10 ms·

Wrong signal

119 points by flevo 10y ago

jfindley 10y ago
Given that we've seen exactly how little information Signal maintains about its users [0], this seems to me to be alarmist spreading of FUD, potentially to advance the author's agenda of dfederation in Signal, which the developers have already addressed at length already [1]. For example, their assertion that "... metadata is abundantly available here" appears to be patently false, given [0]. 0: https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/new-documents-reveal-government-effort-impose-secrecy-encryption-company https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/new-documents-reveal-g... 1: https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  Regardless of the merits of Signal, much of the criticism voiced in that article is nonetheless valid. Signal and other chat platforms employing the protocol are run as data-silos by design, using strongly identifying codes (phone numbers) as the required identifier — i.e., it is nearly impossible to create a throw-away account, because getting an anonymous phone number is no longer a practical possibility in a lot of (Western!) countries. Whether or not such metadata is available to adversaries (either through OWS or gathered elsewhere) depends on who your adversaries are and whether or not a corporate entity can be trusted to be completely transparent about what kind of data they retain. As for [0]; even if no relevant metadata is collected today by whoever owns the servers, nothing stops the party providing the service from doing so tomorrow.
  - quonn 10y ago
    We should learn from the failures of the past (PGP) and not forget that in practise all electronic communication (by phone, email, etc.) has been completely unprotected for pretty much everyone. With large services like Gmail and Facebook mining the data, the situation is arguably even worse. So the less than perfect steps we have been seeing recently (widespread transport encryption in email, end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp and Signal) are a huge improvement.
  - bruo 10y ago
    The critics are valid, the solutions are not (for activists, as it's it focus) Conversations.im was (or is, haven't checked in a month) logs encrypted chats on cleartext by default, and history shows why that is a bad idea [0] Until today I haven't seen a single XMPP that protects metadata, the roster is always on cleartext, to support omemo you are storing yet more info always, etc. If the answer to Signal issues is XMPP, there is a lot of work to do before to even suggest going this path. [0]: https://trac.adium.im/ticket/15722 https://trac.adium.im/ticket/15722
  - jfindley 10y ago
    > As for [0]; even if no relevant metadata is collected today by whoever owns the servers, nothing stops the party providing the service from doing so tomorrow. This is a point I see bought up a LOT. I don't believe it to be useful however - proceeding down this rabbithole rapidly leads us to a place of advanced paranoia where we can't get anything useful done. Once you start assuming actual malice on the part of the software developer, even open-source code with the ability to run your own service doesn't protect you - there's multiple ways backdoors can be inserted in sufficiently subtle ways it's extremely unlikely they will be spotted before it's far too late for you. > using strongly identifying codes (phone numbers) as the required identifier — i.e., it is nearly impossible to create a throw-away accoun Identifiers are only valuable if there is something to link that identifier to. Account creation time and last active time are very unlikely to be valuable to your adversary (for any definition of "your adversary" you had a chance at defending against in the first place). In other words, as long as the only data they have is your phone number, then that's not helpful. All that is is a record of a) this phone number exists (which is not secret) and b) this phone number uses signal (which isn't a secret either to any even mildly motiviated attacker).
    - zeveb 10y ago
      > proceeding down this rabbithole rapidly leads us to a place of advanced paranoia When it comes to security, today's advanced paranoia is next year's common sense. Remember that folks used to think that telnet over the Internet was harmless. Would OWS refuse to implement a court order directing them to collect and forward metadata? I don't know.
- acqq 10y ago
  > appears to be patently false Even if it is claimed that the metadata miraculously wasn't collected (provided it really wasn't collected under some other publicly invisible arrangement, which is still technically doable) that doesn't prove it is impossible to do so, especially as the result of another secret request. I don't see the "FUD" in the article. It seems very popular using labels instead of talking about issues, but please, please don't. The phone number problems were known since long, and the Signal's explanation "it's easier for the average user this way" doesn't explain why other alternatives aren't even allowed. It's obvious there are certain goals behind Signal, and those with different goals have to organize themselves. What they surely can't do is claiming to have right to decide what Signal (as a company) does. If those who have clear needs want to introduce their own solution, they surely have to demonstrate what the Signal doesn't solve, and that's surely not FUD.
- throwaway98764 10y ago
  Federation was only addressed insofar as Moxie Marlinspike the developer noted it would be hard to keep the protocol updated if the servers were shared (he compared his tech to Facebook and WhatsApp, and described federated email as "stuck in time"). There's nothing unduly alarmist about the article, but it makes appropriate claims about (among other things) the security limitations that Signal has resigned itself to by remaining unfederated. Read TFA.
- sergiolp 10y ago
  Centralization is a _huge_ privacy issue. Specially when combined with real world data, like a phone number. Let's assume OWS is playing nice, and they really don't store any relevant metadata. How can we be sure that a third party is not eavesdropping their communications? Even with end-to-end encryption, given enough time, an attacker can easily build a user relationship network, something _very_ dangerous in the wrong hands. If you really care about privacy, you should consider options like BitMessage, Onion.chat, Ricochet, Tox or GNU Ring. Or, as a middle ground between those (which are quite mobile unfriendly, due to its P2P nature) and Signal/WhatsApp/Telegram, a federated service like XMPP (as the article suggest) or Matrix.
agd 10y ago
There are always security trade-offs (especially when it comes to ease of use) but until you can show me a better app, which I can get my non-techy friends to use, Signal remains the best option for the mass market.
- forgotpwtomain 10y ago
  Phone-number as identifier is pretty terrible user-experience choice. I am traveling and my phone-number has changed half-a-dozen times in the past year alone, my email has been the same for over a decade. I tend to use Whatsapp because other people already have it but I have absolutely no motivation to use encourage other people to use Signal. Edit: Whoever down-voted this, want to explain how this isn't a huge user-experience regression from giving your email and using gchat?
  - burnbabyburn 10y ago
    I presume phone numbers are only used for registration, I can chat with people that travel and change phone number and have registered the account only on one of them, am I wrong?
