7 ms·

It’s somewhat harder to be a Searchable Log of All (Company|Current) Knowledge if you utilize end-to-end encryption. Where are the ends?

meritt 9y ago
This is my biggest objection to Slack. Give me an application/container/whatever I can run on our network instead. I do not trust them with my entire company chat history stored in plaintext on the same cluster as every other company.
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  I feel like more often than not, organizations apply this logic to SaaSes that offers on-prem installations, and choose the on-prem over the hosted solution... only to leave the installation out of date with critical vulnerabilities and missing features that the hosted installation would be on top of.
  - cortesoft 9y ago
    There is nothing stopping an on-prem appliance from being able to automatically update. Of course, once you do that, you are again putting trust back into the third party, so you lose some of what you gained.
    - BoorishBears 9y ago
      I don't think I've ever seen an on-prem application that self updated without manual intervention. I'm sure it exists, but it doesn't seem common. Probably because in general self-updating goes against the control on-prem is supposed to give enterprises, especially when they're afraid of breaking critical workflows.
  - hueving 9y ago
    If it's not exposed to the internet, an out of date on-prem is still better than everything on a massive centralized public vendor server that 5 nation states are hacked into.
    - praneshp 9y ago
      If 5 nation states hacked into the centralized public vendor they'll find a way to get into someone's on-prem version of the same, especially if they are the type to let it go very out of date.
      - hueving 9y ago
        The difference is that they will only hack into your on-prem solution if you are the target. With a central service, all of slack's million customers get compromised because of one single hack.
        praneshp 9y ago
        Correct, I didn't think of that.
    - BoorishBears 9y ago
      GitLab had a permission escalation issue that I saw unpatched on an on-Prem install. Contractors accessing it via VPN (and even local employees) would have been able to access repos and actions they didn’t have permission to access. And it’s not like nation states can’t attack companies directly.
      - hueving 9y ago
        Nation states only attack companies they care about. That's the point. Once you have your info on slack, you share the fate with the million other companies that nation states might care about.
- lima 9y ago
  Nowadays there are excellent self-hosted alternatives (Zulip, Mattermost, Rocket Chat...). That being said: A company-wide Discourse forum works much better for knowledge sharing and discussions.
  - qznc 9y ago
    Has anybody ever merged chat and forums? At least integrate them so tightly that switching back and forth is fluid.
- Tushon 9y ago
  That's not what they are ever going to provide, like the parent comment indicated because it isn't their goal. Companies or individuals which need your requirement should/are already using a competitor that does allow you to do so, with all the limitations that the extra security gets you (search, integrations, etc), e.g. mattermost or rocket.
okreallywtf 9y ago
Would allowing organizations to manage their own key(s) suffice? If all of the stored data was encrypted by the users (even if it was a single key for a client organization), that would do a lot. You would have to compromise the private key(s) for the organization as well as Slacks (now useless) data.
- meritt 9y ago
  How does Slack provide a search service if the data is encrypted by keys they do not control?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - okreallywtf 9y ago
    I see your point. Is it possible to achieve that type of functionality with a reasonable expectation of security?
    - cortesoft 9y ago
      Well, if you want slack to be able to search chats history, it needs to be able to access it in some way. So if your 'resonable expectation of security' involves slack not being able to read your chat history, you are going to have to give up search. Otherwise, the reasonable expectation of security will have to rely on trusting slack to properly secure their side of things.
  - nerfhammer 9y ago
    run the tokenizer on the client side, client submits encrypted tokens to the search index. or don't provide a search service, have client have its own local index.
    - meritt 9y ago
      > run the tokenizer on the client side, client submits encrypted tokens to the search index. That would be an incredibly insecure method of encryption. > or don't provide a search service, have client have its own local index. Yep, I would prefer an on-prem solution.
empath75 9y ago
It seems like being a searchable log of all company knowledge would make it super important to have encrypted.

meritt 9y ago

This is my biggest objection to Slack. Give me an application/container/whatever I can run on our network instead. I do not trust them with my entire company chat history stored in plaintext on the same cluster as every other company.

BoorishBears 9y ago
I feel like more often than not, organizations apply this logic to SaaSes that offers on-prem installations, and choose the on-prem over the hosted solution... only to leave the installation out of date with critical vulnerabilities and missing features that the hosted installation would be on top of.
- cortesoft 9y ago
  There is nothing stopping an on-prem appliance from being able to automatically update. Of course, once you do that, you are again putting trust back into the third party, so you lose some of what you gained.
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    I don't think I've ever seen an on-prem application that self updated without manual intervention. I'm sure it exists, but it doesn't seem common. Probably because in general self-updating goes against the control on-prem is supposed to give enterprises, especially when they're afraid of breaking critical workflows.
- hueving 9y ago
  If it's not exposed to the internet, an out of date on-prem is still better than everything on a massive centralized public vendor server that 5 nation states are hacked into.
  - praneshp 9y ago
    If 5 nation states hacked into the centralized public vendor they'll find a way to get into someone's on-prem version of the same, especially if they are the type to let it go very out of date.
    - hueving 9y ago
      The difference is that they will only hack into your on-prem solution if you are the target. With a central service, all of slack's million customers get compromised because of one single hack.
      - praneshp 9y ago
        Correct, I didn't think of that.
  - BoorishBears 9y ago
    GitLab had a permission escalation issue that I saw unpatched on an on-Prem install. Contractors accessing it via VPN (and even local employees) would have been able to access repos and actions they didn’t have permission to access. And it’s not like nation states can’t attack companies directly.
    - hueving 9y ago
      Nation states only attack companies they care about. That's the point. Once you have your info on slack, you share the fate with the million other companies that nation states might care about.
lima 9y ago
Nowadays there are excellent self-hosted alternatives (Zulip, Mattermost, Rocket Chat...). That being said: A company-wide Discourse forum works much better for knowledge sharing and discussions.
- qznc 9y ago
  Has anybody ever merged chat and forums? At least integrate them so tightly that switching back and forth is fluid.
Tushon 9y ago
That's not what they are ever going to provide, like the parent comment indicated because it isn't their goal. Companies or individuals which need your requirement should/are already using a competitor that does allow you to do so, with all the limitations that the extra security gets you (search, integrations, etc), e.g. mattermost or rocket.

okreallywtf 9y ago

Would allowing organizations to manage their own key(s) suffice? If all of the stored data was encrypted by the users (even if it was a single key for a client organization), that would do a lot. You would have to compromise the private key(s) for the organization as well as Slacks (now useless) data.

meritt 9y ago
How does Slack provide a search service if the data is encrypted by keys they do not control?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- okreallywtf 9y ago
  I see your point. Is it possible to achieve that type of functionality with a reasonable expectation of security?
  - cortesoft 9y ago
    Well, if you want slack to be able to search chats history, it needs to be able to access it in some way. So if your 'resonable expectation of security' involves slack not being able to read your chat history, you are going to have to give up search. Otherwise, the reasonable expectation of security will have to rely on trusting slack to properly secure their side of things.
- nerfhammer 9y ago
  run the tokenizer on the client side, client submits encrypted tokens to the search index. or don't provide a search service, have client have its own local index.
  - meritt 9y ago
    > run the tokenizer on the client side, client submits encrypted tokens to the search index. That would be an incredibly insecure method of encryption. > or don't provide a search service, have client have its own local index. Yep, I would prefer an on-prem solution.

empath75 9y ago

It seems like being a searchable log of all company knowledge would make it super important to have encrypted.