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Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email

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Re: Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email

#121

Post by upofadown »

I am not sure how the identity management works for encrypted email for Skiff. The white paper[1] seems to imply that a user has to send a URL with a secret in it as with document sharing. Every time? How is the user expected to get this secret URL to their correspondents? Does it require the use of a second messaging system with identity management? PGP for instance?

Generally, how does Skiff allow the user to ensure that the message is being sent to their actual correspondent and not the Skiff server? Signal messenger for instance uses "Safety Numbers" for this purpose.

[1] https://skiff-org.github.io/whitepaper/Skiff_Whitepaper_2023...

Re: Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email

#122

Post by layer8 »

josephg wrote: post #95
tptacek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal's servers can't backdoor the Signal Client. From what I understand of Skiff, Skiff's servers are the client.

Not directly. They would have to roll out an update with the backdoor to the App Store. But as a user I’d be none the wiser. I wish there was some way on iOS to prove that some particular version of an app was built from a certain git hash. That way these sort of attacks would be easier to detect.

You can disable updates. As long as the servers (and the OS) don’t break compatibility, you can continue to use the same old likely-non-backdoored version.

Re: Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email

#124

Post by josephg »

progbits wrote: post #115
josephg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not directly. They would have to roll out an update with the backdoor to the App Store. But as a user I’d be none the wiser. I wish there was some way on iOS to prove that some particular version of an app was built from a certain git hash. That way these sort of attacks would be easier to detect.

That would be ideal. F-Droid on android can do this: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Reproducible_Builds/ However there is still one advantage of even appstor: They have to push the backdoored version to everyone (or large set of users). So that drastically increases risk of being caught. Website under their control can backdoor one specific user or even just one session, making detection harder.

> So that drastically increases risk of being caught.

Only if someone out there is extracting, decompiling and auditing each version of the Signal iOS app in the app store. But I doubt anyone is doing this. If a backdoor is ever snuck into the signal ios app for a few users for a few weeks, I highly doubt anybody would notice.

Re: Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email

#125

Post by actionfromafar »

josephg wrote: post #124
progbits wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be ideal. F-Droid on android can do this: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Reproducible_Builds/ However there is still one advantage of even appstor: They have to push the backdoored version to everyone (or large set of users). So that drastically increases risk of being caught. Website under their control can backdoor one specific user or even just one session, making detection harder.

> So that drastically increases risk of being caught. Only if someone out there is extracting, decompiling and auditing each version of the Signal iOS app in the app store. But I doubt anyone is doing this. If a backdoor is ever snuck into the signal ios app for a few users for a few weeks, I highly doubt anybody would notice.

xkcd://386

Of course someone is doing this. I’m not sure they are the kind to tell it to the world, though.

Re: Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email

#126

Post by progbits »

actionfromafar wrote: post #125
josephg wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So that drastically increases risk of being caught. Only if someone out there is extracting, decompiling and auditing each version of the Signal iOS app in the app store. But I doubt anyone is doing this. If a backdoor is ever snuck into the signal ios app for a few users for a few weeks, I highly doubt anybody would notice.

xkcd://386 Of course someone is doing this. I’m not sure they are the kind to tell it to the world, though.

Not just someONE, whole bunch of researchers and automated scans.

Re: Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email

#128

Post by rvnx »

progbits wrote: post #126
actionfromafar wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

xkcd://386 Of course someone is doing this. I’m not sure they are the kind to tell it to the world, though.

Not just someONE, whole bunch of researchers and automated scans.

You can change remote configuration flags post-release (e.g. to enable diagnostics).

Even “secure” softwares like Google Chrome can capture your whole browsing history if they suddenly decide to enable a flag on your IP address. No need for conspiracy or update, though Chrome is considered perfectly secure.

In Android you can also distribute updates to specific e-mail addresses, which is very convenient.

Re: Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email

#129

Post by jvan »

Youden wrote: post #116

After getting fed up with ProtonMail recently I went on a quest to find an alternative. Unfortunately Skiff doesn't have SMTP or even an export feature so once you go Skiff you can't go back, you're locked in. ProtonMail does have import/export and the SMTP bridge (for paid users) and those things work but ProtonMail mangles emails: it removes plaintext body where there's a HTML body and it screws with headers. Ultim…

Do you have a write-up about this? I've been wanting to host my own almost entirely for the extra control over incoming mail and have been held back by the same worries. I'd like to see what a success story looks like.
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