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The Signal protocol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Protocol) has been vetted, and the code is online availa

• colordrops 10y ago
  It's not just about the protocol though, it's the whole stack, and the OSes that it runs on are frequently not secure. Also, the Signal app on Google Play requires your phone number and a Twilio API call to function. No thanks.
  • jplayer01 10y ago
    That's something we can't do anything about though.
    • colordrops 10y ago
      We can't do anything about the phone number requirement?
      • espeed 10y ago
        The phone number is not required as per the Signal protocol -- it's an implementation detail -- another token could be used. At this time, phone number verification is used in the initial authentication flow to protect against someone else spoofing your phone number and pretending to be you. See https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/issues/1181 https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/issues/1181
      • homakov 10y ago
        Actually magic link sent to your email would be MUCH better. Also central authority but Gmail >>> any telecom
        • yellowapple 10y ago
          It also doesn't have to be a central authority, since "anyone" (meaning: anyone who can afford to operate a mailserver, which is actually a surprisingly-high number) can be such an authority for one's own mail.
          • homakov 10y ago
            Practically nobody is running own mail server these days. Email is extremely centralized
            • corford 10y ago
              I still run my own for personal email (postfix + dovecot). Runs off a Linode VM atm and has no problem getting through to Gmail, Hotmail etc. users.
              • homakov 10y ago
                "Most people don't know rocket science" "Actually I know some rocket science!"
            • dredmorbius 10y ago
              That's true, but not a given.
            • yellowapple 10y ago
              Just because practically nobody is doesn't mean practically nobody can't, which was my point.
            • im3w1l 10y ago
              one single actor < a few large actors you can choose from < lots of actors to choose from < medium size organizations can and do often run their own < individuals can ran their own (Email Is Here) < individuals commonly run their own Let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
• RubyPinch 10y ago
  How much of that Telegram info applies to anything in the last 2 years or so?
  • krrrh 10y ago
    They still haven't open sourced the server afaik. The thing that is a problem with Telegram is that they market on their security, but it's not secure by default, or on group chats. Moreover, it stores chat histories, and if you add someone to a group chat they get access to the historical data. A lot of folks use it without thinking about this, or understanding the implications.
• wyager 10y ago
  The protocol is secure, but we have no idea if the implementations are secure (except Signal itself), because we can't audit them. In fact, Facebook Messenger's implementation of Signal has very questionable security right out of the box, because if one party "reports" an encrypted conversation, the whole thing is decrypted and sent to facebook support staff.
  • espeed 10y ago
    So someone reporting a message to Facebook would be the equivalent of that person (either Alice or Bob) reporting and sending the content of the other person's encrypted conversation to a third party. The Signal Protocol provides end-to-end encryption so you don't have to trust the intermediate parties/servers involved in relaying the message (e.g. you don't have to trust Facebook's servers), and to protect against the other person reporting and revealing your conversation to someone else, the Signal Protocol provides message repudiation [1], which effectively gives the sender plausible deniability because the receiving party cannot prove to a third party that a message came from you. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Protocol#Properties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Protocol#Properties
    • wyager 10y ago
      Yes, my concern is that this functionality is baked into the client and is at a high risk of being executable remotely.