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Your dimissive post boils down to “less than 100% perfect security is not ‘practicable’ so let’s leave a massively used, default communication platform utterly
by mapgrep 9y ago
Your dimissive post boils down to “less than 100% perfect security is not ‘practicable’ so let’s leave a massively used, default communication platform utterly unsecure.”
At least three of your critiques of encrypted email could be made of HTTPS: it leaks metadata (what sites you visit and when), it is plaintext by default, and the archives of the secured material are persistent and searchable. Yet HTTPS is hugely valuable.
But the biggest issue with your critique is that it proposes treating secure messaging as a special case for which people should just use a special tool. The old, “just use Signal” nonsense. Guess what? People suck at knowing what communications need to be secure, and they suck at keeping mundane conversations from veering into sensitive territory, and they suck at moving conversations from one platform to another. As many systems as possible that they use need to be secured, so that WHEN they mess up — meaning, have the gall to say something potentially sensitive outside of infosec-land blessed tools — the consequences are mitigated.
Security professionals need to meet users where they are. And where they are, to a massive massive unstoppable undeniable extent, is on fucking email. Shitty, plaintext by default, metadata leaking email. Just crying out to be fixed.
And they’re on Twitter DMs and Facebook and god help us Slack. Which is why the people who made Signal put their crypto into WhatsApp. Not because it’s a GOOD IDEA to let Facebook (!!) broker your key exchange and see your metadata — yes, Signal protocol can’t keep metadata away from third parties either, not entirely — but because they had the chance to improve security in an imperfect but good way for millions of people.
The people behind autocrypt took a similarly honest stab at improving email security. If this sort of system were more widely deployed — and i know firsthand that gpg can work well when deployed to an entire workgroup — the security gains would be massive. A huge, imperfect gain. And an essential one even for people who use Signal et al — because every single one of them, dollars to donuts, uses email part of the time. It would be hugely wrong to just leave that on the table.
- tptacek 9y agoYou seem to be relishing this takedown post. I don't want to harsh on that, since I enjoy writing a takedown as much as anyone, but I have to point out that you're attacking an argument I didn't make. It's not my argument that people should use special secure messaging applications when they need security, and email at other times. It's that we should stop using email pretty much altogether. Like I said: it's archaic. In the overwhelming majority of cases, a messaging application does a better job than store-and-forward email anyways. Which is why a lot of us look at our email inboxes these days and notice that most of what's in there is automated transactional stuff, with occasional cold inbound introductions that quickly transition off into some better medium. The one thing we do still routinely use email for --- sending files to each other --- is an iredeemable security disaster that needs to end as soon as possible anyways.
- jancsika 9y ago> It's that we should stop using email pretty much altogether. Like I said: it's archaic. Claiming that some piece of software or set of protocols is archaic is probably the least persuasive way to argue against continuing use. > [...] with occasional cold inbound introductions that quickly transition off into some better medium. Cold inbound introductions alone are a reason for continuing plaintext email well into the future.
- pvg 9y agoIt's surely somewhat more persuasive than merely calling a constructively-argued position you disagree with unpersuasive.
- a3_nm 9y ago> a lot of us look at our email inboxes these days and notice that most of what's in there is automated transactional stuff, with occasional cold inbound introductions that quickly transition off into some better medium Just wanted to point out: that's certainly not true for everyone. The overwhelming majority of my work communication is done by email, and an important part of my social communication with friends and family also is. Yes, even with long-time colleagues and friends. Not everyone is using, or wants to use, other messaging applications. > It's that we should stop using email pretty much altogether. Is there another communication system that is decentralized (no single point of failure, no central place where people have to register, I can run my own server and customize the client), and is also widely used?