10 ms·

Viber adds end-to-end encryption

Inthenameofmine 10y ago
Viber has become a shadow of its former self. It regularly crashes all phones in my family, you get message notifications way too late, and it takes up a ton of storage on your phone.
nxzero 10y ago
End-to-end (E2E) code needs to be open source and venders that don't agree to an audit should be considered insecure; holds true for What's App, which declined to allow their E2E code to be audited. Also, message metadata is still being leaked by all of these E2E implementations and needs to be fixed.
- ryanlol 10y ago
  That's just an utterly ridiculous proposition. By that logic the entire application would need to be open source, because nobody would start out by targeting the crypto if they wanted to spy on someone.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    Ideally it would be possible to use third party clients to connect, and so anyone could use a fully open source solution if they wanted.
    - ryanlol 10y ago
      That's fair! But you need far more than just the crypto code to create a client, I think open source protocol specs would already achieve this. And my main complaint was with the claim that open sourcing their crypto code would somehow make a meaningful difference to the security of these applications to the extent where you could consider all applications that haven't done so "insecure".
      - CaptSpify 10y ago
        I don't think I get your complaint Without open-sourcing the crypto, they could be just doing rot16($message) for all we know. Open-source is a requirement for being considered secure. It doesn't mean they aren't secure if they aren't open-source, but that you shouldn't consider it so, because you don't know if it is or not.
        CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
        > I don't think I get your complaint > Without open-sourcing the crypto, they could be just doing rot16($message) for all we know. There are two things you can do: 1. Watch the outbound traffic and attempt known-plaintext attacks 2. Reverse engineer the app Neither is particularly difficult. Most Android apps are trivial to break apart using Lobotomy. A large swath of software security folks specialize in binary auditing.
        ikeboy 10y ago
        Has anyone done that and produced a fully open source app to connect to whatsapp?
        ryanlol 10y ago
        Lots of people. https://github.com/tgalal/yowsup https://github.com/tgalal/yowsup for example
        ikeboy 10y ago
        Looks like WhatsApp isn't so happy about that ... https://gigaom.com/2015/01/20/whatsapp-cracks-down-on-people-using-unofficial-clients/ https://gigaom.com/2015/01/20/whatsapp-cracks-down-on-people... Do you know if the clients work with the new encryption?
        ryanlol 10y ago
        Yes, axolotl is open source. (However I can't comment on how much it's been modified for the official client)
  - tremon 10y ago
    Even if I were to accept your logic, what's ridiculous about that?
    - ryanlol 10y ago
      Open sourcing the crypto code wouldn't be ridiculous, but pointless. What I find ridiculous though was >venders that don't agree to an audit should be considered insecure The same thing applies to every single part of the application, but not equally. No attacker is going to start out by trying to break the crypto, unless it's obviously broken. "Normal" bugs are far more common and often more dangerous (Thing RCE, or in the case of many modern apps: XSS)
      - CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
        > No attacker is going to start out by trying to break the crypto, unless it's obviously broken. Emphasis mine. I agree with ryanlol here. Why bother with active attacks when you can just steal their private key from a code execution? Similar to this, but with the priority flipped: https://www.bishopfox.com/blog/2016/04/if-you-cant-break-crypto-break-the-client-recovery-of-plaintext-imessage-data/ https://www.bishopfox.com/blog/2016/04/if-you-cant-break-cry...
  - imaginenore 10y ago
    ryanlol is correct though. If you open source just the end-to-end crypto part, it doesn't mean that the there's no backdoor elsewhere - it could easily leak the keys or whole conversations. The second problem is - you don't know if that source is what ended up in the binary. So yeah, unless you can compile the whole thing yourself, it should not be considered secure.
    - exo762 10y ago
      Open source client and reproducible builds. Signal already does that. It's not a high bar.
      - ryanlol 10y ago
        That's a completely different from just wanting the e2e crypto source, which is useless by itself. https://www.bishopfox.com/blog/2016/04/if-you-cant-break-crypto-break-the-client-recovery-of-plaintext-imessage-data/ https://www.bishopfox.com/blog/2016/04/if-you-cant-break-cry...
        nxzero 10y ago
        What to you are steps towards the mass adoption of universal turnkey state-level OPSEC for everyday use? ___ So, my point that the E2E should be open source is that that code should never be the basis for a business model, so to me, it being open source makes sense. As larger system, that's why I'm saying there needs to be an audit. Also, you mentioned ATP and I agree, which is why to me it is troubling Signal instead of guarding metadata, actively collects it. Please let me know I have missed anything you'd like me to address. And I really would be interested in your thought on the question above in as much detail as you're able to share. Thanks!
- mtgx 10y ago
  Would open sourcing the Whatsapp client hurt Whatsapp in any significant way? I mean, sure, there could be "Whatsapp clones" (aren't there already?!), but wouldn't Whatsapp still benefit from the phone number user base it has, thus maintaining a certain lock-in on its users from which it already benefits?
  - andrey_utkin 10y ago
