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TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs

micahflee.com

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Re: TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs

#81

Post by ethbr1 »

tptacek wrote: post #74
ethbr1 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetically, wouldn't the best Signal archiving be to make the custom client auto-add an archiving "user" to all chats, with that user only connected from secure archiving machines? Then convert archive user client text to whatever government encrypted form on that machine for long term storage? Curious what the best way of archiving with Signal's security model would be.

There's a reason Signal doesn't archive, and you have to fork it to make that happen.

"a reason"?

Re: TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs

#82

Post by tremon »

pvg wrote: post #19
hedora wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably, in the spectrum of secure network protocols, something exists between "delete the message before it can leave this machine" and "send this message to a cloud provider and have them email it in plain text to another cloud provider".

If you're sending plaintext out of an ostensible e2ee system, it's not an e2ee system. You have an 'end' that's not, you know, end-to-end.

The end that's relaying the plaintext is the user agent itself, not a third component in the system.

Re: TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs

#83

Post by Zambyte »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #41
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd find it useful if I could access my Signal chat logs in plaintext I'd probably also find it useful if I could access your Signal chat logs in plaintext. That's the problem.

If someone has enough control of the app to utilize its export-to-plaintext button you were SOL anyway, there are plenty of use cases for “export a password protected encrypted blob of chat history so I don’t lose everything every time I switch devices”

Signal already has exactly that? That isn't the same as a plain text export like the GP was saying though.

Re: TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs

#84

Post by Zambyte »

hedora wrote: post #13
proactivesvcs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and if the restore process wasn't so fragile. The only time I needed to backup and restore it just crashed part-way through, so the backup process wasn't even doing any validation.

The lack of encrypted (and cross platform) backups is the biggest security hole I know of in Signal. People inevitably end up working around it, which can mean using SMS, copying the threads / screenshots / attachments to arbitrary other storage, or switching to things like TeleMessage because of record keeping requirements. I wish Signal were less hostile towards forks. I'd happily switch to a client that uses their…

This comment confused me a lot, because Signal has encrypted backups, just not cross platform. Looking into it more, it seems that iOS only has a "transfer" option instead of allowing backups. It's hard not to suspect this is due to arbitrary limitations on filesystem access on iOS.

Re: TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs

#85

Post by pvg »

tremon wrote: post #82
pvg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're sending plaintext out of an ostensible e2ee system, it's not an e2ee system. You have an 'end' that's not, you know, end-to-end.

The end that's relaying the plaintext is the user agent itself, not a third component in the system.

There is no 'relaying plaintext' in an e2ee system.

Re: TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs

#87

Post by FireBeyond »

deepsun wrote: post #32
hedora wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably, in the spectrum of secure network protocols, something exists between "delete the message before it can leave this machine" and "send this message to a cloud provider and have them email it in plain text to another cloud provider".

And Email protocol backbone itself was not designed to be secure. It's worse than internet packets over HTTPS -- the secure connection is established between client and server, so man-in-the-middle cannot decrypt it. In email, connections are only secure between relays, so any relay can decrypt read your email. You cannot guarantee what relays are used. Similar to SMS.

This might have been the case back in the day - in the 90s, young me would get a kick out of seeing just how many SMTP servers my email passed through. But now, email communication is "essentially" point-to-point, and relays in use are configured/whitelisted.

My SMTP server will pull up your MX and talk directly to it. It might be your Exchange server, a Google server, or a third-party scanner that then sends on to your "real" MX.

But gone are the days of "Hey, I only know a few places to send this message, so I'll send to one of them and they'll forward it". Nor can you do anything akin to route poisoning or other things to try to insert yourself into the message flow.

Re: TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs

#88

Post by ceejayoz »

khaki54 wrote: post #46

This may be a factual but not truthful article. This was initially framed to appear like the Trump Administration was doing something out of the ordinary by using Signal. There were also accusations that they were using Signal's disappearing message feature to conceal their activities from the authorities, and that they were breaking the Presidential Records Act, etc. Now it's revealed that they are using a version t…

> First and foremost, the Signal infrastructure was setup in most cases by the previous administration!

That's likely also true for the phones on their desks.

You're still not allowed to call me up and disclose in advance the battle plans for an attack on Yemen on your phone, though.

Re: TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs

#89

Post by tremon »

pvg wrote: post #85
tremon wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The end that's relaying the plaintext is the user agent itself, not a third component in the system.

There is no 'relaying plaintext' in an e2ee system.

Sure, 100% agreed. But the way you phrased the earlier post implied that there was a third "end" to the system that was doing the plaintext leaking, and that's not the case (assuming I understood the description correctly, and it's accurate).

Re: TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs

#90

Post by mersorion »

Stories like this are why we started the gospl.chat project I've been part of. Most so called “secure” systems sabotage themselves not by accident, but because of compromises. There's always an attempt to “secure the system” for the system which often results in architectures that fail the people they're supposed to protect. Industry headliners often focus on encryption protocols, but E2EE alone doesn’t guarantee safety. If a user or business finds themselves in a life-threatening situation most messaging platforms will do nothing to protect them and may even become part of the threat. We approached gospl.chat from the opposite direction - modeled real world threats and built a communication system that minimizes the risk of harm, even in worst-case scenarios. Security isn’t just about math. It’s about context. It’s about the environment where an app is used and how it behaves when things go wrong. Our goal isn’t to win a crypto audit. It’s to make sure no one loses their freedom, safety, or life because of a message.
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