    - forgotpwtomain 10y ago
      If you lose the phone with the installation you will lose access to the account permanently (or if you don't have the SIM card or it has been disconnected).
  - eggie 10y ago
    I have the same problem with Signal. Basically, I can't find anyone or be found because I rarely use my current phone number. The phone number linking seems completely superfluous and has destroyed the user experience for me by preventing me from connecting with anyone else. This design decision will become increasingly anachronistic in the near future, as phone numbers further diminish in importance.
  - resonanttoe 10y ago
    You also have the reverse problem which is alluded to in the article, that a Phone number for a non-traveller, is pretty static and unlikely to be changed by the user often. However Email is more disposable and I can spin up and shut down email accounts that I could register with Signal et., al. for what I believe to be sensitive communications. I feel that providers that use number-as-identity know this and use it as a way of assuring they have greater confidence of knowing their user, especially after everyone failed so spectacularly at real names policies.
padraic7a 10y ago
This is a fairly clear and level headed criticism, while I think the 'problem' of centralisation is over stated and the accusations about Signal's motivation are unfounded I do appreciate that the author(s?) understand why Signal is popular - "The success of OWS can also be attributed to elitist and bureaucratic positions in the open source community. " I don't see the federation issue as being particularly relevant - at least not until someone else actually sets up a non-OWS server and gains some users for it.
- qznc 10y ago
  The article also shows the problems with federation, although they do not acknowledge it: > The drafted protocol is called OMEMO and combines the advantages of jabber and Signal. Even though the XEP Process will still take some time, the protocol is stable and can already be used today. On Android devices, users have the ‚Conversations‘ client [8], which offers an experience comparable to Signal, and on the desktop there is a plugin for ‚Gajim‘ [9, 10] under active development, which still has room for user experience improvements. Using one of the readily available tutorials, it is possible today to get started on Linux and Windows. iOS users will have to wait some time due to license issues.
shadowban_me 10y ago
All my friends use Signal! Oh wait, I don't have any friends because I work in networking and software world. I'm sure this won't be problem for me, as I'm powerful bureaucrat with powerful contacts that also won't use Signal.
burnbabyburn 10y ago
I'm happy to use Signal today. In the long run federated protocols and servers demonstrated their resilience regarding third parties and time, see irc for example. Probably Signal is just a reference implementation, the big deal is implementing Signal protocol in different systems (whatsapp, allo, fb messenger..). Having said that, I would be happier to not give my phone number for registration, and contact discovery but this is today a user interface well understood and accepted outside geek communities that's hard to eradicate.
- mrbiber 10y ago
  I'm surprised to see that matrix.org / riot.im is not mentioned as an alternative to Signal. They have a federated, open protocol, usable open-source apps for web/Android/iOS, registration without a phone number (even email is optional), do not require Google Play, and support double-ratchet encryption (in beta, it's not activated by default yet, but it will be activated by default in private rooms in the future).
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    Because, frankly, the UX around encryption in Matrix is dire, as well as being beta. I've never seen someone actually use the same keys for two conversations over as many days, due to switching devices, logging out of the web interface, etc.
- mi100hael 10y ago
  > the big deal is implementing Signal protocol in different systems (whatsapp, allo, fb messenger..) Strongly disagree. The point of Signal is not just that it's encrypted. The point is that the source code is GPL and the service is free. Holding up a bunch of closed-source, proprietary, for-profit applications as examples of success only serves to obscure what should be the real goal: decentralized, anonymous, metadata-less, encrypted communication that anyone can easily use. Signal could be much closer to that goal but OWS & moxie refuse to allow decentralization or anonymity for bad reasons.
  - 10y ago
cypherpunks01 10y ago
Has anyone else noticed a huge uptick in their contacts signing up for Signal this month? I've added 12 contacts just in November bringing me to about 30 contacts subscribed to Signal total, which is a large increase. None of these new contacts know each other, and only 25% of them know how to write software. Does Signal publish registration numbers?
- erelde 10y ago
  I did, one contact registered since last december (after I told them about it), and in the last two weeks, 3 new contacts did. I asked them if there had been something that prompted them to install it, they said it was my other contact (the first one) who told them about it. I rarely do any proselytism.
- Joeboy 10y ago
  I imagine it's maybe down to the new Investigatory Powers bill in the UK, and maybe Trump in the US. The former at least seems to have led to some journalistic recommendations for Signal.
cwmma 10y ago
It sometimes feels like the security community is a bucket of crabs where any time something starts getting traction due to ease of use a lot of others try to pick at it due to it not being perfect even if many of those things are trade offs - phone numbers allow for signal to be a drop in replacement for other messaging apps with minimal to no registration required, I doubt I could have gotten my mother to use signal without switching from texting being so low-friction. - lack of federation means ows can control spam better unlike in a federated environment where lazy/malicious operators can cause lots of problems. Take a look at the 2 big federated protocols email and irc where due to spam and other issues they are both increasingly centralized.
- jlg23 10y ago
  > It sometimes feels like the security community is a bucket of crabs where any time something starts getting traction The criticism of signal's closed ecosystem is not new, this is just another write-up of what has been criticized numerous times before.
- binaryanomaly 10y ago
  Your first point is absolutely true. I still have the biggest difficulties to persuade my "normal" friends and relatives to prefer signal over whatsapp. Everybody thinks whatsapp is more user friendly and convenient. In the end this is the key to adoption we should not forget that.
- tptacek 10y ago