    > I mean, sure, there could be "Whatsapp clones" (aren't there already?!) Sounds funny if you consider that Whatsapp itself is just a branded deployment of FOSS XMPP server Ejabberd, with feature of federation taken away. Plus a client app implementation, of course.
    - jeena 10y ago
      That is only possible because Ejabberd doesn't use the AGPL license.
      - goodplay 10y ago
        Come on, it would definitely still be possible with AGPL code. What brought people to whatsapp is its ubiquity and the fact that it just works, and what keeps them from going elsewhere is the inevitable network effect. Nothing in the AGPL prevents either from occurring.
        onli 10y ago
        I think you are misunderstanding jeena. If ejabberd were AGPL, then a fork/a instance of it like Whatsapp would be legally obliged to open up their code as well. No idea whether the assumption is true that Whatsapp is just a branded deployment.
        goodplay 10y ago
        I still don't understand how opening up the codebase would prevent them from being successful. As the countless messaging apps out there demonstrate, the value of communication apps lies in the network they build. If they provide a decent UX, and successfully bootstrap a network large enough, it wont matter if their code is open.
- mikeokner 10y ago
  > Also, message metadata is still being leaked by all of these E2E implementations and needs to be fixed. Ricochet (https://ricochet.im/ https://ricochet.im/) solves that problem using Tor hidden services. Desktop only at the moment AFAIK, though.
  - nxzero 10y ago
    Are there any stats posted on the size of the network? (either from Tor or P2P network analysis)
  - vox_mollis 10y ago
    One great benefit to ricochet is that you can choose to exclude those with whom you are communicating from your COMSEC threat model, due to the lack of (mostly connection) metadata availability.
    - nxzero 10y ago
      Sounds interesting. Appears to have a lot of docs/code, are you able to link to the related code & docs?
- tptacek 10y ago
  WhatsApp's "E2E" code is from Signal, which is open source. This zealous belief that all secure cryptography must be open source is something I hear a lot from open source advocates, but not so much from cryptography engineers.
  - arbsn 10y ago
    Is the encryption/decryption code in WhatsApp open-source? I haven't been able to find it. My assumption was that they conform to the Signal encryption protocol, which is openly specified, but that the code they use to do so is not open-source.
    - moxie 10y ago
      Yes, it is. It's linked directly from the paper (https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-Whitepaper.pdf https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-Whitepap...) that documents their use of the protocol. It's the exact same code we use in Signal: https://github.com/whispersystems/libsignal-protocol-java https://github.com/whispersystems/libsignal-protocol-java
  - AJ007 10y ago
    The value is not just the public display of the source code for auditing, but the validation that what you are running was indeed compiled from that code.
    - russell_h 10y ago
      Simply open sourcing the code doesn't give that validation.
      - AckSyn 10y ago
        Not completely but I can certainly look at it, compile, and then side-load it onto my device knowing it's what it said it was.
    - brianacton 10y ago
- moxie 10y ago
  > which declined to allow their E2E code to be audited. Could you cite this? The Signal Protocol implementations they're using are both open source and well audited.
wodenokoto 10y ago
Get news to see other services following in the footsteps of WhatsApp!
- skrowl 10y ago
  Telegram had e2e private chats for over a year before WhatsApp added e2e
  - exo762 10y ago
    Does bad crypto counts? I don't think so.
    - goodplay 10y ago
      I keep seeing this accusation get flung around whenever someone mentions telegram but never proof. I remember telegram had a vulnerability once and then it was patched just like any other security software. You shouldn't throw around accusations without proof.
      - CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
        Here's your proof: http://cs.au.dk/~jakjak/master-thesis.pdf http://cs.au.dk/~jakjak/master-thesis.pdf See also: http://www.cryptofails.com/post/70546720222/telegrams-cryptanalysis-contest http://www.cryptofails.com/post/70546720222/telegrams-crypta... https://moxie.org/blog/telegram-crypto-challenge/ https://moxie.org/blog/telegram-crypto-challenge/
        goodplay 10y ago
        Is it cryptographicly broken or not? Can I read the plain text of the traffic I capture?
        CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
        https://tonyarcieri.com/all-the-crypto-code-youve-ever-written-is-probably-broken https://tonyarcieri.com/all-the-crypto-code-youve-ever-writt... The word "broken" means susceptible to practical attack, and attacks aren't always of the "cryptanalyze the ciphertext and read the plaintext because you're a clever mathematician" variety. For example: Padding Oracle Attacks. This is the most accessible explanation on-hand: https://twitter.com/SoatokDhole/status/720435675401744385 https://twitter.com/SoatokDhole/status/720435675401744385 A padding oracle attack lets you decrypt a message by studying how the cryptosystem responds to garbage input. Without recovering the key. iMessage had a compression oracle attack recently: http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2016/03/attack-of-week-apple-imessage.html http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2016/03/attack-of-we... They didn't merely "read the plain text of the traffic [they] capture[d]". But these systems were still, quite badly, broken. So what's my point? Telegram's protocol is susceptible to the same class of active attack. Thus, it is broken.
pttrsmrt 10y ago
