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Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

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Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#71

Post by tass »

thatcat wrote: post #66
JoshTriplett wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unencrypted data/keys should never be in the backup, only data encrypted to some passphrase. It's perfectly fine (and necessary) to require a passphrase to recover backed up logs on the new device.

Signal has had the ability to export chat backups for a long time. I'm not sure why people would complain other than the export is local and you have to manage migration to new device by copying files instead of it being saved on a server and uploaded to your new device after you lose an old one. Also, identity is persistent since you're using a phone number and signal attaches the name you list to that phone number…

* on Android

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#72

Post by m-p-3 »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #48
JoshTriplett wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the one and only feature I'm missing in Signal that would let me use it and recommend it to everyone without reservations (rather than exclusively for ephemeral-only communication) is the ability to keep identity and full message history when moving to a new device. Today, on iOS, you can't move your Signal history to a new device, and on Android you can only do so by manually making an encrypted backup fil…

I think I'm an exception in this instance, but I don't understand what value there is in message history. How often do you find yourself reminiscing by going back through a messaging log? If there are photos that should be kept then there are other ways to back them up. Is there valuable context in the conversation that was had around the delivery of the photo? Are messages backed up and restorable for other messagin…

I remember searching for something in Hangouts at work for a tidbit of info that I should have noted elsewhere. It was useful, but I wouldn't say it's a must.

An email thread is useful and somewhat readable, and endless conversation between an individual or a group is less so.

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#73

Post by Avamander »

sdan wrote: post #25
pepijndevos wrote: post #10

I really want Signal to succeed. Or rather, I want anything that has decent cryto and is not FAANG to succeed. The problem is not which messaging app I want to use, it's which messaging app my friends are using. That said, if I had to choose, I think Matrix has a slight edge in my books because it's a protocol rather than a silo. Even though Signal is private and open source, they are hostile towards people running t…

This is why I think Keybase is so awesome. I've gotten some of my friends on it and so far the encryption/exploding messages and all is working great.

I have the same experience. The only chat I've managed to get people on and keep for a longer period of time - no dealbreakers so far.

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#74

Post by _8j50 »

Very nice (seriously!). Now, please let people use the platform without needing a valid phone number. The one major issue I have is that. Phone numbers are the new SSN, just like SSN is being misused by traditional businesses, phone numbers are also misused thse days (due to how you generally can be tracked down to a physical area for antifraud and how "everyone" has a cell phone) to uniquely identify users.

I don't get why users can't be addressed by both phone numbers and a "signal id", if you opt-in to use a phone number for addressing, your phone will be verified and signal will resolve it to your signal id. If you opt out people will need your signal id to address you and you can't use it for SMS. What are the challenges with that?

If I have a signal private group system, signal can find out a ton about me and my associations with others using only that information. Many other messaging platforms do not nees this very sensitive information from me to function. And it does not support a desktop only app even if you give them a phone number and verify you control that number.

I am always reminded of General Hayden (Former NSA chief) was saying how they love PGP at the NSA because they can sniff metadata and know who talks to who, it lets them easily find who has something to hide so they can target them. Not that I have the NSA in my threat model but I am very sensitive to unnecessary metadata being generated

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#75

Post by beyprotester »

Using a throwaway for obvious reasons... I am grateful these are being worked on because they are extremely needed for some use cases.

I have been part of a group organizing protest in Beirut and I was surprised there was no clearly go to app that provided the security features we need.

We started off with WhatSapp because that's what everyone used before security became a concern. We then moved to Signal mostly to get auto-deleting messages. We then ran away to Telegram because there was no way to kick a compromised phone outside of a Signal group.

We considered using Wire which seemed to have what we needed but the interface was a bit clunky and it did not run well on all the phones of the group... We are currently evaluating an considering Keybase.io which seems to have all the feature too, but not sure how it will handle about a hundred people in the group...

If anyone has ideas about which apps are recommended for that (or has additional useful things) please help, the main things we need are:

- Encryption E2E is nice to have but not a deal breaker.

- Possibility to kick a user from the group, deal breaker ( a thug stole someone's phone in the protest once and another time we got a message saying someone's security code changed then they became inaccessible) both incidents ended up ok but there was no way to kick the person out of the group and proceed while clearing things out with signal.

- no old history kept of the conversation. Either auto-deleting messages set to short duration like signal, or if not possible we can survive with an admin at home deleting old messages constantly and clearing the chat for everyone in sensitive situations ( like telegram allows)

- Free. For various reasons, some people can't buy apps no matter how cheap.

- easy to use. Most protesters are not too technical.

- possibility to display sender and group but not the content of messages in the notifications.

- having an easy way to add password to the app itself. (nice to have)

- making screenshots inconvenient to take (just nice to have).

- Not tied to phone numbers also really nice to have but not mandatory.

Our main threat is riot police and pro government thugs taking protesters phones and forcing people to unlock them or running away before the phone is locked then snooping around. Very rarely are people alone when this happens so we almost always get a notification that X is compromised, so we clear chats and kick them out of the group before their phones are really compromised.