  This isn't the security community. The security community is pretty much unanimous in supporting Signal over all other secure messengers. That's not to say that security people aren't critical of Signal, which isn't perfect for all the reasons this blog post points out --- Grugq is a pretty good source for these kinds of criticisms through the lens of an infosec person. But security people tend to deliver these criticisms as, you know, criticisms --- not angry appeals for people to abandon Signal. The entities most harshly critical of Signal are supporters of other messaging applications and protocols. I think the most important thing to understand about secure messengers is that messaging in general is a back-ally knife fight of a market, one of the most vicious I've seen in my career. Perhaps it's because of the WhatsApp outcome and a general belief that there's another such outcome for some other messaging app. Or it could just be the network affect. Messaging applications themselves are interesting UX challenges, but as programming challenges they're pretty close to socket projects. So there are a lot of entrants in the market. Whatever the reason, the knives are out for Signal. I don't so much care what messaging system you use to talk to your friends or chat with your gaming guild. But if you have real adversaries, the security part of your messaging system has to work, even more than the messaging part. For that situation, Signal is the only messaging system I'd recommend unreservedly.
stevespang 10y ago
Spot on, incredibly accurate reveal. MarlinSpike is not his real name, and he will "sing like a canary" if the FEDS ever come calling, installing code for a backdoor or even a man in the middle attack for them on his servers. It has always bothered me he demands your real phone number to register - - as well as he forbids anyone that uses his code from running it through their own servers (they must run only through his servers). Add to the fact that he only allows distribution through the Google Play store means he likely eventually intends to sell off to a BigBox corporate player (and with the deal all your metadata too).
- majewsky 10y ago
  > he will "sing like a canary" if the FEDS ever come calling You mean like when they came a month or so ago and all user data that OWS could hand over for the accounts in question was two timestamps?
  - throwaway98764 10y ago
    Parent had a good point. It shouldn't have been flagged.
    - majewsky 10y ago
      He might have a point, but he forgot to mention any evidence for his claims.
mi100hael 10y ago
I love Signal. I use it as the primary means of contact for several close friends and have contributed patches. However, it drives me nuts that OWS won't allow federation or LibreSignal and requires phone numbers as user IDs. In the past, their justification has been that their primary goal is thwarting dragnet surveillance and none of these proposals further that goal (which is debatable in itself). I wish they would move more in the direction of an actual open source standard like they sort of purport to be rather than just an open source library with a closed implementation.
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  You probably already know this, but OWS detailed their reasoning for not supporting federation at this time in their blog a while ago: https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/
  - mi100hael 10y ago
    I've seen it, I just disagree with it. IMO it's a dick move to say "no federation" and to also say "no 3rd-party clients." What's the point of GPL if you're completely locked to their official clients & servers anyway?
    - frandroid 10y ago
      Code auditing.
      - mi100hael 10y ago
        lol no. You could accomplish that with an all-rights-reserved copyright.
        frandroid 10y ago
        You're thinking of free software.
45h34jh53k4j 10y ago
Im surprised nobody has mentioned Quellen-TKÜ -- is there any evidence that governments can force handset vendors to push malware to devices? I don't believe this, as it would make programs like QUANTUM* unneeded. Why subvert global internet infrastructure if the providers do the dirty work? This would be explosive if true
bikamonki 10y ago
I do not see any comments to tackle the weakest link: exploits on the OS. Federated or not, the tunnel can be encrypted. On the servers static data can be encrypted. How can a regular user know his/her device's OS is not compromised? That is the problem to solve now and it seems that a formally verified OS code is the only long path.
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  That's not an argument for or against Signal, though, as it affects all messenger apps in the same way. While OS trustworthiness is an interesting topic, it's not really the one being discussed here.
  - bikamonki 10y ago
    It seems you did not read the article thoroughly. The argument being made is that Signal is sending the WRONG signal by making the user think/feel that encrypting the tunnel and passive data is enough to guarantee privacy and security. Quoting: There are many things users can and maybe should be concerned about: Hackers, providers, promoters, crooks, spooks, shareholders or maybe the person on the next seat in the bus. Do they want to prevent their data from being used for other purposes than communication itself? Maybe they want their messages to be tamper-evident, or perhaps they want plausible deniability or immunity against eavesdropping? What is the use of end-to-end encryption when there could be a key logger or a rootkit on their device, transmitting everything they do to a remote entity? Encouraging users to believe in a general sense that Signal makes their communication safe, will tend to promote a false sense of once-and-for-all security (regardless of the indisputable and substantial increase in end-to-end encryption). It is very important to remember that even though encryption will increase security, some information should not be stored in IT systems at all – and especially not if they are provided by a third party. However this is no argument against the use of the Signal messenger or protocol itself. We instead want to think about the problems created or supported by OWS‘ promise of security.
  - aminorex 10y ago
    It is however an argument for enabling Signal to work well on, e.g. CopperheadOS. The patches moxie requested for bypassing Play services would help in this regard.
gfodor 10y ago
My main beef with signal is that they release their encryption libraries as GPLv3 not LGPLv3, preventing the use of them in any commercial product that doesn't want to open their source code. Yet, they "worked with" Facebook and WhatsApp to incorporate their protocols presumably providing them with an alternative license. It sure would be nice if companies who wish to add encryption to their messaging products, but didn't have the pull of the bigger guys to warrant OWS's attention, could just use an LGPLed library to do so. If OWS's mission is to bring about widespread encrypted communications, playing favorites with a few larger messaging companies seems to send the wrong message. (The points made in the article, while valid, seem to be splitting hairs relative to the overall net good Signal has provided.)
- skndr 10y ago
  Why do you think that might be? I can imagine that requiring others to open their source makes their implementation verifiable.
  - gfodor 10y ago
    Exactly, which is why they should have required Facebook and WhatsApp to comply with the GPL. Alternatively, they should have created a more flexible license that could be used by Facebook, WhatsApp, or other companies to integrate their software. My point isn't about the GPL per se, but about the unfair playing field they are creating.
    - dublinben 10y ago
      I think the GPL is actually a perfect license in this case. Anyone who wants to use their cipher in another GPL project is free to. Commercial entities who won't do this can pay OWS for their time, expertise and IP in order to get a different license.
      - gfodor 10y ago