More great news from the world of communication, but yet again I'm wondering how we can trust the encryption to really be end-to-end without access to the code. Are the messages still traveling through Vibers servers? Is there any way to know?
- dkopi 10y ago
  "I'm wondering how we can trust the encryption" You can't. Not unless the company employees security experts, has a significant bug bounty program (with significant rewards), is open to a degree about their securit architecture, and is popular enough for white hats to actively seek out bugs. This isn't about trusting that the company isn't try to dupe you. It's about trusting that the company can implement security properly, and that enough "good" people will find security flaws before the "bad" guys do.
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    You're both saying the same thing. As for the good people vs. bad people argument, it should be noted that the good people have a harder job than the bad people. For the bad people to do their job, they only have to find one exploit, whereas the good people have to find most/all of them to have made the system secure. That's why employing people to work on security matters (whether through a bug bounty program or through direct employment), a company that values security shouldn't rely on unpaid volunteers alone.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    How much do you think a WhatsApp passive decryption bug would be worth? They don't seem to have a bug bounty, I wonder how much something would go for on the black market.
dkopi 10y ago
"Along with the encryption, there are some other privacy features getting added into the latest version of the app. Hidden chats will give users the ability to essentially “hide” certain conversations from their usage log, accessible only if you know a specified four-digit PIN" Can anyone with Viber describe what happens when you get a new message from a hidden chat partner? Does a notification show? how does that notification look?
ikeboy 10y ago
>The enhanced delete feature, meanwhile, has been in the app for a while, but is part of the company’s is a way for users to wipe a conversation not just on their end, but on that of the recipient’s phone. You can think of this as Viber’s answer to ephemeral messaging, but with a more manual approach. Does anyone else think this is a violation of users' rights? If I've been sent a message, it shouldn't be possible for the server to delete it. I could screenshot everything, or run a tweak that saves everything. Imagine if Gmail started allowing senders to remove email they've already sent and has been delivered.
- robbiemitchell 10y ago
  What do you mean by "user's rights" and by "sent"? Why shouldn't it be possible? If the TOS and app allow and enable it, it can be done. This sounds no different from, say, Snapchat, except that the deletion is triggered by the sender instead of by a timer.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    It's the same thing people complain about wrt unfree software, e.g. Kindle deleting purchased books remotely if they were uploaded by someone without the rights to the book. The difference with snapshot is that their whole gimmick was the deleting thing. You had no expectation of permanency. But I'm sure many use Viber with the expectation that they'll be able to access old communications; after all, it's on their own device. Sure, they have the right to do it, in the same way that Gmail could implement the same anti feature, in the same way Amazon had the right to delete books. But that just causes me not to use them, just like I'd stop using Gmail if they did that. (I still use a Kindle, but I've only ever purchased one book, and read it right away. I'm not dependent on them not deleting my books.)
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      If a service offers a feature, it's within customers' rights to use that feature. If Viber is unilaterally deleting messages, that's an issue (as ephemeral messaging doesn't seem to be their primary intent). But if Alice is able to delete her messages to Bob on Bob's device, and both know this (or should know this, they chose the messaging platform), Bob has not had his rights violated. He's complying with Alice's request (automatically). The comparison to Amazon is not apt. That was Amazon, not the seller of the book, that chose to delete it (in that case because the seller didn't have a right to sell, though given it was 1984 it was rather amusing/ironic). If, for instance, Amazon's digital platform allowed sellers to remove their content from Amazon's listings AND from "buyers'" devices, then 1) no one should be too surprised when it happens, 2) no one should use that platform.
toonies555 10y ago
so crypto was on their roadmap but gifs weren't
carlob 10y ago
So basically now Telegram is the only app not doing it by default?
- fabrice_d 10y ago
  Add skype and hangouts to your list...
  - isilauzelis 10y ago
    And Facebook Messenger.
DonHopkins 10y ago
What really impresses me about Viber is the way they went all out and splurged with an honest to god penultimate "e" before the final "r". Most dot-com companies would have settled for "Vibr", but they went the distance and bought an authentic luxurious vowel, precisely where it was called for, without going overboard and throwing in a sometimes-vowel "y" in place of the "i". Very bold and straightforward spelling, I must say. Color me impressed!
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dkopi 10y ago
  Viber is an Israeli company, don't be so judgmental of their poor startup spelling skills.
  - DonHopkins 10y ago
    No, you misunderstand: I am truly and earnestly impressed by their good spelling, not criticizing any bad grammar. If they'd named it "Vybr," it would have come off like Steve Buscemie holding a skateboard over his shoulder wearing a MUSIC BAND t-shirt, desperately trying to appeal to the youth demographic.
