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Encrypted messengers: Riot, not Signal, is the future

titus-stahl.de

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Re: Encrypted messengers: Riot, not Signal, is the future

#41

Post by ajamesm »

ddevault wrote: post #32
tptacek wrote: post #9

This topic has been beaten to death on HN over the last year (other people can provide links to discussions, with Moxie participating). I think something worth keeping in mind is that almost everyone who works in secure messaging agrees on one thing: that electronic mail is not the future of secure communication. There's no fundamental reason why that should be the case. The store-and-forward model used by SMTP could…

"non-federated" and "secure" in the same sentence is a joke. Signal's other problem is Google Play Services which has absolutely no place in a supposedly secure system.

Federation concerns availability, not security. "unplug the ethernet and write plaintext to /dev/null" is extraordinarily secure and 100% decentralized, though badly unavailable.

Re: Encrypted messengers: Riot, not Signal, is the future

#42

Post by stephengillie »

evolve2k wrote: post #38

The permissions Signal asks for do seem excessive (both on iPhone and even more so on Android). Can anyone justify why they are necessary?

Developers who are unfamiliar with the Intents system? That's a common reason for applications requiring a laundry list of permissions.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6578051/what-is-an-intent...

Re: Encrypted messengers: Riot, not Signal, is the future

#43

Post by Forbo »

stephengillie wrote: post #42
evolve2k wrote: post #38

The permissions Signal asks for do seem excessive (both on iPhone and even more so on Android). Can anyone justify why they are necessary?

Developers who are unfamiliar with the Intents system? That's a common reason for applications requiring a laundry list of permissions. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6578051/what-is-an-intent...

The developers have feature justifications for every permission requested: https://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/2125358...

Edit: Reading your link now, as I didn't see it before I made my comment. Was that added in as an edit?

Re: Encrypted messengers: Riot, not Signal, is the future

#44

Post by mxuribe »

acqq wrote: post #11

> Riot is based on the so-called Matrix protocol which is a federated protocol > In addition, people are writing alternative clients to access the Matrix/Riot network, implementing their favorite features and workflows. As users can vote with their feet for their own interests and choose providers and apps of their liking Can I run my own network which is not part of other networks (i.e. not "federated")? Can I tell…

There are 2 "ways" to do this:

1. You and your friend both use the riot (actually matrix.org) server/network and you both choose any matrix-relevant client (doesn't even have to be the riot client), but only make use of private rooms on that server. This avoids any system setup overhead whatsoever...But the private room(s) that you create would still on a server that is not controlled by you.

2. You can of course setup and run your own little private network; on your own domain name/IP address. This is what I do with my family; and only my wife, and daughter have access (I've even disabled registration). I have not yet connected my little network to the greater matrix network...For 2 reasons: I wanted to beta test this internally so I could leearn; Also, i wanted to be sure my family does not get exposed to any spam (if there is any that is).

Good luck; cheers!

Re: Encrypted messengers: Riot, not Signal, is the future

#45

Post by stephengillie »

Forbo wrote: post #43
stephengillie wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers who are unfamiliar with the Intents system? That's a common reason for applications requiring a laundry list of permissions. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6578051/what-is-an-intent...

The developers have feature justifications for every permission requested: https://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/2125358... Edit: Reading your link now, as I didn't see it before I made my comment. Was that added in as an edit?

These are the justifications of developers who are unfamiliar with the Intent system. Were I unaware of Intent, I would make the same design decisions.

Re: Encrypted messengers: Riot, not Signal, is the future

#46

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

tptacek wrote: post #40
ddevault wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"non-federated" and "secure" in the same sentence is a joke. Signal's other problem is Google Play Services which has absolutely no place in a supposedly secure system.

Signal's use of GCM has also been beaten to death: it's a platform issue that has no impact on security (but does make it harder to deploy Signal on nonstandard Android platforms).

That is not true. It's (1) a remotely exploitable rootkit and (2) a tracking system that's (3) operated by a multi-billion dollar company whose entire business model is invading your privacy.

Google Play Services is not the standard Android platform. AOSP is the standard Android platform.

Re: Encrypted messengers: Riot, not Signal, is the future

#47

Post by Forbo »

ajamesm wrote: post #41
ddevault wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"non-federated" and "secure" in the same sentence is a joke. Signal's other problem is Google Play Services which has absolutely no place in a supposedly secure system.

Federation concerns availability, not security. "unplug the ethernet and write plaintext to /dev/null" is extraordinarily secure and 100% decentralized, though badly unavailable.

It can also affect security depending on what jurisdiction the servers fall under. Federation means that while it may be illegal to run the service in, say, China, it can be run elsewhere without those concerns. This is becoming more apparent with the widespread use of National Security Letters.

Re: Encrypted messengers: Riot, not Signal, is the future

#48

Post by dublinben »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #46
tptacek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal's use of GCM has also been beaten to death: it's a platform issue that has no impact on security (but does make it harder to deploy Signal on nonstandard Android platforms).

That is not true. It's (1) a remotely exploitable rootkit and (2) a tracking system that's (3) operated by a multi-billion dollar company whose entire business model is invading your privacy. Google Play Services is not the standard Android platform. AOSP is the standard Android platform.

You're conflating GCM and the wider Google Play Services that is installed on most Android devices. As someone who actually uses AOSP without Google, it weakens your argument when you conflate the two.

Re: Encrypted messengers: Riot, not Signal, is the future

#49

Post by iagreeentirely »

cguess wrote: post #27
exstudent2 wrote: post #10

A question I've had about Signal is what is stopping Apple from modifying and rebuilding the source with a backdoor in it? Is this technically possible (seems like it would be since they control distribution of the binary to devices)? The article is correct in stating that web based chat is inherently insecure but it seems all iOS apps are also inherently insecure. I'm by no means an expert though so would love to he…

Technically? There's nothing stopping them. For that matter, there's no stopping Google from doing the same. There's also no stopping Apple from patching LLVM so that only patched versions of OpenSSL are ever compiled against. The question is how paranoid are you and what is your threat model? We have to trust someone, eventually. This is especially true for the 99% of the population who doesn't have the skill to com…

Just in case nobody has gotten to enjoy this gem:

http://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack

Ken describes how he injected a virus into a compiler. Not only did his compiler know it was compiling the login function and inject a backdoor, but it also knew when it was compiling itself and injected the backdoor generator into the compiler it was creating. The source code for the compiler thereafter contains no evidence of either virus.

Re: Encrypted messengers: Riot, not Signal, is the future

#50

Post by mxuribe »

Nothing against Signal, But I sure hope matrix-based platforms and clients (like riot.im) keeping growing. The folks who work on both matrix.org and riot.im have done so much work in such a short time...not just in developing the protocol/server/apps...but also in education. They really have helped people like me to setup our own little home servers (i.e. private networks)...which ultimately helps the entire federated network. Signal - while certainly can be setup/hosted by anyone else separate of OpenWhisper - leaves some to be desired in the actual self-implementation details; just not enough tutorials out there. (Or maybe its just me?)
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