        That makes sense -- I guess what it boils down to is it would be nice if OWS were more open about their commercial licensing options, and make it easy for a company to license + integrate their work. As it stands right now it feels like you have to be a Facebook/WhatsApp level company to be able to be worth their time to work with.
moxie 10y ago
I'm repeating myself on many of these points, so I've cut and pasted some of my previous responses: > Signal uses servers controlled by OWS. Other organizations could conceivably operate their own servers because OWS open sources the software, but because OWS strictly opposes federation (meaning the interconnection of independently operated servers which the XMPP protocol (jabber) or e-mail allows), only the users connected to the OWS-run server can communicate with each other. I've tried to write about why I don't feel like this is going to be a part of our future here: https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ However, I would love it if someone proved me wrong. The Signal clients and server already support federation, so there shouldn't be any technical hurdles stopping the people who are really into federation from using our software to start their own federated network that demonstrates the viability of their ideas. If anyone needs help doing that, let me know. I'd be happy to help. > If a government does not approve of the use of Signal, it can simply block a single server farm, solving the problem for the state actor, and resulting in total loss of service to the users. The authors of this article conflate a lot of things with federation. Federation = anonymity, federation = metadata protection, federation = censorship circumvention. I don't think any of those are true. Email is federated, and I run my own mail server, but almost every single email I send or receive has GMail at the other end of it -- so running my own server does not provide me with any meaningful metadata protection, even though it is a federated protocol. The idea that everyone in the world is going to run their own mail server (or messaging server, or whatever) has not born out in practice, even in environments that natively support federation. I think serious metadata protection is going to require new protocols and new techniques, so we're much more likely to see major progress in centralized environments that can change rather than federated environments that are stuck in time (in the same way that Signal Protocol is now on over two billion devices, but we're unlikely to ever see even basic large scale email end to end encryption). In the case of censorship circumvention, I think it's much more common that people use censorship circumvention tools like VPNs or Tor rather than changing their entire federated identifier (and somehow re-discovering their entire social graph doing the same) every time a service gets blocked, particularly since censorship isn't just as simple as host-level filtering these days. Again, I think we're more likely to see the incorporation of these types of censorship circumvention techniques into centralized rather than federated services. > The community reacted to this by developing a version that does not rely on GCM, however, OWS refused to merge the changes into the Signal code. I don't believe this is true. To clarify this for casual readers, no data at all is transmitted over GCM. GCM is only used as a push event to tell the Signal Android client to wake up and connect to the Signal server to retrieve messages from the queue if the app isn't in the foreground. This is pretty fundamentally just how Android works. However, people who want to use Google's OS without any Google services flash custom ROMs onto their devices that are missing this dependency. I have said many times that I have no problem with supporting these custom ROMs. But I would like someone from that community to submit the PR: "I would consider a clean, well written, and well tested PR for websocket-only support in Signal. I expect it to have high battery consumption and an unreliable user experience, but would be fine with it if it comes with a warning and only runs in the absence of play services." Nobody has done it. > The final point of criticism is that OWS distributes the Signal app exclusively via Google Play while actively preventing the distribution of independent builds. We'd love to distribute Signal outside of Play, and have written about what we would need to be able to do so. As of yet, nobody from the FOSS community has stepped in to help. We'll get there eventually on our own, but we have a lot of work on our plate, and have to set our priorities according to what we think is important for Signal as a whole. > The community’s demands for decentralized web services controlled by the users themselves, or by designated professionals elected by the users, seems like a burden to them. I do not feel like the FOSS community is a "burden," however I do wish they recognized that many of their desires are unique to a very small minority of Signal users. I wish that they'd take more responsibility for manifesting those desires themselves. This is the second time in two months that someone from the FOSS scene has written up a list of complaints, but as far as I know, in neither case have the authors ever contributed anything to Signal in an effort to meet their own needs.
MrZongle2 10y ago
"After Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election in particular, many tweets recommended using hard disk encryption and the ostensibly secure messenger app Signal while discouraging the use of competitor apps Threema and Telegram." Oh FFS. We've seen a continuation of invasive, Bush-era policies under Obama...but now Trump is terrifying? Spoiler alert: it has been a problem for quite some time, and given the alternative to Trump it was going to still be a problem regardless of who won the election: freedom ponies and rainbows were never an option. Get a damn grip, people. Can we end the partisan pity party?
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > We've seen a continuation of invasive, Bush-era policies IRT the NSA under Obama...but now Trump is terrifying? Uh, yeah. The Bush/Obama surveillance policies have largely been seen as dangerous not because of actual concrete harms that have materialized, but because if continued they raise the prospect of a much worse (because of the increased scope possible with modern tools) version of the kind of political targeting based on surveillance that was done by Nixon (prompting legal limits, notably the original FISA act.) And perhaps even beyond that, to the kind of retaliation for dissent seen in authoritarian regimes. Trump is seen as the kind of figure that would be more likely than a more conventional candilate of either party to make those theoretical risks into concrete harms.
  - MrZongle2 10y ago
    I'm not buying it. The house is already on fire, and people are wringing their hands because the new owner might have a can of lighter fluid in his pocket.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      I would say that many people view the Bush/Obama surveillance policies more as unreasonably dangerous highly flammable fuel stored in the house than an actual fire, and Trump as more analogous to someone carrying an ignition source than additional fuel. I don't think many serious observers think that, whatever the potential, the actual substantive harm has yet been even close to Nixon levels, though the potential scope of intercepted communication (and hence, potential for harm with simply a change of intent at the top) is much broader.