    - dkopi 10y ago
      Read that one again with </sarcasm> at the end :)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- levelist_com 10y ago
  Or ... people name their products/companies based on their ability to secure a proper domain name, rather than being some hipster startup founder trying to appear edgy. Does Viber seem like a name that would be taken?! Listd.com vs listed.com was one I had to deal with some time ago.
sickbeard 10y ago
In other news, the FBI now offers end-to-end encryption
manishsharan 10y ago
I was forced to uninstall Viber on account of the SPAM I was getting. I have been trying to figure out how the spammers got my viber contact information.
ecesena 10y ago
Can't we just call it TLS? Every time I read "end-to-end encryption" I'm afraid they just invented some weird security mechanism. Plus it's 3 chars.
- dchest 10y ago
  It's not TLS.
  - ecesena 10y ago
    Ugh. Should we be scared then?
    - ascorbic 10y ago
      TLS would normally be used between the client and server. Viber may use TLS for that too, though WhatsApp and Signal use Noise pipes for that purpose. The point of end to end encryption is that they're also encrypting the messages so that they can't be read on the server. Don't know what Viber is using, but moxie posted a link to the details about WhatsApp's implementation. https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-Whitepaper.pdf https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-Whitepap...
    - CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
      TLS is Transport Layer Security. When we're talking about End-to-End Encryption, we usually mean: * Application Layer Security (between users) * Transport Layer Security (between each user and the server) And here, Security should mean public key authenticated encryption (e.g. crypto_box() from NaCl)
dingo_bat 10y ago
So will EFF now endorse Viber as strongly as they endorsed Whatsapp?
- Johnny_Brahms 10y ago
  not with that little info from Viber. According to Frederic Jacobs (one of the OpenWhisperSystems devs) they are relying on md5 for cryptographic hashing :(
tptacek 10y ago
It sounds like there's not yet any published details on what the crypto Viber's using is. Can we withhold judgement until we get that? I'm fine with closed-source, but not with no technical documentation. Most people who try to implement cryptographically secure messaging get it badly wrong.
- morgante 10y ago
  We absolutely do need to get some documentation to judge whether Viber has good crypto. That being said, we can still judge them positively for at least trying to secure their user's messages end-to-end.
cpach 10y ago
Frederic Jacobs, one of the Signal authors: ”Viber’s encryption appears to be a custom C++ implementation. Super reassuring they use MD5 for attachments.” https://twitter.com/FredericJacobs/status/722489499779858432 https://twitter.com/FredericJacobs/status/722489499779858432
deleted 10y ago
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giancarlostoro 10y ago
I always enjoyed using Viber, but I never liked that it featured no encryption. It is an alternative for Skype for me, I could video call from my phone, laptop, tablet, etc and do audio calls. Skype became insecure, it leaks your IP address and it's got terrible synchronization issues, and now chatting is really buggy, messages show up in the wrong place for me, as well as the Linux client for it sucks. Viber has a good all around client for every OS I've used it in (including Linux). This is fantastic news, as others have said, maybe they should really open source the portions of code that have to deal with E2E encryption so it may be audited.
- skrowl 10y ago
  Skype stopped leaking your IP address earlier this year. It existed before that, but is now the default behavior. http://blogs.skype.com/2016/01/21/to-our-gamers-ip-will-now-be-hidden-by-default-in-latest-update/ http://blogs.skype.com/2016/01/21/to-our-gamers-ip-will-now-...
  - giancarlostoro 10y ago
    It says "by default" implying it could still be leaked, their "fix" is a Skype setting that masks your IP until you're in a call with somebody.
secfirstmd 10y ago
I highly recommend following the updates from Frederic Jacobs on his Twitter. He has already found a number of significant flaws with Viber encryption... "Wow, Viber disables crypto based on geo-location? Export controls related?" https://twitter.com/FredericJacobs/status/722511416381480961 https://twitter.com/FredericJacobs/status/722511416381480961 "Viber’s encryption appears to be a custom C++ implementation. Super reassuring they use MD5 for attachments." pic.twitter.com/wi6lB30KjY https://twitter.com/FredericJacobs/status/722489499779858432 https://twitter.com/FredericJacobs/status/722489499779858432
agsimeonov 10y ago
I am honestly surprised that they hadn't done so earlier.
karon 10y ago
I wouldn't touch Viber with a ten foot pole, even if their entire crypto implementation was open source (which it is not). The company was founded by an ex-military (some sources say ex-Mossad) dude. He is also connected to several spyware applications. “Talmon served for four years in the Israel Defense Forces and held the position of CIO of the central command. He graduated Cum Laude from the Tel-Aviv University with a degree in Computer Science and Management.” More here: https://viberphoneapp.wordpress.com/ https://viberphoneapp.wordpress.com/ http://www.moh10ly.com/home/security/viberisaspy http://www.moh10ly.com/home/security/viberisaspy http://www.jpost.com/Business/Business-Features/Japans-Rakuten-acquires-Israeli-tech-company-Viber-for-900-million-341447 http://www.jpost.com/Business/Business-Features/Japans-Rakut... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/viber-founder-talmon-marco-privacy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/viber-fou...

