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Sunsetting Tor Messenger

blog.torproject.org

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Re: Sunsetting Tor Messenger

#31

Post by hnarn »

jerheinze wrote: post #26
Boulth wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish the page had screenshots. That's usually a good measure of how the software is maintained. Currently the page mentions that it's "experimental". As far as I can see currently the only widely used, secure protocols are Matrix and XMPP with OMEMO.

> I wish the page had screenshots. The Github page has one: https://github.com/ricochet-im/ricochet/ > As far as I can see currently the only widely used, secure protocols are Matrix and XMPP with OMEMO. secure != metadata free

Well, that placeholder conversation in the screenshot sure made me cringe. That being said, I look forward to it being integrated and working with Tails.

Re: Sunsetting Tor Messenger

#32

Post by mackwerk »

sandworm101 wrote: post #12

Would like to read, but it looks like my work is blocking access to torproject.org. I had not realized that this sort of blocking was in place. Gauntlet thrown. My project for today is now to gain access to Torproject on my work machine. Bonus points for installing and running Tor without elevated privileges.

Please let us know how it goes, good luck!

Re: Sunsetting Tor Messenger

#33

Post by Arathorn »

nukeop wrote: post #7

Matrix.org/Riot.im has all the encryption you could wish for, a modern, useful interface, and a federated model in which everyone can run their own server and talk to everyone else, just like email.

Matrix doesn’t protect metadata on the server currently - so you have to trust the admins that run the servers you are participating in. In the longer term we want to fix this (https://matrix.org/~matthew/2016-12-22%20Matrix%20Balancing%...) but we haven’t started on it yet.

Re: Sunsetting Tor Messenger

#34

Post by VikingCoder »

I think about trying to hide the metadata of who is communicating...

I wonder about a public stream of end-to-end encrypted messages.

Anyone can add a message to the stream.

Everyone reads all of the messages, and tries to decrypt all of them.

There are lots of variants to this, lots of ways to optimize it, probably lots of ways to implement it. But that's the core idea.

One variant is that what everyone downloads is just enough of a message metadata identifier to see if they're the intended recipient (something about Bloom Filters or PGP Signatures or something, I dunno). Then, if you are the intended recipient, you request the message contents itself. To obscure which messages were for you, you also download some very large number of other messages.

Something about microtransaction fees to pay for all of it. Maybe something about distributed ledger. Mumble, mumble. Maybe messages only live for X days or something.

Thoughts?

Re: Sunsetting Tor Messenger

#35

Post by crtasm »

BuildTheRobots wrote: post #21
datamoshr wrote: post #20

I think the world of secure messaging is in an odd-way at the moment. It feels a bit like competing standards at this point[1]. I'm personally still using signal as the metadata shared by Wire is way too much imho. Even more interestingly the EFF has stopped trying to recommend the best one and instead is encouraging the users to do their own reasearch (even redirects old urls[2]) 1. https://xkcd.com/927/ 2. https://…

Signal is great; except there's also tonnes of metadata. If I'm trying to talk to someone anonymously, having to give them my phone number somewhat defeats that anonymity. Even having it installed is potentially dangerous; it scans your phone book and suggests other signal users (thereby outing you as a user in the first place).

I believe you can deny the request for contacts list access. You can certainly add a Signal contact within the app by typing in their phone number.

I realise this doesn't solve your issue with having to share your phone number with them, or people with your number seeing you use Signal, but if you want anon communication XMPP+OTR+burner accounts is still the way to go, AFAIK.

Re: Sunsetting Tor Messenger

#36

Post by ryan-c »

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Re: Sunsetting Tor Messenger

#37

Post by Ajedi32 »

hnarn wrote: post #31
jerheinze wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish the page had screenshots. The Github page has one: https://github.com/ricochet-im/ricochet/ > As far as I can see currently the only widely used, secure protocols are Matrix and XMPP with OMEMO. secure != metadata free

Well, that placeholder conversation in the screenshot sure made me cringe. That being said, I look forward to it being integrated and working with Tails.

Yeah. I haven't watched that show in a while, but isn't Phineas usually supposed to be totally oblivious to Isabella's advances?

Re: Sunsetting Tor Messenger

#38

Post by lukeqsee »

VikingCoder wrote: post #34

I think about trying to hide the metadata of who is communicating... I wonder about a public stream of end-to-end encrypted messages. Anyone can add a message to the stream. Everyone reads all of the messages, and tries to decrypt all of them. There are lots of variants to this, lots of ways to optimize it, probably lots of ways to implement it. But that's the core idea. One variant is that what everyone downloads is…

> something about Bloom Filters or PGP Signatures or something, I dunno

Would this not defeat the purpose? Once an individual was tied to a unique piece of data, they'd be tied to all data in the stream.

I think such a system would definitely require guaranteed expiration (impossible?). Or some sort of rotating keys or the metadata piece would still be uniquely identifying.

I like this idea, as a concept, but I have no idea how it would actually work in real life with bad actors who can and would download all messages as they appear.

I wonder if there's some way to enforce expiration?

Re: Sunsetting Tor Messenger

#39

Post by wybiral »

fosco wrote: post #9
tribby wrote: post #6

ricochet[1] is my preferred option for situations that would require something like tor messenger (which is very few situations, but I digress). I like that the UX has a built-in threat model (e.g. "do you really want to click on this?") TAILS users can't use it because tor-over-tor is weird (ricochet uses its own tor process). but it looks like it's getting close.[2] 1. https://ricochet.im/ 2. https://labs.riseup.ne…

I have been looking for info on why tor over tor is bad and would love to understand the technical reason why, can you share any links? All I have been able to find is related to uncertainty is it is good or not

This link discusses it: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorifyHOWT...

The issue mentioned of reusing nodes doesn't seem like much of a concern considering how the onion routing works (even if the routes are all the same nodes).

But the performance alone is probably terrible.

Re: Sunsetting Tor Messenger

#40

Post by dranov »

VikingCoder wrote: post #34

I think about trying to hide the metadata of who is communicating... I wonder about a public stream of end-to-end encrypted messages. Anyone can add a message to the stream. Everyone reads all of the messages, and tries to decrypt all of them. There are lots of variants to this, lots of ways to optimize it, probably lots of ways to implement it. But that's the core idea. One variant is that what everyone downloads is…

That sounds a lot like BitMessage.

https://bitmessage.org/bitmessage.pdf

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