119 points by flevo 10y ago

Given that we've seen exactly how little information Signal maintains about its users [0], this seems to me to be alarmist spreading of FUD, potentially to advance the author's agenda of dfederation in Signal, which the developers have already addressed at length already [1]. For example, their assertion that "... metadata is abundantly available here" appears to be patently false, given [0]. 0: https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/new-documents-reveal-government-effort-impose-secrecy-encryption-company https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/new-documents-reveal-g... 1: https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/

Freak_NL 10y ago
Regardless of the merits of Signal, much of the criticism voiced in that article is nonetheless valid. Signal and other chat platforms employing the protocol are run as data-silos by design, using strongly identifying codes (phone numbers) as the required identifier — i.e., it is nearly impossible to create a throw-away account, because getting an anonymous phone number is no longer a practical possibility in a lot of (Western!) countries. Whether or not such metadata is available to adversaries (either through OWS or gathered elsewhere) depends on who your adversaries are and whether or not a corporate entity can be trusted to be completely transparent about what kind of data they retain. As for [0]; even if no relevant metadata is collected today by whoever owns the servers, nothing stops the party providing the service from doing so tomorrow.
- quonn 10y ago
  We should learn from the failures of the past (PGP) and not forget that in practise all electronic communication (by phone, email, etc.) has been completely unprotected for pretty much everyone. With large services like Gmail and Facebook mining the data, the situation is arguably even worse. So the less than perfect steps we have been seeing recently (widespread transport encryption in email, end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp and Signal) are a huge improvement.
- bruo 10y ago
  The critics are valid, the solutions are not (for activists, as it's it focus) Conversations.im was (or is, haven't checked in a month) logs encrypted chats on cleartext by default, and history shows why that is a bad idea [0] Until today I haven't seen a single XMPP that protects metadata, the roster is always on cleartext, to support omemo you are storing yet more info always, etc. If the answer to Signal issues is XMPP, there is a lot of work to do before to even suggest going this path. [0]: https://trac.adium.im/ticket/15722 https://trac.adium.im/ticket/15722
- jfindley 10y ago
  > As for [0]; even if no relevant metadata is collected today by whoever owns the servers, nothing stops the party providing the service from doing so tomorrow. This is a point I see bought up a LOT. I don't believe it to be useful however - proceeding down this rabbithole rapidly leads us to a place of advanced paranoia where we can't get anything useful done. Once you start assuming actual malice on the part of the software developer, even open-source code with the ability to run your own service doesn't protect you - there's multiple ways backdoors can be inserted in sufficiently subtle ways it's extremely unlikely they will be spotted before it's far too late for you. > using strongly identifying codes (phone numbers) as the required identifier — i.e., it is nearly impossible to create a throw-away accoun Identifiers are only valuable if there is something to link that identifier to. Account creation time and last active time are very unlikely to be valuable to your adversary (for any definition of "your adversary" you had a chance at defending against in the first place). In other words, as long as the only data they have is your phone number, then that's not helpful. All that is is a record of a) this phone number exists (which is not secret) and b) this phone number uses signal (which isn't a secret either to any even mildly motiviated attacker).
  - zeveb 10y ago
    > proceeding down this rabbithole rapidly leads us to a place of advanced paranoia When it comes to security, today's advanced paranoia is next year's common sense. Remember that folks used to think that telnet over the Internet was harmless. Would OWS refuse to implement a court order directing them to collect and forward metadata? I don't know.
acqq 10y ago
> appears to be patently false Even if it is claimed that the metadata miraculously wasn't collected (provided it really wasn't collected under some other publicly invisible arrangement, which is still technically doable) that doesn't prove it is impossible to do so, especially as the result of another secret request. I don't see the "FUD" in the article. It seems very popular using labels instead of talking about issues, but please, please don't. The phone number problems were known since long, and the Signal's explanation "it's easier for the average user this way" doesn't explain why other alternatives aren't even allowed. It's obvious there are certain goals behind Signal, and those with different goals have to organize themselves. What they surely can't do is claiming to have right to decide what Signal (as a company) does. If those who have clear needs want to introduce their own solution, they surely have to demonstrate what the Signal doesn't solve, and that's surely not FUD.
throwaway98764 10y ago
Federation was only addressed insofar as Moxie Marlinspike the developer noted it would be hard to keep the protocol updated if the servers were shared (he compared his tech to Facebook and WhatsApp, and described federated email as "stuck in time"). There's nothing unduly alarmist about the article, but it makes appropriate claims about (among other things) the security limitations that Signal has resigned itself to by remaining unfederated. Read TFA.
sergiolp 10y ago
Centralization is a _huge_ privacy issue. Specially when combined with real world data, like a phone number. Let's assume OWS is playing nice, and they really don't store any relevant metadata. How can we be sure that a third party is not eavesdropping their communications? Even with end-to-end encryption, given enough time, an attacker can easily build a user relationship network, something _very_ dangerous in the wrong hands. If you really care about privacy, you should consider options like BitMessage, Onion.chat, Ricochet, Tox or GNU Ring. Or, as a middle ground between those (which are quite mobile unfriendly, due to its P2P nature) and Signal/WhatsApp/Telegram, a federated service like XMPP (as the article suggest) or Matrix.

agd 10y ago

There are always security trade-offs (especially when it comes to ease of use) but until you can show me a better app, which I can get my non-techy friends to use, Signal remains the best option for the mass market.

