Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a secure alternative that achieves the same outcome?
https://github.com/StanfordSNR/guardian-agent
That project looks dead.
Matrix.org hacked
191–200 of 277 posts
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "we had to revoke all the keys so you lost access to your encrypted messages unless you backed them up" takes the cake This is just how it works. It's been well documented and mobile clients got updates that backs up the keys automatically. It's also effectively the same as WhatsApp and some other IMs (they just don't even save your encrypted messages). Either way - backup, or lose your history.
I stand by the assertion that it indicates the Matrix people are clueless. If this is a design constraint, then the security model needs to accommodate that the user keys are the pot of gold, which means that there needs to be a service provided by a dedicated server which is inaccessible in the course of normal operation via any means other than a well defined braindead simple protocol : : providing the message mani…
I think you misunderstand why the keys were deleted. The keys get deleted on the client when you log out. This is sensible, because if you log out on a device, you probably don't want to keep the keys around in your browser storage. When the users session is destructed on the server, existing clients get a 403 error and told that their session is logged out. When that happens, they go through the normal logout routine which involves deleting the keys on disk.
Deleting the keys isn't something the matrix.org folks explicitly had to do because of the compromise; it's simply how the riot.im client reacts when you terminate it's session.
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Matrix operational security is a joke and developers understanding of security is a joke. This is 2019, not 1992. Infrastructure with ssh access without hole punching for currently active authorized connections only? Decrypted signing keys accessible over the network? CI servers and developers having root access? Though the "we had to revoke all the keys so you lost access to your encrypted messages unless you backed…
> "we had to revoke all the keys so you lost access to your encrypted messages unless you backed them up" takes the cake This is just how it works. It's been well documented and mobile clients got updates that backs up the keys automatically. It's also effectively the same as WhatsApp and some other IMs (they just don't even save your encrypted messages). Either way - backup, or lose your history.
When it comes to criticism about backup I have no problems with things getting wiped from the server. I assume a good p2p design has a "little server" and as much client as possible in it.
Enforcing in the clients to properly back up by default, or otherwise properly educating the user of what happens if they don't back-up would be as important as getting the code right. There is little difference to the user whether they lost data because they didn't understand they really had to do backups, or they got their keys compromised and messages deleted by a malicious 3rd party.
I do agree with all of GP's other points though.
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never quite understand why there’s not a confirm version. ForwardWithConfirmation or something. I’m active when I need forwarding - would be happy to simply be prompted before it’s allowed.
Some ssh agent implementations do this, notably the one built into Android ConnectBot can be configured to request confirmation each time it is asked to authenticate. Unfortunately ssh-agent (from OpenSSH) does not as far as I know. It's happy to authenticate as many times as requested without any notification.
It can, and it's determined per key when added to the agent.
Look for -c here: https://man.openbsd.org/ssh-add
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
The hacker is now doing a post-mortem in the GitHub issues of the project: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix.org/issues
> Escalation could have been avoided if developers only had the access they absolutely required and did not have root access to all of the servers. I would like to take a moment to thank whichever developer forwarded their agent to Flywheel. I'd feel so small if I were this developer right now :-| A couple of his issues appear to have to do with the use of SSH. An Ops-guy whom I worked with had setup a bastion host w…
Did you work with Rich Adams?
https://wblinks.com/notes/aws-tips-i-wish-id-known-before-i-...
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#196From reading the headline couldn't help but think to myself was it Neo?
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
> myself am waiting for a healthy ecosystem of servers and clients to spring up before starting to rely on Matrix Good luck with that. Right now there's only the centralized matrix.org server, or actually there isn't because it's down. If you want open standards and multiple servers (or your own) use XMPP period. It's not so much a technical question as it is the attitude of "hey we're implementing our own chat proto…
> It doesn't help either that scarce development resources are needlessly fragmented between XMPP and matrix. In my experience, there's virtually no overlap between the two groups, and therefore no fragmentation. And for good reason: XMPP is a nightmare to implement, so there's a significant group of developers that just won't touch it, but that might be interested in working on Matrix. And yes, part of the blame for…
> In my experience, there's virtually no overlap between the two groups, and therefore no fragmentation
Right, so there are two groups of developers working on different IM protocols. If this is not fragmentation (of developers) then what is it?
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#198It's "usless use of cat". He/she should have gone: `grep arathorn users.txt | head -1` Instead of: `cat users.txt | grep arathorn | head -n1` Hackers these days.
It's a "useless use of head". He/she should have gone:
`grep -m1 arathorn users`
Instead of:
`grep arathorn users.txt | head -1`
Commenters these days.
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Escalation could have been avoided if developers only had the access they absolutely required and did not have root access to all of the servers. I would like to take a moment to thank whichever developer forwarded their agent to Flywheel. I'd feel so small if I were this developer right now :-| A couple of his issues appear to have to do with the use of SSH. An Ops-guy whom I worked with had setup a bastion host w…
Did you work with Rich Adams? https://wblinks.com/notes/aws-tips-i-wish-id-known-before-i-...
no, but I wouldn't be surprised if my colleague got the idea from him. It was around the same time (end of 2014 I think).
Re: Matrix.org hacked
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
> myself am waiting for a healthy ecosystem of servers and clients to spring up before starting to rely on Matrix Good luck with that. Right now there's only the centralized matrix.org server, or actually there isn't because it's down. If you want open standards and multiple servers (or your own) use XMPP period. It's not so much a technical question as it is the attitude of "hey we're implementing our own chat proto…
> It doesn't help either that scarce development resources are needlessly fragmented between XMPP and matrix. In my experience, there's virtually no overlap between the two groups, and therefore no fragmentation. And for good reason: XMPP is a nightmare to implement, so there's a significant group of developers that just won't touch it, but that might be interested in working on Matrix. And yes, part of the blame for…
A chat log is rich text with emojis, photos/videos and other binary data, memes, rich inline citations, block quotes, attachments, and endless new formatting practices and gimicks that are unknown yet as digital communication evolves. XML/SGML is made for this kind of application.
End users don't throw arrays and maps at each other on chat, so JSON's affinity to co-inductive datastructures of programming languages (actually just JavaScript) doesn't help all that much when you have to invent ad-hoc markup over arrays, maps, and primitive types, or ad-hoc hex string encodings of binary data. TBH flocking to JSON because JavaScript can represent it as an object literal is a pretty junior attitude and reflects poorly on the matrix effort. It's equivalent to using BASIC or notepad.exe because that's what's installed on a computer out of the box.