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Testing a new encrypted messaging app's extraordinary claims

crnkovic.dev

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Re: Testing a new encrypted messaging app's extraordinary claims

#3

Post by jazzyjackson »

There is software that lives up to these claims, it's Tinfoil Chat. The article is correct about the necessary trade-offs: due to peer to peer transport (onion hidden service 2 onion hidden service) both ends of the conversation have to be online -- it at least spools the message waiting for the recipient to appear.

For hole punching and signaling that has to be done by third party, well, the third party is TOR

TFC then goes on to break out the encryption and decryption machines from the network and passes messaging over opto-couplers to prevent your keys from getting exfiltrated. Qubes qrexec could similarly isolate the components.

https://github.com/maqp/tfc

Re: Testing a new encrypted messaging app's extraordinary claims

#4

Post by crnkovic »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #3

There is software that lives up to these claims, it's Tinfoil Chat. The article is correct about the necessary trade-offs: due to peer to peer transport (onion hidden service 2 onion hidden service) both ends of the conversation have to be online -- it at least spools the message waiting for the recipient to appear. For hole punching and signaling that has to be done by third party, well, the third party is TOR TFC t…

The problem with these tools is that they're extremely complicated to set up and use. Grandma wants a phone number, not a v3 Tor Onion Service address.

I'm interested in usable E2EE messaging apps -- that's what I compared Converso to. Whatever this is (I will read the docs some day) is in another realm.

Re: Testing a new encrypted messaging app's extraordinary claims

#6

Post by crnkovic »

cyclotron3k wrote: post #5

This is my absolute favourite kind of post on HN. It's got everything; intrigue, mystery, scandal and of course heavy on the technical side too. All packaged up in a compelling narrative.

Thanks! I'm glad you found it as interesting and thrilling as I did while discovering each (exponentially worse) mistake.
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