I don't think the government is running sophisticated deep packet inspection. I don't think our group has been infiltrated but that is always a possibility.

We are also trying to find some free device management solution to remotely track / lock and maybe wipe phones when they get taken.

Sorry for the wall of text... just though now might be a good time to ask...

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#76

Post by wpietri »

m-p-3 wrote: post #46
mderazon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually going in the other direction with Signal I turned on timer (1 week) for all of my conversation. Nothing stays more than a week and I do not keep any backup. It's not for security or privacy reasons. I feel like I don't need a full history of all my conversations with everyone from the beginning of time. This fits more to the real life model of having a conversation with someone. I don't record my conversat…

I'm with you on that. Maybe it's just me, but I believe that a communication system (be Signal or email) is not designed for long term storage, it's just not efficient to keep structured data and not made for that purpose. If a fragment of a conversation is useful, I'd store it somewhere else safe just in case (Password Manager, as a secure note).

I think maybe we have different definitions of "useful".

I'm pretty stubborn about preserving my chat history; it goes back across several phone upgrades. When my dad died earlier this year, I was glad of it. I get to scroll back and see what we talked about.

If my choice was between secure comms and keeping history, I'd take keeping history. Surely many people are in the same boat. So if Signal wants to be truly ubiquitous (which increases security for all users), they really have to solve common user needs.

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#77

Post by wpietri »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #48
JoshTriplett wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the one and only feature I'm missing in Signal that would let me use it and recommend it to everyone without reservations (rather than exclusively for ephemeral-only communication) is the ability to keep identity and full message history when moving to a new device. Today, on iOS, you can't move your Signal history to a new device, and on Android you can only do so by manually making an encrypted backup fil…

I think I'm an exception in this instance, but I don't understand what value there is in message history. How often do you find yourself reminiscing by going back through a messaging log? If there are photos that should be kept then there are other ways to back them up. Is there valuable context in the conversation that was had around the delivery of the photo? Are messages backed up and restorable for other messagin…

Yes, you are an exception. Just look at how popular books of letters are: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/100260.Best_Books_of_Let...

Or look at how popular "Letters of Note" is: https://twitter.com/lettersofnote

Conversation is connection.

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#78

Post by wpietri »

juped wrote: post #22
tptacek wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we're talking about group messaging here.

Why would group Signal messages (a drop-in replacement for group texts) be compared to Slack?

Why would a group communication tool be compared with another group communication tool? What's the part you're missing there?

I have some friends I talk to in Signal groups. I have others I talk to in Slack. In both cases, the goal is the same: communicate privately with a known group of friends.

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#79

Post by drdaeman »

tptacek wrote: post #6
myu701 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Signal, and upsell it whenever I can. Signal has its ideosyncratic parts, some of which are being worked on, others not so much. Some of the more visible ones are IMO: Signal forces users to use phone numbers; some people don't like this because they want to use multiple ephemeral usernames so they can be 'Joe' to friends, 'kleptoclown' to their github group, 'dungeonmaster42' to their DND group, 'joesolutione…

It's really an engine for revealing people's true preferences for messaging, which, for many people, tend to be that they want all the ergonomics of Slack a lot more than they want cryptographically sound secure messaging. What's hopeful in all this is that Signal is, slowly, catching up. Slack can roll out new features just by assigning a couple developers to it, and Signal has to coordinate new cryptographic resear…

It is, but there's another aspect besides convenience and ergonomics. You surely know better than me that privacy and security are non-binary, and everyone has their threat scenarios.

In some cases, an ability to have multiple independent accounts/identities (pseudonymity) would - unfortunately but practically - beat true cryptographic security that Signal offers. I mean, personally, I'm less concerned about platform (e.g. Wire or Whatsapp) or some government agency learning that I'm talking to my buddies at certain schedule, than mixing up my acquaintances from different groups together, having to maintain a single identity for them all. Some people I talked with didn't knew my name or phone number, and I would be uncomfortable if they would. For me, in my life I've said less things I wouldn't want governments to learn about, than times I've used a pseudonym/throwaway account to talk to people.

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#80

Post by juped »

wpietri wrote: post #78
juped wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would group Signal messages (a drop-in replacement for group texts) be compared to Slack?

Why would a group communication tool be compared with another group communication tool? What's the part you're missing there? I have some friends I talk to in Signal groups. I have others I talk to in Slack. In both cases, the goal is the same: communicate privately with a known group of friends.

Please recall that earlier in the thread, the following was posted:

"[Signal is] really an engine for revealing people's true preferences for messaging, which, for many people, tend to be that they want all the ergonomics of Slack a lot more than they want cryptographically sound secure messaging."

This comparison to Slack makes no sense - Signal replaces texts and makes them end-to-end encrypted. It's a straight upgrade to texting (except, apparently, on iphone, where apple won't let the app send plain old texts and the "drop-in replacement" quality is neutered). It requires a phone number to use, and is linked to that phone number.

Signal is right to be what it is, and if Apple got out of the way, I would insist on replacing all texts with Signal. Replacing my Slacks with Signal or my Signal messages with Slack fails to type-check.

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