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Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory

element.io

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Re: Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory

#51

Post by ikkun »

seems like it's just that element (the official, and most popular client) will ignore messages from unverified devices, but since it's part of the spec, other clients that want to be spec-compliant will implement this too. I don't think most other clients follow the spec that closely though.

I'm in favor of the change, the only downside I can think of is users with esoteric clients or simple bots that don't support verification won't be able to post to encrypted rooms with element users.

I feel like I'm alone in having good luck with matrix. I've been self hosting for nearly a decade to a handful of users, and it was a bit rough troubleshooting the encryption problems back when element was still called riot, but it's been a number of years since any of us have had a single encryption issue, and we added a new user recently with no trouble. we're still on 'element classic' though, the new 'element x' is a bit of a mess and loses the background sync feature, you need to set up a unified push server which I'm not looking forward to.

Re: Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory

#52

Post by g-b-r »

foresto wrote: post #27
tripdout wrote: post #3

What is verification? What does it involve doing? A lot of information on why it's useful, but how is it implemented? I hope it's not something like the Play Integrity API, but with no information to go on, I can't say either way.

In this case, it's what you do when signing in from a new device (or browser) to attest that it's yours. It avoids warnings to you and your contacts that a device has gained access to your account without your approval. It involves doing one of these things: - Comparing a short sequence of emoji on each device and confirming that they match. - Using one device to scan a QR code displayed by the other. - Entering a re…

> Pretty quick and easy in most cases

The experiences reported here seem to say otherwise...

As others, anyhow, I haven't tried again recently

> (Gripe: The recovery key approach was unfortunately made painful and error-prone in recent Element releases, by disabling the option to choose a passphrase instead, but most people can simply use one of the other two approaches.)

I last tried Element about six months ago, but for years using the recovery key was either impossible or close to it, and mostly just for idiotic UI mistakes that were never corrected (something like you had to enter the key where they wanted the passphrase or the opposite).

To my recollection the version from six months ago worked better in that regard, but it was still asking to enter the passphrase where you actually had to enter the recovery key.

Re: Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory

#53

Post by sroerick »

iqihs wrote: post #23

I think Matrix as a protocol has been pretty ineffective, as their top priority seems to be keeping data permanent and duplicated. Both performance and privacy are at the bottom of their priority list. The one good thing I can say about it is that encryption of message contents is enabled by default in conversations and available in groups, but that's about it - nothing else is, or can be, encrypted. In other words,…

Pretty crazy, right? It almost seems like a honeypot

Re: Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory

#54

Post by jojobas »

navigate8310 wrote: post #16
totetsu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://element.io/en/help#encryption-device-verification > After Alice logs in on a new device, she uses her cryptographic identity to demonstrate to Bob that the new device genuinely belongs to her, rather than being added by someone else with access to her account. She can do this either by entering her recovery key (which gives the new device immediate access to her cryptographic identity ), or by carrying out an…

So is this like the Signal PIN which is required when installing on a new device? If you forget, the cryptography changes and old contacts are warned that signatures are rotated, right?

Except Signal PIN appears to be trivial to bruteforce for Signal itself, unlike this properly secure verification.

Re: Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory

#55

Post by dwohnitmok »

tptacek wrote: post #46
pkulak wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I trust my life to the server I host in my own closet. People can lecture me all day long about the superiority of Signal's encryption, and I'll just slowly rotate my chair to point my index finger at the Dell OptiPlex behind me.

That's fine. You'll pardon me if I'm unwilling to trust my own safety to your Dell OptiPlex. Whatever you think about Signal, the fact is that Matrix --- which is what the thread is about --- makes decisions that serve the IRC/Slack use case at the expense of the "absolute most possible safety" use case. That makes sense: some of larger-scale group chat's goals are in tension with "absolute most possible safety".

I wouldn't characterize Signal as "absolute most possible safety" as you are implicitly doing here.

I would probably characterize Signal as "most possible safety for the average nontechnical user" which entails trade-offs against absolute safety for certain UX affordances (and project governance structures that allow for these decisions to be made), because if said affordances are not given, the average nontechnical user either simply won't use Signal or will accidentally end up making themselves even less secure.

Re: Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory

#56

Post by Forgeties79 »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #55
tptacek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine. You'll pardon me if I'm unwilling to trust my own safety to your Dell OptiPlex. Whatever you think about Signal, the fact is that Matrix --- which is what the thread is about --- makes decisions that serve the IRC/Slack use case at the expense of the "absolute most possible safety" use case. That makes sense: some of larger-scale group chat's goals are in tension with "absolute most possible safety".

