Signal under fire for storing encryption keys in plaintext
1–10 of 22 posts
Re: Signal under fire for storing encryption keys in plaintext
#2as a reminder, this is just the desktop version not Android.
good catch. this kind of technical analysis makes signal a stronger application. now if only someone could convince Marlinspike to get off his high horse and de-centralize the service.
AWS is a terrible host. its all too willing to de-platform, as was evidenced when Senator Joe Liebermann politely requested they de-platform Assange and Wikileaks.
Re: Signal under fire for storing encryption keys in plaintext
#3I believe it could be useful to update the title to mention that this only happens in the desktop application. I personally only use the mobile app, and while I'm aware I might be biased, I didn't even know a desktop Signal application existed.
Not saying the severity of the issue is lower because of it, just that it might not impact as many people as the current title would suggest.
Re: Signal under fire for storing encryption keys in plaintext
#4How are they supposed to store them? Unless there’s a password required to use the app, is the only other option a fixed key, or maybe something derived from the account name or something? All of this feels like obfuscation though, if we’re targeting malware specifically designed to collect signal data, they can probably just work around this. Maybe a TPM? Or an OS-provided keychain?
Re: Signal under fire for storing encryption keys in plaintext
#5[deleted]
Re: Signal under fire for storing encryption keys in plaintext
#6as a reminder, this is just the desktop version not Android. good catch. this kind of technical analysis makes signal a stronger application. now if only someone could convince Marlinspike to get off his high horse and de-centralize the service. AWS is a terrible host. its all too willing to de-platform, as was evidenced when Senator Joe Liebermann politely requested they de-platform Assange and Wikileaks.
[deleted]
Re: Signal under fire for storing encryption keys in plaintext
#7How are they supposed to store them? Unless there’s a password required to use the app, is the only other option a fixed key, or maybe something derived from the account name or something? All of this feels like obfuscation though, if we’re targeting malware specifically designed to collect signal data, they can probably just work around this. Maybe a TPM? Or an OS-provided keychain?
MacOS provides a keychain for use by applications.
Re: Signal under fire for storing encryption keys in plaintext
#8as a reminder, this is just the desktop version not Android. good catch. this kind of technical analysis makes signal a stronger application. now if only someone could convince Marlinspike to get off his high horse and de-centralize the service. AWS is a terrible host. its all too willing to de-platform, as was evidenced when Senator Joe Liebermann politely requested they de-platform Assange and Wikileaks.
very, very early on in Signal, back when it was still called TextSecure, they did actually federate with other servers, in particular with servers run by CyanogenMod (predecessor of LineageOS, briefly a commercial startup, now defunct).
https://signal.org/blog/cyanogen-integration/
It seems like this was a very bad experience for Open Whisper Systems which is why they don't like decentralization.
Maybe the arguments for and against have changed since then.
But it's not like they just refuse to try it for no reason.
Re: Signal under fire for storing encryption keys in plaintext
#9as a reminder, this is just the desktop version not Android. good catch. this kind of technical analysis makes signal a stronger application. now if only someone could convince Marlinspike to get off his high horse and de-centralize the service. AWS is a terrible host. its all too willing to de-platform, as was evidenced when Senator Joe Liebermann politely requested they de-platform Assange and Wikileaks.
very, very early on in Signal, back when it was still called TextSecure, they did actually federate with other servers, in particular with servers run by CyanogenMod (predecessor of LineageOS, briefly a commercial startup, now defunct). https://signal.org/blog/cyanogen-integration/ It seems like this was a very bad experience for Open Whisper Systems which is why they don't like decentralization. Maybe the arguments…
Moxie wrote about why they stopped: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/
Re: Signal under fire for storing encryption keys in plaintext
#10What is the threat model here?
When the device is stolen or lost it better protects data at rest with full disk encryption.
When the account operating Signal or the machine as a whole was taken over, the attacker can observe everything the user does and can do everything the user is entitled to do. When the data is accessible to the user, it will be accessible to the attacker and there's nothing anyone can do about it.