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I'm giving up on PGP

blog.filippo.io

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Re: I'm giving up on PGP

#181

Post by darklajid »

Arathorn wrote: post #77

The conclusions here (avoiding long-lived per-identity keys and having the option to easily rotate and re-validate per-device keys) are very much what we've aimed for in the end-to-end crypto for Matrix.org ( https://matrix.org/blog/2016/11/21/matrixs-olm-end-to-end-en... ). Rather than using a silo like Signal or WhatsApp, it is possible to get the flexibility of an open federated network built on an open standard,…

I'm currently testing out Riot with the wife, as a potential Telegram replacement.

So far matrix/riot are my favorite in terms of vision, but I have to say that the ux is still rather unfamiliar for my limited set if non technical users.

Still, thank you for matrix, awesome job so far.

Re: I'm giving up on PGP

#182

Post by mcbits »

ihnorton wrote: post #169
PuffinBlue wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a video chat with public keys is secure enough to exchange a one time pad, why would you need to bother with the one time pad at all? By transmitting your OTP it is no stronger than the method used to protect it in transport, so if that transport method is secure enough to guarantee the security of the OTP, why not simply use that method for everything and forget about the OTP?

I did say "exchange secrets" for a reason -- that secret may be a key for later use (e.g. for data dumps), or actual information. What I'm trying to understand is whether the (relatively new) feasibility of interactive video channels allows for building roughly the same level of trust as would be provided by in-person key exchange. I'm basing this on the understanding, possibly incorrect, that encryption with a publi…

I might trust a video chat today to verify an identity, but only because it would be a relatively new method. Definitely not in a few years if it ever took off. It's already possible to forge a talking head and fall back on "sorry, bad connection out here in the field" to hide glitches.

Re: I'm giving up on PGP

#183

Post by 5ilv3r »

sickbeard wrote: post #156
module0000 wrote: post #92

PGP may have broken down for the author, but it's still used in a lot of places . For example, to communicate with our bankers at work, every email has to be properly encrypted and signed - or it goes into a blackhole. The only way to exchange public keys(initially) is in person. Once that is done, new keys are provided from that person, and the WoT expands. tldr; it doesn't work for the author, but it does work for…

In otherwords, it only works in controlled environments, not out in the wild

Not to be glib, but this is true in much the same way as secure http. Really the only way to do it properly is to control the root key for your organization. The chain of trust starting with the vendor you got the computer from is bonkers.

Re: I'm giving up on PGP

#184

Post by IncRnd »

ihnorton wrote: post #158
jerf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I wonder if pgp is fundamentally flawed, or we have a deep conceptual usability issue here." I think it's the key model that's fundamentally flawed rather than pgp itself, which I believe the author of the article is also asserting. In cryptography, it is often explained that despite the fact a one-time pad is guaranteed-secure (given various conditions I'm eliding), it is not practical in the vast majority of cases…

> How do you distribute the one time pad in the first place? I'm fairly naive to this area, but wouldn't video chat initiated with public keys suffice? Then confirm identities and exchange secrets. To me this seems substantially equivalent to in-person key exchange for non-Three Letter Agency threat models. 20 years ago this wouldn't really have been feasible, but today it (mostly) is -- from a quick glance at the FA…

A video chat is not enough to safeguard secrets to be used in the future.

For one, if the video chat is secure enough for an otp exchange, the otp isn't needed.

Secondly, if your video chat gets recorded, which may very well happen, you need to use ephemeral keys.

Thirdly, since the video chat is likely recorded, at least the meta information, the effective security of your otp degrades over time, as new breaks or speedup s are created for the video chat cipher.

Re: I'm giving up on PGP

#185

Post by tscs37 »

eriknstr wrote: post #21

Good points, but also I would like to point out that https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf linked from the blog post was an entertaining read so for anyone that didn't read said PDF, do.

Probably one of the best reads I hard in a while, yes.

Re: I'm giving up on PGP

#186

Post by Arathorn »

darklajid wrote: post #181
Arathorn wrote: post #77

The conclusions here (avoiding long-lived per-identity keys and having the option to easily rotate and re-validate per-device keys) are very much what we've aimed for in the end-to-end crypto for Matrix.org ( https://matrix.org/blog/2016/11/21/matrixs-olm-end-to-end-en... ). Rather than using a silo like Signal or WhatsApp, it is possible to get the flexibility of an open federated network built on an open standard,…

I'm currently testing out Riot with the wife, as a potential Telegram replacement. So far matrix/riot are my favorite in terms of vision, but I have to say that the ux is still rather unfamiliar for my limited set if non technical users. Still, thank you for matrix, awesome job so far.

yup, turns out good UX is a nightmare; who knew? :D it's being worked on atm :)

Re: I'm giving up on PGP

#187

Post by Arathorn »

nickik wrote: post #179
Arathorn wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the good news is that keybase now deals in the same EC25519 keys that we do :) the bad news is that they've never responded to any of our requests to hook up. Plus there's a bit of a philosophical mismatch given keybase are effectively centralised, even if they publish the root of their ID tree to a blockchain. We need to solve decentralised identity somehow for Matrix anyway, so hopefully we'll find a solution soon…

Interesting. I don't propose that Keybase is adopted on the hole, but somewho we need to able to connect authentication system (centralised or not) with the protocols we use for chat. Maybe these can be made pluggable. Seems like a hard problem, Im thankful that nobody expects me to come up with a solution. Whats the best information on the current Matrix identity stuff? I did not find really good information how thi…

At the moment Matrix identity is a very simple centralised system: http://matrix.org/docs/spec/identity_service/unstable.html. The official bug for replacing this with something decentralised is https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/712.

Re: I'm giving up on PGP

#188

Post by lukaslalinsky »

devilsavocado wrote: post #107

People who use PGP keys, can you give examples of your use? I'm genuinely curious. Who are you contacting, or who is contacting you? The author says he only receives 2 encrypted emails a year. Not only do I not have a PGP key, I don't think I've ever found myself in a situation where it was even an option to use one.

1) I occasionally use it to send secrets (password, certificates, private keys) to people when I can't meet them in person.

2) I share a file-based password manager with other people, that is basically just a collection of PGP-encrypted files with multiple recipients (managed using "pass").

3) I sign git tags, so that people know I have made the release.

4) I rely on the fact that all Ubuntu packages are signed and I will not accidentally install a package from an unknown source.

5) I have encrypted backups.

Re: I'm giving up on PGP

#189

Post by mixedCase »

45h34jh53k4j wrote: post #18
CalRobert wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't cover "default", but mailvelope is a project working on making email for real people (i.e. webmail) easy to secure. I use it often. https://www.mailvelope.com/

Requires private keys to loaded into the browser extension. No thanks! Google's E2E is the same, which is to, say garbage.

There's no way of doing E2E without a key in the client, per its very definition.

Re: I'm giving up on PGP

#190

Post by andrey_utkin »

> I never ever ever successfully used the WoT to validate a public key.

TOFU, anyone?

From: Werner Koch wk at gnupg.org

Date: Fri Dec 4 14:06:49 CET 2015

Subject: [Announce] GnuPG 2.1.10 released

Hello!

The GnuPG team is pleased to announce the availability of a new release of GnuPG modern: Version 2.1.10. The main features of this release are support for TOFU (Trust-On-First-Use) and anonymous key retrieval via Tor.

...

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