forgotpwtomain 10y ago
Phone-number as identifier is pretty terrible user-experience choice. I am traveling and my phone-number has changed half-a-dozen times in the past year alone, my email has been the same for over a decade. I tend to use Whatsapp because other people already have it but I have absolutely no motivation to use encourage other people to use Signal. Edit: Whoever down-voted this, want to explain how this isn't a huge user-experience regression from giving your email and using gchat?
- burnbabyburn 10y ago
  I presume phone numbers are only used for registration, I can chat with people that travel and change phone number and have registered the account only on one of them, am I wrong?
  - forgotpwtomain 10y ago
    If you lose the phone with the installation you will lose access to the account permanently (or if you don't have the SIM card or it has been disconnected).
- eggie 10y ago
  I have the same problem with Signal. Basically, I can't find anyone or be found because I rarely use my current phone number. The phone number linking seems completely superfluous and has destroyed the user experience for me by preventing me from connecting with anyone else. This design decision will become increasingly anachronistic in the near future, as phone numbers further diminish in importance.
- resonanttoe 10y ago
  You also have the reverse problem which is alluded to in the article, that a Phone number for a non-traveller, is pretty static and unlikely to be changed by the user often. However Email is more disposable and I can spin up and shut down email accounts that I could register with Signal et., al. for what I believe to be sensitive communications. I feel that providers that use number-as-identity know this and use it as a way of assuring they have greater confidence of knowing their user, especially after everyone failed so spectacularly at real names policies.

padraic7a 10y ago

This is a fairly clear and level headed criticism, while I think the 'problem' of centralisation is over stated and the accusations about Signal's motivation are unfounded I do appreciate that the author(s?) understand why Signal is popular - "The success of OWS can also be attributed to elitist and bureaucratic positions in the open source community. " I don't see the federation issue as being particularly relevant - at least not until someone else actually sets up a non-OWS server and gains some users for it.

qznc 10y ago
The article also shows the problems with federation, although they do not acknowledge it: > The drafted protocol is called OMEMO and combines the advantages of jabber and Signal. Even though the XEP Process will still take some time, the protocol is stable and can already be used today. On Android devices, users have the ‚Conversations‘ client [8], which offers an experience comparable to Signal, and on the desktop there is a plugin for ‚Gajim‘ [9, 10] under active development, which still has room for user experience improvements. Using one of the readily available tutorials, it is possible today to get started on Linux and Windows. iOS users will have to wait some time due to license issues.

shadowban_me 10y ago

All my friends use Signal! Oh wait, I don't have any friends because I work in networking and software world. I'm sure this won't be problem for me, as I'm powerful bureaucrat with powerful contacts that also won't use Signal.

burnbabyburn 10y ago

I'm happy to use Signal today. In the long run federated protocols and servers demonstrated their resilience regarding third parties and time, see irc for example. Probably Signal is just a reference implementation, the big deal is implementing Signal protocol in different systems (whatsapp, allo, fb messenger..). Having said that, I would be happier to not give my phone number for registration, and contact discovery but this is today a user interface well understood and accepted outside geek communities that's hard to eradicate.

mrbiber 10y ago
I'm surprised to see that matrix.org / riot.im is not mentioned as an alternative to Signal. They have a federated, open protocol, usable open-source apps for web/Android/iOS, registration without a phone number (even email is optional), do not require Google Play, and support double-ratchet encryption (in beta, it's not activated by default yet, but it will be activated by default in private rooms in the future).
- vertex-four 10y ago
  Because, frankly, the UX around encryption in Matrix is dire, as well as being beta. I've never seen someone actually use the same keys for two conversations over as many days, due to switching devices, logging out of the web interface, etc.
mi100hael 10y ago
> the big deal is implementing Signal protocol in different systems (whatsapp, allo, fb messenger..) Strongly disagree. The point of Signal is not just that it's encrypted. The point is that the source code is GPL and the service is free. Holding up a bunch of closed-source, proprietary, for-profit applications as examples of success only serves to obscure what should be the real goal: decentralized, anonymous, metadata-less, encrypted communication that anyone can easily use. Signal could be much closer to that goal but OWS & moxie refuse to allow decentralization or anonymity for bad reasons.
- 10y ago

cypherpunks01 10y ago

Has anyone else noticed a huge uptick in their contacts signing up for Signal this month? I've added 12 contacts just in November bringing me to about 30 contacts subscribed to Signal total, which is a large increase. None of these new contacts know each other, and only 25% of them know how to write software. Does Signal publish registration numbers?

erelde 10y ago
I did, one contact registered since last december (after I told them about it), and in the last two weeks, 3 new contacts did. I asked them if there had been something that prompted them to install it, they said it was my other contact (the first one) who told them about it. I rarely do any proselytism.
Joeboy 10y ago
I imagine it's maybe down to the new Investigatory Powers bill in the UK, and maybe Trump in the US. The former at least seems to have led to some journalistic recommendations for Signal.

cwmma 10y ago

It sometimes feels like the security community is a bucket of crabs where any time something starts getting traction due to ease of use a lot of others try to pick at it due to it not being perfect even if many of those things are trade offs - phone numbers allow for signal to be a drop in replacement for other messaging apps with minimal to no registration required, I doubt I could have gotten my mother to use signal without switching from texting being so low-friction. - lack of federation means ows can control spam better unlike in a federated environment where lazy/malicious operators can cause lots of problems. Take a look at the 2 big federated protocols email and irc where due to spam and other issues they are both increasingly centralized.

