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I don't trust Signal

drewdevault.com

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Re: I don't trust Signal

#121

Post by Arathorn »

r3bl wrote: post #40

> P.S. If you’re looking for good alternatives to Signal, I can recommend Matrix. Yes, if you're looking for alternatives to Signal, you should totally use a solution that hasn't rolled out end-to-end encryption by default[0]. /s ...and that only two clients have implemented so far, out of 50ish that they list on their website. [0] https://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq.html#what-is-the-status-o...

Fwiw, Matrix E2E actually exists in separate codebases in: Riot/Web, Riot/iOS, Riot/Android, nheko, matrix-python-sdk, libpurple (in PR), and shortly in Fractal (thanks to https://gitlab.gnome.org/jhaye/olm-rs etc). So yup, it sucks that it's not turned on by default in private rooms, but we're working away as fast as we can.

Re: I don't trust Signal

#122

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

Vinnl wrote: post #118
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally reviewed Matrix before recommending it on my blog. The other alternatives I listed here are not endorsements.

Then why would you recommend a solution that hasn't even enabled end-to-end encryption by default?

When did I do this?

Re: I don't trust Signal

#123

Post by hutzlibu »

g_sch wrote: post #39

Some version of this post seems to circulate every few months or so. This one is more direct in its accusations of Moxie acting in bad faith. I think this is disingenuous. Moxie has been very clear[0] about the tradeoffs that Signal has made and the reasons for them. It's fine to be dissatisfied with those choices. It's another thing entirely to accuse Moxie of dissimulating. Personally, I'd like to see Signal replac…

But in the linked post he does not explain, why he does not maintain a F-Droid repository for people who do not trust google, nor why the original Signal Client does not connect to Signal Forks, even if they use everything the same. Security reasons? Ordinary smartphones are full of rootkits anyways, so someone using a forked Signal version probably is better of anyway, as he knows a bit more what he is doing.

So the base argument holds in my opinion: Moxies main focus is Moxie in control. And not making Signal the best and securely possible.

So I also use Signal, but as soon as Matrix gets stable, I am gone

Re: I don't trust Signal

#124

Post by drdaeman »

r3bl wrote: post #40

> P.S. If you’re looking for good alternatives to Signal, I can recommend Matrix. Yes, if you're looking for alternatives to Signal, you should totally use a solution that hasn't rolled out end-to-end encryption by default[0]. /s ...and that only two clients have implemented so far, out of 50ish that they list on their website. [0] https://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq.html#what-is-the-status-o...

Last time I've tried Matrix (this spring) with a group of peers, my E2E rooms were full of random "failed to decrypt" and lots of out-of-band communications "hey, are my messages working for you today?"

Yes, we had one Synapse server running on a resource-constrained machine that sometimes "fell behind" the rest of the network. I believe that is what had caused such issues. Still, the fact things easily break with server load or network issues means there is something faulty about the protocol. Resilience and reliability are no less important than security.

Re: I don't trust Signal

#125

Post by lmm »

Vinnl wrote: post #113
lmm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security is not a boolean, but when your whole selling point is security you'd better be good at it. I trust Signal the same amount as Facebook Messenger or any other centralised messaging system that uses transport encryption (e.g. Skype, IRC+SSL, WhatsApp...). But what's the USP that means I should use Signal rather than any alternative?

Their USP is "security made simple", in other words: use Signal because it's as easy as the mainstream alternatives, but far more secure (but not perfect).

That only works if they're actually more secure than the mainstream alternatives. I don't think they are; Signal has transport encryption but the system probably isn't secure against Open Whisper Systems themselves or someone who controls the central server, which is the same security situation you'd be in with any of the alternatives I mentioned.

Re: I don't trust Signal

#126

Post by jhasse »

Vinnl wrote: post #118
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally reviewed Matrix before recommending it on my blog. The other alternatives I listed here are not endorsements.

Then why would you recommend a solution that hasn't even enabled end-to-end encryption by default?

Because for some that's not a show-stopper.

Re: I don't trust Signal

#127

Post by j16sdiz »

mathnmusic wrote: post #86
guiraldelli wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am happy to see I am not the only person in the world that feels like this about Signal. The interesting fact is that I "Ctrl+F" this page for Wire and I have seen nothing, even though this comment is about something that made me switch over Wire from Signal: to date, that's the unique instant messaging that has FOSS'ed both the server and the clients. (OK, the article also says about Matrix.) I admire Wire for a n…

Signal, in an indirect way, requires 1/6th of the world's population to part with their biometrics. It requires phone number, and in India, getting a phone # requires Aadhaar, which is a centralized, biometrics-based ID (photo, fingerprints AND iris at the moment).

I see this as a good thing because it effectively rate limit the spam bot creations

Re: I don't trust Signal

#128

Post by KingMob »

sdenton4 wrote: post #87
pron wrote: post #53

> Truly secure systems don’t require trust. This is a chat app so, by definition, security requires trusting at least one other person. Also, I think experience shows that secrets can often be least trusted to those who have some interest in/use for them, with the secret owner often being the least trustworthy of all. So I'd say that if you trust yourself you're already probably trusting one of the weakest links in w…

My new secure chat app encrypts your message then send it to /dev/null.

I guess that's acceptable if you trust the NSA not to replace /dev/null with an email forwarder.

My new secure chat app, on the other hand, encrypts your message in memory, then zeros out the bytes.

Re: I don't trust Signal

#130

Post by Arathorn »

detaro wrote: post #51
pmlnr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. You can run your own Matrix server and set whatever defaults you want.

A Matrix server can force E2E on all messages passing it?

Yes, it can - for instance the Matrix servers that the French government runs do this by default already. We haven't exposed this as a config option and pushed it into mainstream Synapse yet because of https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/6779, but the tweak for doing it is:

https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/pull/3426/files

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