Viber has become a shadow of its former self. It regularly crashes all phones in my family, you get message notifications way too late, and it takes up a ton of storage on your phone.

nxzero 10y ago

End-to-end (E2E) code needs to be open source and venders that don't agree to an audit should be considered insecure; holds true for What's App, which declined to allow their E2E code to be audited. Also, message metadata is still being leaked by all of these E2E implementations and needs to be fixed.

ryanlol 10y ago
That's just an utterly ridiculous proposition. By that logic the entire application would need to be open source, because nobody would start out by targeting the crypto if they wanted to spy on someone.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  Ideally it would be possible to use third party clients to connect, and so anyone could use a fully open source solution if they wanted.
  - ryanlol 10y ago
    That's fair! But you need far more than just the crypto code to create a client, I think open source protocol specs would already achieve this. And my main complaint was with the claim that open sourcing their crypto code would somehow make a meaningful difference to the security of these applications to the extent where you could consider all applications that haven't done so "insecure".
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      I don't think I get your complaint Without open-sourcing the crypto, they could be just doing rot16($message) for all we know. Open-source is a requirement for being considered secure. It doesn't mean they aren't secure if they aren't open-source, but that you shouldn't consider it so, because you don't know if it is or not.
      - CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
        > I don't think I get your complaint > Without open-sourcing the crypto, they could be just doing rot16($message) for all we know. There are two things you can do: 1. Watch the outbound traffic and attempt known-plaintext attacks 2. Reverse engineer the app Neither is particularly difficult. Most Android apps are trivial to break apart using Lobotomy. A large swath of software security folks specialize in binary auditing.
        ikeboy 10y ago
        Has anyone done that and produced a fully open source app to connect to whatsapp?
        ryanlol 10y ago
        Lots of people. https://github.com/tgalal/yowsup https://github.com/tgalal/yowsup for example
        ikeboy 10y ago
        Looks like WhatsApp isn't so happy about that ... https://gigaom.com/2015/01/20/whatsapp-cracks-down-on-people-using-unofficial-clients/ https://gigaom.com/2015/01/20/whatsapp-cracks-down-on-people... Do you know if the clients work with the new encryption?
        ryanlol 10y ago
        Yes, axolotl is open source. (However I can't comment on how much it's been modified for the official client)
- tremon 10y ago
  Even if I were to accept your logic, what's ridiculous about that?
  - ryanlol 10y ago
    Open sourcing the crypto code wouldn't be ridiculous, but pointless. What I find ridiculous though was >venders that don't agree to an audit should be considered insecure The same thing applies to every single part of the application, but not equally. No attacker is going to start out by trying to break the crypto, unless it's obviously broken. "Normal" bugs are far more common and often more dangerous (Thing RCE, or in the case of many modern apps: XSS)
    - CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
      > No attacker is going to start out by trying to break the crypto, unless it's obviously broken. Emphasis mine. I agree with ryanlol here. Why bother with active attacks when you can just steal their private key from a code execution? Similar to this, but with the priority flipped: https://www.bishopfox.com/blog/2016/04/if-you-cant-break-crypto-break-the-client-recovery-of-plaintext-imessage-data/ https://www.bishopfox.com/blog/2016/04/if-you-cant-break-cry...
- imaginenore 10y ago
  ryanlol is correct though. If you open source just the end-to-end crypto part, it doesn't mean that the there's no backdoor elsewhere - it could easily leak the keys or whole conversations. The second problem is - you don't know if that source is what ended up in the binary. So yeah, unless you can compile the whole thing yourself, it should not be considered secure.
  - exo762 10y ago
    Open source client and reproducible builds. Signal already does that. It's not a high bar.
    - ryanlol 10y ago
      That's a completely different from just wanting the e2e crypto source, which is useless by itself. https://www.bishopfox.com/blog/2016/04/if-you-cant-break-crypto-break-the-client-recovery-of-plaintext-imessage-data/ https://www.bishopfox.com/blog/2016/04/if-you-cant-break-cry...
      - nxzero 10y ago
        What to you are steps towards the mass adoption of universal turnkey state-level OPSEC for everyday use? ___ So, my point that the E2E should be open source is that that code should never be the basis for a business model, so to me, it being open source makes sense. As larger system, that's why I'm saying there needs to be an audit. Also, you mentioned ATP and I agree, which is why to me it is troubling Signal instead of guarding metadata, actively collects it. Please let me know I have missed anything you'd like me to address. And I really would be interested in your thought on the question above in as much detail as you're able to share. Thanks!
mtgx 10y ago
Would open sourcing the Whatsapp client hurt Whatsapp in any significant way? I mean, sure, there could be "Whatsapp clones" (aren't there already?!), but wouldn't Whatsapp still benefit from the phone number user base it has, thus maintaining a certain lock-in on its users from which it already benefits?
- andrey_utkin 10y ago
  > I mean, sure, there could be "Whatsapp clones" (aren't there already?!) Sounds funny if you consider that Whatsapp itself is just a branded deployment of FOSS XMPP server Ejabberd, with feature of federation taken away. Plus a client app implementation, of course.
  - jeena 10y ago
    That is only possible because Ejabberd doesn't use the AGPL license.
    - goodplay 10y ago
      Come on, it would definitely still be possible with AGPL code. What brought people to whatsapp is its ubiquity and the fact that it just works, and what keeps them from going elsewhere is the inevitable network effect. Nothing in the AGPL prevents either from occurring.
      - onli 10y ago
        I think you are misunderstanding jeena. If ejabberd were AGPL, then a fork/a instance of it like Whatsapp would be legally obliged to open up their code as well. No idea whether the assumption is true that Whatsapp is just a branded deployment.
        goodplay 10y ago
        I still don't understand how opening up the codebase would prevent them from being successful. As the countless messaging apps out there demonstrate, the value of communication apps lies in the network they build. If they provide a decent UX, and successfully bootstrap a network large enough, it wont matter if their code is open.
mikeokner 10y ago
> Also, message metadata is still being leaked by all of these E2E implementations and needs to be fixed. Ricochet (https://ricochet.im/ https://ricochet.im/) solves that problem using Tor hidden services. Desktop only at the moment AFAIK, though.
- nxzero 10y ago
  Are there any stats posted on the size of the network? (either from Tor or P2P network analysis)
- vox_mollis 10y ago
  One great benefit to ricochet is that you can choose to exclude those with whom you are communicating from your COMSEC threat model, due to the lack of (mostly connection) metadata availability.
  - nxzero 10y ago
    Sounds interesting. Appears to have a lot of docs/code, are you able to link to the related code & docs?
tptacek 10y ago
WhatsApp's "E2E" code is from Signal, which is open source. This zealous belief that all secure cryptography must be open source is something I hear a lot from open source advocates, but not so much from cryptography engineers.
- arbsn 10y ago
  Is the encryption/decryption code in WhatsApp open-source? I haven't been able to find it. My assumption was that they conform to the Signal encryption protocol, which is openly specified, but that the code they use to do so is not open-source.
  - moxie 10y ago
    Yes, it is. It's linked directly from the paper (https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-Whitepaper.pdf https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-Whitepap...) that documents their use of the protocol. It's the exact same code we use in Signal: https://github.com/whispersystems/libsignal-protocol-java https://github.com/whispersystems/libsignal-protocol-java
- AJ007 10y ago
  The value is not just the public display of the source code for auditing, but the validation that what you are running was indeed compiled from that code.
  - russell_h 10y ago
    Simply open sourcing the code doesn't give that validation.
    - AckSyn 10y ago
      Not completely but I can certainly look at it, compile, and then side-load it onto my device knowing it's what it said it was.
  - brianacton 10y ago
moxie 10y ago
> which declined to allow their E2E code to be audited. Could you cite this? The Signal Protocol implementations they're using are both open source and well audited.