jlg23 10y ago
> It sometimes feels like the security community is a bucket of crabs where any time something starts getting traction The criticism of signal's closed ecosystem is not new, this is just another write-up of what has been criticized numerous times before.
binaryanomaly 10y ago
Your first point is absolutely true. I still have the biggest difficulties to persuade my "normal" friends and relatives to prefer signal over whatsapp. Everybody thinks whatsapp is more user friendly and convenient. In the end this is the key to adoption we should not forget that.
tptacek 10y ago
This isn't the security community. The security community is pretty much unanimous in supporting Signal over all other secure messengers. That's not to say that security people aren't critical of Signal, which isn't perfect for all the reasons this blog post points out --- Grugq is a pretty good source for these kinds of criticisms through the lens of an infosec person. But security people tend to deliver these criticisms as, you know, criticisms --- not angry appeals for people to abandon Signal. The entities most harshly critical of Signal are supporters of other messaging applications and protocols. I think the most important thing to understand about secure messengers is that messaging in general is a back-ally knife fight of a market, one of the most vicious I've seen in my career. Perhaps it's because of the WhatsApp outcome and a general belief that there's another such outcome for some other messaging app. Or it could just be the network affect. Messaging applications themselves are interesting UX challenges, but as programming challenges they're pretty close to socket projects. So there are a lot of entrants in the market. Whatever the reason, the knives are out for Signal. I don't so much care what messaging system you use to talk to your friends or chat with your gaming guild. But if you have real adversaries, the security part of your messaging system has to work, even more than the messaging part. For that situation, Signal is the only messaging system I'd recommend unreservedly.

stevespang 10y ago

Spot on, incredibly accurate reveal. MarlinSpike is not his real name, and he will "sing like a canary" if the FEDS ever come calling, installing code for a backdoor or even a man in the middle attack for them on his servers. It has always bothered me he demands your real phone number to register - - as well as he forbids anyone that uses his code from running it through their own servers (they must run only through his servers). Add to the fact that he only allows distribution through the Google Play store means he likely eventually intends to sell off to a BigBox corporate player (and with the deal all your metadata too).

majewsky 10y ago
> he will "sing like a canary" if the FEDS ever come calling You mean like when they came a month or so ago and all user data that OWS could hand over for the accounts in question was two timestamps?
- throwaway98764 10y ago
  Parent had a good point. It shouldn't have been flagged.
  - majewsky 10y ago
    He might have a point, but he forgot to mention any evidence for his claims.

mi100hael 10y ago

I love Signal. I use it as the primary means of contact for several close friends and have contributed patches. However, it drives me nuts that OWS won't allow federation or LibreSignal and requires phone numbers as user IDs. In the past, their justification has been that their primary goal is thwarting dragnet surveillance and none of these proposals further that goal (which is debatable in itself). I wish they would move more in the direction of an actual open source standard like they sort of purport to be rather than just an open source library with a closed implementation.

lorenzhs 10y ago
You probably already know this, but OWS detailed their reasoning for not supporting federation at this time in their blog a while ago: https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/
- mi100hael 10y ago
  I've seen it, I just disagree with it. IMO it's a dick move to say "no federation" and to also say "no 3rd-party clients." What's the point of GPL if you're completely locked to their official clients & servers anyway?
  - frandroid 10y ago
    Code auditing.
    - mi100hael 10y ago
      lol no. You could accomplish that with an all-rights-reserved copyright.
      - frandroid 10y ago
        You're thinking of free software.

45h34jh53k4j 10y ago

Im surprised nobody has mentioned Quellen-TKÜ -- is there any evidence that governments can force handset vendors to push malware to devices? I don't believe this, as it would make programs like QUANTUM* unneeded. Why subvert global internet infrastructure if the providers do the dirty work? This would be explosive if true

bikamonki 10y ago

I do not see any comments to tackle the weakest link: exploits on the OS. Federated or not, the tunnel can be encrypted. On the servers static data can be encrypted. How can a regular user know his/her device's OS is not compromised? That is the problem to solve now and it seems that a formally verified OS code is the only long path.

lorenzhs 10y ago
That's not an argument for or against Signal, though, as it affects all messenger apps in the same way. While OS trustworthiness is an interesting topic, it's not really the one being discussed here.
- bikamonki 10y ago
  It seems you did not read the article thoroughly. The argument being made is that Signal is sending the WRONG signal by making the user think/feel that encrypting the tunnel and passive data is enough to guarantee privacy and security. Quoting: There are many things users can and maybe should be concerned about: Hackers, providers, promoters, crooks, spooks, shareholders or maybe the person on the next seat in the bus. Do they want to prevent their data from being used for other purposes than communication itself? Maybe they want their messages to be tamper-evident, or perhaps they want plausible deniability or immunity against eavesdropping? What is the use of end-to-end encryption when there could be a key logger or a rootkit on their device, transmitting everything they do to a remote entity? Encouraging users to believe in a general sense that Signal makes their communication safe, will tend to promote a false sense of once-and-for-all security (regardless of the indisputable and substantial increase in end-to-end encryption). It is very important to remember that even though encryption will increase security, some information should not be stored in IT systems at all – and especially not if they are provided by a third party. However this is no argument against the use of the Signal messenger or protocol itself. We instead want to think about the problems created or supported by OWS‘ promise of security.
- aminorex 10y ago
  It is however an argument for enabling Signal to work well on, e.g. CopperheadOS. The patches moxie requested for bypassing Play services would help in this regard.

gfodor 10y ago

My main beef with signal is that they release their encryption libraries as GPLv3 not LGPLv3, preventing the use of them in any commercial product that doesn't want to open their source code. Yet, they "worked with" Facebook and WhatsApp to incorporate their protocols presumably providing them with an alternative license. It sure would be nice if companies who wish to add encryption to their messaging products, but didn't have the pull of the bigger guys to warrant OWS's attention, could just use an LGPLed library to do so. If OWS's mission is to bring about widespread encrypted communications, playing favorites with a few larger messaging companies seems to send the wrong message. (The points made in the article, while valid, seem to be splitting hairs relative to the overall net good Signal has provided.)

