6 ms·

Don't forget that Telegram uses custom in house encryption and they say "trust us", it's good. Telegram encryption can't be verified.

dest 11y ago
As long as the clients are open-source and the encryption is end to end, can't it really be verified? Whatever the server, if the client encryption is reliable, data can't be read on the server side.
- pfg 11y ago
  if the client encryption is reliable It's not[1]. [1]: https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf
  - janinge 11y ago
    It is not, or was not? Did this issue get rectified by Telegram?
    - CiPHPerCoder 11y ago
      No, they still use MTProto and not an AEAD construction.
      - janinge 11y ago
        I was referring to the padding attack. Did they patch this? And are there any property of MTProto that makes it infeasible to replace AES IGE in a later revision of the protocol?
        CiPHPerCoder 11y ago
        The problem isn't IGE. It's that they're using SHA1 (not HMAC-SHA1) in a "MAC and Encrypt" construction.
- nickik 11y ago
  Its still their own crypto. Even if you have the code, their could be a mathematical weakness that is unknwon to anybody outside the company. The protocol has not been studied a lot.
  - nxzero 11y ago
    Has anyone offer to fund an audit of the code/crypto/workflow? If not, it'd be nice Moxie would spec out a public request for funds via some sort of crowdfunding and means to post public offers to audit the code based on the funds raised.
    - nickik 11y ago
      Moxie has asked them multible times but they dont seem to care.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - nxzero 11y ago
        Oh, interesting, not a huge suprise, though guess I wasn't clear, I was talking about auditing the open source stuff, not Facebook. Basically, crowdfunded audits of open source crypto tech have been done before; I'd be up for helping with this if it made sense, since currently my sec dev skill are not that useful: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-truecrypt-audit#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-truecrypt-audit#/ -- Might be worth funding a exploitable bug bounty too.
nahumba 11y ago
The custom in house encryption is a protocol that if tou have the skill to break, go collect 200,000$ in bitcoins https://telegram.org/crypto_contest https://telegram.org/crypto_contest
- MrMullen 11y ago
  > Telegram backer, Pavel Durov, will give $200,000 in BTC to the first person to break Telegram' encrypted protocol. Starting today, each day Paul (+79112317383) will be sending a message containing a secret email address to Nick (+79218944725). In order to prove that Telegram crypto was indeed deciphered and claim your prize, send an email to the secret email address from Paul’s message. That is a fairly ridiculous challenge. Your average crypto professional is not going to have access to the communications channels between the two phones. The NSA or CIA or other government group might, but not really anyone else. Putting this up as a challenge is just silly.

dest 11y ago

As long as the clients are open-source and the encryption is end to end, can't it really be verified? Whatever the server, if the client encryption is reliable, data can't be read on the server side.

pfg 11y ago
if the client encryption is reliable It's not[1]. [1]: https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf
- janinge 11y ago
  It is not, or was not? Did this issue get rectified by Telegram?
  - CiPHPerCoder 11y ago
    No, they still use MTProto and not an AEAD construction.
    - janinge 11y ago
      I was referring to the padding attack. Did they patch this? And are there any property of MTProto that makes it infeasible to replace AES IGE in a later revision of the protocol?
      - CiPHPerCoder 11y ago
        The problem isn't IGE. It's that they're using SHA1 (not HMAC-SHA1) in a "MAC and Encrypt" construction.
nickik 11y ago
Its still their own crypto. Even if you have the code, their could be a mathematical weakness that is unknwon to anybody outside the company. The protocol has not been studied a lot.
- nxzero 11y ago
  Has anyone offer to fund an audit of the code/crypto/workflow? If not, it'd be nice Moxie would spec out a public request for funds via some sort of crowdfunding and means to post public offers to audit the code based on the funds raised.
  - nickik 11y ago
    Moxie has asked them multible times but they dont seem to care.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - nxzero 11y ago
      Oh, interesting, not a huge suprise, though guess I wasn't clear, I was talking about auditing the open source stuff, not Facebook. Basically, crowdfunded audits of open source crypto tech have been done before; I'd be up for helping with this if it made sense, since currently my sec dev skill are not that useful: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-truecrypt-audit#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-truecrypt-audit#/ -- Might be worth funding a exploitable bug bounty too.

nahumba 11y ago

The custom in house encryption is a protocol that if tou have the skill to break, go collect 200,000$ in bitcoins https://telegram.org/crypto_contest https://telegram.org/crypto_contest

MrMullen 11y ago
> Telegram backer, Pavel Durov, will give $200,000 in BTC to the first person to break Telegram' encrypted protocol. Starting today, each day Paul (+79112317383) will be sending a message containing a secret email address to Nick (+79218944725). In order to prove that Telegram crypto was indeed deciphered and claim your prize, send an email to the secret email address from Paul’s message. That is a fairly ridiculous challenge. Your average crypto professional is not going to have access to the communications channels between the two phones. The NSA or CIA or other government group might, but not really anyone else. Putting this up as a challenge is just silly.