wodenokoto 10y ago

Get news to see other services following in the footsteps of WhatsApp!

skrowl 10y ago
Telegram had e2e private chats for over a year before WhatsApp added e2e
- exo762 10y ago
  Does bad crypto counts? I don't think so.
  - goodplay 10y ago
    I keep seeing this accusation get flung around whenever someone mentions telegram but never proof. I remember telegram had a vulnerability once and then it was patched just like any other security software. You shouldn't throw around accusations without proof.
    - CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
      Here's your proof: http://cs.au.dk/~jakjak/master-thesis.pdf http://cs.au.dk/~jakjak/master-thesis.pdf See also: http://www.cryptofails.com/post/70546720222/telegrams-cryptanalysis-contest http://www.cryptofails.com/post/70546720222/telegrams-crypta... https://moxie.org/blog/telegram-crypto-challenge/ https://moxie.org/blog/telegram-crypto-challenge/
      - goodplay 10y ago
        Is it cryptographicly broken or not? Can I read the plain text of the traffic I capture?
        CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
        https://tonyarcieri.com/all-the-crypto-code-youve-ever-written-is-probably-broken https://tonyarcieri.com/all-the-crypto-code-youve-ever-writt... The word "broken" means susceptible to practical attack, and attacks aren't always of the "cryptanalyze the ciphertext and read the plaintext because you're a clever mathematician" variety. For example: Padding Oracle Attacks. This is the most accessible explanation on-hand: https://twitter.com/SoatokDhole/status/720435675401744385 https://twitter.com/SoatokDhole/status/720435675401744385 A padding oracle attack lets you decrypt a message by studying how the cryptosystem responds to garbage input. Without recovering the key. iMessage had a compression oracle attack recently: http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2016/03/attack-of-week-apple-imessage.html http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2016/03/attack-of-we... They didn't merely "read the plain text of the traffic [they] capture[d]". But these systems were still, quite badly, broken. So what's my point? Telegram's protocol is susceptible to the same class of active attack. Thus, it is broken.

