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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

#51

Post by widforss »

acqq wrote: post #29
smacktoward wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it really matters -- if Apple wants to log your conversations they don't have to put a backdoor into Signal, they could just put a backdoor into iOS itself. An attacker with privileged access to the guts of the operating system doesn't have much need to muck around with hacking the applications that run on it. Which is to say, security-minded users should strive to trust as few parties as possible, but s…

Exactly: as soon as you use Apple, you can as well use iMessage and FaceTime with the other iOS users. You just need something to be able to communicate a bit safer with the users who don't have iOS. But if the user has another OS, then you can believe those who get control of that OS/device can read your messages to that user and record your calls to him/her. It's turtles all the way around. The more communication t…

But one should never consider oneself secure from targeted attacks. What Signal et. al. protects from is dragnet surveillance, which Apple can perform remotely with iMessage without having to install an exploit on every iOS device. They do not have that opportunity with Signal.

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

#52

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

dublinben wrote: post #48
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

GCM depends on Play Services, so I'm really not.

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

#53

Post by NoGravitas »

acqq wrote: post #24
NoGravitas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe so, yes. If not with the standard homeserver (synapse), than with a custom homeserver.

Note: my question is, with a plain client, downloadable from the app store, not with some special custom build of the client. Also, how puringpanda's question fits to your claim? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13239925

You can connect to any homeserver with the default client; it's not tied to the default homeserver.

If I understand puringpanda's question, the idea is that your domain and your homeserver are seized, but you have contacts on other homeservers. At this point, it's just like losing your email server. You lose your existing ID, and probably your message history, but you can reach your contacts from a new ID you create someplace else.

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

#54

Post by ajamesm »

Forbo wrote: post #47
ajamesm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry, am I missing something? It's my understanding that Signal is ETE encrypted. All an NSL would get you is ciphertext and metadata.

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

#55

Post by NoGravitas »

buzzybee wrote: post #20
rahrahrah wrote: post #4

The question I would ask is: given the list of capabilities presented in this post, is there even any difference between Riot and e-mail? Or are you reinventing the wheel?

Riot is most comparable to Slack or Discord. It has chat rooms. It supports voice, image posts, file transfer, etc. It stores conversation history. You can private message people. Matrix is a generalized protocol for decentralized and federated communications; it's agnostic to the application layer provided by Riot. Something Matrix doesn't have, but is on the issue backlog, is support for email-esque thread contexts…

I would love to see an email - like application implemented on top of Matrix.

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

#56

Post by acqq »

widforss wrote: post #51
acqq wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly: as soon as you use Apple, you can as well use iMessage and FaceTime with the other iOS users. You just need something to be able to communicate a bit safer with the users who don't have iOS. But if the user has another OS, then you can believe those who get control of that OS/device can read your messages to that user and record your calls to him/her. It's turtles all the way around. The more communication t…

But one should never consider oneself secure from targeted attacks. What Signal et. al. protects from is dragnet surveillance, which Apple can perform remotely with iMessage without having to install an exploit on every iOS device. They do not have that opportunity with Signal.

> What Signal et. al. protects from is dragnet surveillance

Can it be claimed if

- the user has to log in with his phone number to Signal servers in order to communicate

- no user can use any other but Signal servers, which are hardcoded in the apps?

It seems that it's perfectly designed to at least collect the metadata and the owners of it don't want to let you change these rules.

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

#57

Post by stonogo »

ifelsehow wrote: post #37

> The most important concern is that Signal is a silo [...] you have to connect to OpenWhisperSystems servers to communicate with other users. You can run your own private Signal service with OpenWhisperSystems' tools [1]. It's also worth noting that Signal - as a protocol - could easily be federated. (As others have mentioned, Moxie has chimed in on why the app is centralized [2]). If confederated messaging is impor…

> You can run your own private Signal service

A distinction without a difference. I use Signal because people use Signal. People do not use 'the Signal service'. They use OWS's app and OWS's servers and moxie has explained he will not federate.

The fact that OWS goes to all the effort of creating this excellent protocol, and then insists on only deploying it to insecure devices (with direct-memory-access baseband radios) baffles me, but I hope that things move in a saner direction with time.

The biggest benefit I think OWS has provided is the ability for other platforms (e.g. Whatsapp) to use their protocols. I daydream about a day when all these competing messaging services realize they would stand to gain a lot by federating, but I know it won't happen in my lifetime.

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

#58

Post by dublinben »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #52
dublinben wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

GCM depends on Play Services, so I'm really not.

GCM is merely one minor component. The existence of the microg project proves that you can implement one without the other.

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

#59

Post by wybiral »

stephengillie wrote: post #45
Forbo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree. Mostly because they're asking for all of those permissions prematurely.

What if I never want to share my location, take pictures, or send files?

And then some things, like calendar access, aren't even used right now.

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

#60

Post by uabstraction »

PurgingPanda wrote: post #17

Does anyone know if they are planning to add a way to change home server. If they take your domain (With your Matrix server on it), you have no way of communicating with other people over riot anymore.

There are plans to support 3rd party identification (such as an E-Mail address or a phone number) and use that as a basis for looking up users across the network, but I don't think it is currently useable. Account migration was brought up recently in the chat room, but it is not defined anywhere in the spec or reference implementations AFAIK. I agree that these are both important features, but I wouldn't worry too much about them unless they are left out of the 1.0 spec.

In the meantime, it's not like you can migrate your Signal, Telegram, iMessage, or even Gmail/Hotmail accounts. I think Matrix needs a few more client/server implementations before the spec can't truly be set in stone.

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