skndr 10y ago
Why do you think that might be? I can imagine that requiring others to open their source makes their implementation verifiable.
- gfodor 10y ago
  Exactly, which is why they should have required Facebook and WhatsApp to comply with the GPL. Alternatively, they should have created a more flexible license that could be used by Facebook, WhatsApp, or other companies to integrate their software. My point isn't about the GPL per se, but about the unfair playing field they are creating.
  - dublinben 10y ago
    I think the GPL is actually a perfect license in this case. Anyone who wants to use their cipher in another GPL project is free to. Commercial entities who won't do this can pay OWS for their time, expertise and IP in order to get a different license.
    - gfodor 10y ago
      That makes sense -- I guess what it boils down to is it would be nice if OWS were more open about their commercial licensing options, and make it easy for a company to license + integrate their work. As it stands right now it feels like you have to be a Facebook/WhatsApp level company to be able to be worth their time to work with.

moxie 10y ago

I'm repeating myself on many of these points, so I've cut and pasted some of my previous responses: > Signal uses servers controlled by OWS. Other organizations could conceivably operate their own servers because OWS open sources the software, but because OWS strictly opposes federation (meaning the interconnection of independently operated servers which the XMPP protocol (jabber) or e-mail allows), only the users connected to the OWS-run server can communicate with each other. I've tried to write about why I don't feel like this is going to be a part of our future here: https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ However, I would love it if someone proved me wrong. The Signal clients and server already support federation, so there shouldn't be any technical hurdles stopping the people who are really into federation from using our software to start their own federated network that demonstrates the viability of their ideas. If anyone needs help doing that, let me know. I'd be happy to help. > If a government does not approve of the use of Signal, it can simply block a single server farm, solving the problem for the state actor, and resulting in total loss of service to the users. The authors of this article conflate a lot of things with federation. Federation = anonymity, federation = metadata protection, federation = censorship circumvention. I don't think any of those are true. Email is federated, and I run my own mail server, but almost every single email I send or receive has GMail at the other end of it -- so running my own server does not provide me with any meaningful metadata protection, even though it is a federated protocol. The idea that everyone in the world is going to run their own mail server (or messaging server, or whatever) has not born out in practice, even in environments that natively support federation. I think serious metadata protection is going to require new protocols and new techniques, so we're much more likely to see major progress in centralized environments that can change rather than federated environments that are stuck in time (in the same way that Signal Protocol is now on over two billion devices, but we're unlikely to ever see even basic large scale email end to end encryption). In the case of censorship circumvention, I think it's much more common that people use censorship circumvention tools like VPNs or Tor rather than changing their entire federated identifier (and somehow re-discovering their entire social graph doing the same) every time a service gets blocked, particularly since censorship isn't just as simple as host-level filtering these days. Again, I think we're more likely to see the incorporation of these types of censorship circumvention techniques into centralized rather than federated services. > The community reacted to this by developing a version that does not rely on GCM, however, OWS refused to merge the changes into the Signal code. I don't believe this is true. To clarify this for casual readers, no data at all is transmitted over GCM. GCM is only used as a push event to tell the Signal Android client to wake up and connect to the Signal server to retrieve messages from the queue if the app isn't in the foreground. This is pretty fundamentally just how Android works. However, people who want to use Google's OS without any Google services flash custom ROMs onto their devices that are missing this dependency. I have said many times that I have no problem with supporting these custom ROMs. But I would like someone from that community to submit the PR: "I would consider a clean, well written, and well tested PR for websocket-only support in Signal. I expect it to have high battery consumption and an unreliable user experience, but would be fine with it if it comes with a warning and only runs in the absence of play services." Nobody has done it. > The final point of criticism is that OWS distributes the Signal app exclusively via Google Play while actively preventing the distribution of independent builds. We'd love to distribute Signal outside of Play, and have written about what we would need to be able to do so. As of yet, nobody from the FOSS community has stepped in to help. We'll get there eventually on our own, but we have a lot of work on our plate, and have to set our priorities according to what we think is important for Signal as a whole. > The community’s demands for decentralized web services controlled by the users themselves, or by designated professionals elected by the users, seems like a burden to them. I do not feel like the FOSS community is a "burden," however I do wish they recognized that many of their desires are unique to a very small minority of Signal users. I wish that they'd take more responsibility for manifesting those desires themselves. This is the second time in two months that someone from the FOSS scene has written up a list of complaints, but as far as I know, in neither case have the authors ever contributed anything to Signal in an effort to meet their own needs.

MrZongle2 10y ago

"After Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election in particular, many tweets recommended using hard disk encryption and the ostensibly secure messenger app Signal while discouraging the use of competitor apps Threema and Telegram." Oh FFS. We've seen a continuation of invasive, Bush-era policies under Obama...but now Trump is terrifying? Spoiler alert: it has been a problem for quite some time, and given the alternative to Trump it was going to still be a problem regardless of who won the election: freedom ponies and rainbows were never an option. Get a damn grip, people. Can we end the partisan pity party?

dragonwriter 10y ago
> We've seen a continuation of invasive, Bush-era policies IRT the NSA under Obama...but now Trump is terrifying? Uh, yeah. The Bush/Obama surveillance policies have largely been seen as dangerous not because of actual concrete harms that have materialized, but because if continued they raise the prospect of a much worse (because of the increased scope possible with modern tools) version of the kind of political targeting based on surveillance that was done by Nixon (prompting legal limits, notably the original FISA act.) And perhaps even beyond that, to the kind of retaliation for dissent seen in authoritarian regimes. Trump is seen as the kind of figure that would be more likely than a more conventional candilate of either party to make those theoretical risks into concrete harms.
- MrZongle2 10y ago
  I'm not buying it. The house is already on fire, and people are wringing their hands because the new owner might have a can of lighter fluid in his pocket.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    I would say that many people view the Bush/Obama surveillance policies more as unreasonably dangerous highly flammable fuel stored in the house than an actual fire, and Trump as more analogous to someone carrying an ignition source than additional fuel. I don't think many serious observers think that, whatever the potential, the actual substantive harm has yet been even close to Nixon levels, though the potential scope of intercepted communication (and hence, potential for harm with simply a change of intent at the top) is much broader.