pttrsmrt 10y ago

More great news from the world of communication, but yet again I'm wondering how we can trust the encryption to really be end-to-end without access to the code. Are the messages still traveling through Vibers servers? Is there any way to know?

dkopi 10y ago
"I'm wondering how we can trust the encryption" You can't. Not unless the company employees security experts, has a significant bug bounty program (with significant rewards), is open to a degree about their securit architecture, and is popular enough for white hats to actively seek out bugs. This isn't about trusting that the company isn't try to dupe you. It's about trusting that the company can implement security properly, and that enough "good" people will find security flaws before the "bad" guys do.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  You're both saying the same thing. As for the good people vs. bad people argument, it should be noted that the good people have a harder job than the bad people. For the bad people to do their job, they only have to find one exploit, whereas the good people have to find most/all of them to have made the system secure. That's why employing people to work on security matters (whether through a bug bounty program or through direct employment), a company that values security shouldn't rely on unpaid volunteers alone.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  How much do you think a WhatsApp passive decryption bug would be worth? They don't seem to have a bug bounty, I wonder how much something would go for on the black market.

dkopi 10y ago

"Along with the encryption, there are some other privacy features getting added into the latest version of the app. Hidden chats will give users the ability to essentially “hide” certain conversations from their usage log, accessible only if you know a specified four-digit PIN" Can anyone with Viber describe what happens when you get a new message from a hidden chat partner? Does a notification show? how does that notification look?

ikeboy 10y ago

>The enhanced delete feature, meanwhile, has been in the app for a while, but is part of the company’s is a way for users to wipe a conversation not just on their end, but on that of the recipient’s phone. You can think of this as Viber’s answer to ephemeral messaging, but with a more manual approach. Does anyone else think this is a violation of users' rights? If I've been sent a message, it shouldn't be possible for the server to delete it. I could screenshot everything, or run a tweak that saves everything. Imagine if Gmail started allowing senders to remove email they've already sent and has been delivered.

robbiemitchell 10y ago
What do you mean by "user's rights" and by "sent"? Why shouldn't it be possible? If the TOS and app allow and enable it, it can be done. This sounds no different from, say, Snapchat, except that the deletion is triggered by the sender instead of by a timer.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  It's the same thing people complain about wrt unfree software, e.g. Kindle deleting purchased books remotely if they were uploaded by someone without the rights to the book. The difference with snapshot is that their whole gimmick was the deleting thing. You had no expectation of permanency. But I'm sure many use Viber with the expectation that they'll be able to access old communications; after all, it's on their own device. Sure, they have the right to do it, in the same way that Gmail could implement the same anti feature, in the same way Amazon had the right to delete books. But that just causes me not to use them, just like I'd stop using Gmail if they did that. (I still use a Kindle, but I've only ever purchased one book, and read it right away. I'm not dependent on them not deleting my books.)
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    If a service offers a feature, it's within customers' rights to use that feature. If Viber is unilaterally deleting messages, that's an issue (as ephemeral messaging doesn't seem to be their primary intent). But if Alice is able to delete her messages to Bob on Bob's device, and both know this (or should know this, they chose the messaging platform), Bob has not had his rights violated. He's complying with Alice's request (automatically). The comparison to Amazon is not apt. That was Amazon, not the seller of the book, that chose to delete it (in that case because the seller didn't have a right to sell, though given it was 1984 it was rather amusing/ironic). If, for instance, Amazon's digital platform allowed sellers to remove their content from Amazon's listings AND from "buyers'" devices, then 1) no one should be too surprised when it happens, 2) no one should use that platform.

toonies555 10y ago

so crypto was on their roadmap but gifs weren't

carlob 10y ago

So basically now Telegram is the only app not doing it by default?

fabrice_d 10y ago
Add skype and hangouts to your list...
- isilauzelis 10y ago
  And Facebook Messenger.

DonHopkins 10y ago

What really impresses me about Viber is the way they went all out and splurged with an honest to god penultimate "e" before the final "r". Most dot-com companies would have settled for "Vibr", but they went the distance and bought an authentic luxurious vowel, precisely where it was called for, without going overboard and throwing in a sometimes-vowel "y" in place of the "i". Very bold and straightforward spelling, I must say. Color me impressed!

