for E2EE won't care whether you offer it or not. Irrecoverable data loss is a real pain in the ass that needs to be dealt with but it's the only way to achieve true privacy. Knowi…

Implementing E2EE encryption safely is difficult. If it's not your core competenancy, should you really expect them to do that? If you don't know what you're asking for.

If you're not a paying customer and you are not willing to buy the product, what causes you to think they'll do what you think they should do on arbitrary principles (that you might still not buy the product even if they implemented it) rather than practicality of reality. Why should they listen to voices on the internet who aren't even their customers?

Expecting other people to do more for you without giving anything in return is some thing I don't like.

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