I wouldn't characterize Signal as "absolute most possible safety" as you are implicitly doing here. I would probably characterize Signal as "most possible safety for the average nontechnical user" which entails trade-offs against absolute safety for certain UX affordances (and project governance structures that allow for these decisions to be made), because if said affordances are not given, the average nontechnical…

This is basically the same logic for why I often recommend Plex over jellyfin to people. Yes Plex is not proper self hosting. Yes Plex the org is making increasingly questionable decisions. But for people who want to get away from the major streaming services and maybe even want to dip their toes into something that resembles self hosting, there really is no other option like Plex. It’s so insanely turnkey and easy to install on every device. You also don’t have to worry about exposing your network if you don’t know what you’re doing.

If nothing else it’s an incredible foot in the door for a lot of people to make the leap to something like jellyfin later.

Re: Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory

#57

Post by Gigachad »

xethos wrote: post #31
iqihs wrote: post #23

I think Matrix as a protocol has been pretty ineffective, as their top priority seems to be keeping data permanent and duplicated. Both performance and privacy are at the bottom of their priority list. The one good thing I can say about it is that encryption of message contents is enabled by default in conversations and available in groups, but that's about it - nothing else is, or can be, encrypted. In other words,…

@Arathorn would be an objectively better person to discuss this, but the Redditor isn't completely off the mark: metadata is (currently) not nearly as well-guarded on Matrix compared to Signal. However, work is ongoing to improve the situation; more importantly, Matrix is a different threat model (in my opinion), and allows for different trade-offs. When I use Signal, I have to trust Signal's servers and their admin…

In the real world friends and family aren’t running their own matrix servers. At most they are signed up for whatever random one came up first in the search results.

So you end up with a similar problem to Mastodon where either you are facing problematic or inexperienced admins, servers shutting down, and everyone centralising on the main server.

Re: Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory

#58

Post by tptacek »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #55
tptacek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine. You'll pardon me if I'm unwilling to trust my own safety to your Dell OptiPlex. Whatever you think about Signal, the fact is that Matrix --- which is what the thread is about --- makes decisions that serve the IRC/Slack use case at the expense of the "absolute most possible safety" use case. That makes sense: some of larger-scale group chat's goals are in tension with "absolute most possible safety".

I wouldn't characterize Signal as "absolute most possible safety" as you are implicitly doing here. I would probably characterize Signal as "most possible safety for the average nontechnical user" which entails trade-offs against absolute safety for certain UX affordances (and project governance structures that allow for these decisions to be made), because if said affordances are not given, the average nontechnical…

I couldn't be less interested in arguing with you about Signal. My point is that it doesn't make as much sense to compare Signal and Matrix as people think it does. Large-scale group chat is intrinsically less safe than the kind of chats most people use Signal for. You can substitute whichever other secure messenger you prefer.

This "average nontechnical user" stuff, though, miss me with. For 2 decades people have been encouraging the "average nontechnical user" to do incredibly unsafe things on the premise that any kind of message encryption is the best alternative to sending plaintext messages. No: telling people not to send those kinds of messages at all, unless you're dead certain the channel they're using is safe, is the only responsible recommendation.

Re: Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory

#59

Post by g-b-r »

One of the super confusing things is that even if you only use a single client it can be verified or not.

That's confusing even for very technical people; because, it simply doesn't make sense.

Saying "verified or primary client with recovery keys generated" seems too long, so they should just say something like "less secure" on the "unverified" sessions.

Re: Verifying your Matrix devices is becoming mandatory

#60

Post by Gigachad »

this_user wrote: post #50
iqihs wrote: post #23

I think Matrix as a protocol has been pretty ineffective, as their top priority seems to be keeping data permanent and duplicated. Both performance and privacy are at the bottom of their priority list. The one good thing I can say about it is that encryption of message contents is enabled by default in conversations and available in groups, but that's about it - nothing else is, or can be, encrypted. In other words,…

I think part of the problem may be that Matrix is just pretty complex, because of its modular and decentralised design. Meanwhile, Signal is much more centralised and monolithic. And while they have added a few features over the years, its core functionality is relatively simple, and they were initially just focussed on getting that right.

I remember reading some of the pdf on state management in matrix. The math and logic behind working out what the current name of the group chat is made my head spin.
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