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dkopi 10y ago
Viber is an Israeli company, don't be so judgmental of their poor startup spelling skills.
- DonHopkins 10y ago
  No, you misunderstand: I am truly and earnestly impressed by their good spelling, not criticizing any bad grammar. If they'd named it "Vybr," it would have come off like Steve Buscemie holding a skateboard over his shoulder wearing a MUSIC BAND t-shirt, desperately trying to appeal to the youth demographic.
  - dkopi 10y ago
    Read that one again with </sarcasm> at the end :)
- deleted 10y ago
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levelist_com 10y ago
Or ... people name their products/companies based on their ability to secure a proper domain name, rather than being some hipster startup founder trying to appear edgy. Does Viber seem like a name that would be taken?! Listd.com vs listed.com was one I had to deal with some time ago.

sickbeard 10y ago

In other news, the FBI now offers end-to-end encryption

manishsharan 10y ago

I was forced to uninstall Viber on account of the SPAM I was getting. I have been trying to figure out how the spammers got my viber contact information.

ecesena 10y ago

Can't we just call it TLS? Every time I read "end-to-end encryption" I'm afraid they just invented some weird security mechanism. Plus it's 3 chars.

dchest 10y ago
It's not TLS.
- ecesena 10y ago
  Ugh. Should we be scared then?
  - ascorbic 10y ago
    TLS would normally be used between the client and server. Viber may use TLS for that too, though WhatsApp and Signal use Noise pipes for that purpose. The point of end to end encryption is that they're also encrypting the messages so that they can't be read on the server. Don't know what Viber is using, but moxie posted a link to the details about WhatsApp's implementation. https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-Whitepaper.pdf https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-Whitepap...
  - CiPHPerCoder 10y ago
    TLS is Transport Layer Security. When we're talking about End-to-End Encryption, we usually mean: * Application Layer Security (between users) * Transport Layer Security (between each user and the server) And here, Security should mean public key authenticated encryption (e.g. crypto_box() from NaCl)

dingo_bat 10y ago

So will EFF now endorse Viber as strongly as they endorsed Whatsapp?

Johnny_Brahms 10y ago
not with that little info from Viber. According to Frederic Jacobs (one of the OpenWhisperSystems devs) they are relying on md5 for cryptographic hashing :(

tptacek 10y ago

It sounds like there's not yet any published details on what the crypto Viber's using is. Can we withhold judgement until we get that? I'm fine with closed-source, but not with no technical documentation. Most people who try to implement cryptographically secure messaging get it badly wrong.

morgante 10y ago
We absolutely do need to get some documentation to judge whether Viber has good crypto. That being said, we can still judge them positively for at least trying to secure their user's messages end-to-end.

cpach 10y ago

Frederic Jacobs, one of the Signal authors: ”Viber’s encryption appears to be a custom C++ implementation. Super reassuring they use MD5 for attachments.” https://twitter.com/FredericJacobs/status/722489499779858432 https://twitter.com/FredericJacobs/status/722489499779858432

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giancarlostoro 10y ago

I always enjoyed using Viber, but I never liked that it featured no encryption. It is an alternative for Skype for me, I could video call from my phone, laptop, tablet, etc and do audio calls. Skype became insecure, it leaks your IP address and it's got terrible synchronization issues, and now chatting is really buggy, messages show up in the wrong place for me, as well as the Linux client for it sucks. Viber has a good all around client for every OS I've used it in (including Linux). This is fantastic news, as others have said, maybe they should really open source the portions of code that have to deal with E2E encryption so it may be audited.

skrowl 10y ago
Skype stopped leaking your IP address earlier this year. It existed before that, but is now the default behavior. http://blogs.skype.com/2016/01/21/to-our-gamers-ip-will-now-be-hidden-by-default-in-latest-update/ http://blogs.skype.com/2016/01/21/to-our-gamers-ip-will-now-...
- giancarlostoro 10y ago
  It says "by default" implying it could still be leaked, their "fix" is a Skype setting that masks your IP until you're in a call with somebody.

secfirstmd 10y ago

I highly recommend following the updates from Frederic Jacobs on his Twitter. He has already found a number of significant flaws with Viber encryption... "Wow, Viber disables crypto based on geo-location? Export controls related?" https://twitter.com/FredericJacobs/status/722511416381480961 https://twitter.com/FredericJacobs/status/722511416381480961 "Viber’s encryption appears to be a custom C++ implementation. Super reassuring they use MD5 for attachments." pic.twitter.com/wi6lB30KjY https://twitter.com/FredericJacobs/status/722489499779858432 https://twitter.com/FredericJacobs/status/722489499779858432

agsimeonov 10y ago

I am honestly surprised that they hadn't done so earlier.

karon 10y ago

I wouldn't touch Viber with a ten foot pole, even if their entire crypto implementation was open source (which it is not). The company was founded by an ex-military (some sources say ex-Mossad) dude. He is also connected to several spyware applications. “Talmon served for four years in the Israel Defense Forces and held the position of CIO of the central command. He graduated Cum Laude from the Tel-Aviv University with a degree in Computer Science and Management.” More here: https://viberphoneapp.wordpress.com/ https://viberphoneapp.wordpress.com/ http://www.moh10ly.com/home/security/viberisaspy http://www.moh10ly.com/home/security/viberisaspy http://www.jpost.com/Business/Business-Features/Japans-Rakuten-acquires-Israeli-tech-company-Viber-for-900-million-341447 http://www.jpost.com/Business/Business-Features/Japans-Rakut... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/viber-founder-talmon-marco-privacy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/viber-fou...