11 ms·

> P.S. If you’re looking for good alternatives to Signal, I can recommend Matrix. Yes, if you're looking for alternatives to Signal, you should totally use a s

by r3bl 8y ago

> P.S. If you’re looking for good alternatives to Signal, I can recommend Matrix. Yes, if you're looking for alternatives to Signal, you should totally use a solution that hasn't rolled out end-to-end encryption by default[0]. /s ...and that only two clients have implemented so far, out of 50ish that they list on their website. [0] https://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq.html#what-is-the-status-of-e2e%3F https://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq.html#what-is-the-status-o...

pmlnr 8y ago
Nonsense. You can run your own Matrix server and set whatever defaults you want.
- detaro 8y ago
  A Matrix server can force E2E on all messages passing it?
  - pmlnr 8y ago
    https://blog.cryptoaustralia.org.au/2017/03/21/run-your-end-to-end-encrypted-chat-server-matrix-riot/ https://blog.cryptoaustralia.org.au/2017/03/21/run-your-end-...
    - masklinn 8y ago
      That looks like a no given the article has a "Create a new secure room" section where you have to explicitly enable encryption for that specific room.
      - pmlnr 8y ago
        e2e, by nature, is client specific. So Matrix, as a connectivity glue protocol, has nothing to do with it. Synapse, the reference server, can handle rooms, and force encryption on the rooms. p2p is client side. Riot, as reference client, is the one that takes care of this, and, if I get everything right, it is on by default.
        masklinn 8y ago
        Regardless of the truth of your assertions, the article you provided as evidence does not support them. At no point does it demonstrate that a matrix server can force E2E on all communications, that synapse can be configured thus, or that riot can require that configuration.
  - Arathorn 8y ago
    Yes, it can - for instance the Matrix servers that the French government runs do this by default already. We haven't exposed this as a config option and pushed it into mainstream Synapse yet because of https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/6779 https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/6779, but the tweak for doing it is: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/pull/3426/files https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/pull/3426/files
    - mindB 8y ago
      Is this true? As far as I know, even in rooms with m.room.encryption, you can still send normal m.room.messages. Or does the config option you're describing automatically setup room PLs such that m.room.message can't be sent?
      - Arathorn 8y ago
        technically you can still send normal m.room.messages (or anything else), but any spec-compliant client will refuse to do so in a room where m.room.encryption has been enabled.
snvzz 8y ago
That ticks me off too. I'd rather suggest Tox. For all the hate it gets, it does only have mode of communication: End-to-end encrypted, for your contact (as people's addresses are pubkeys) and with forward secrecy. Most "secure" IM systems fail this basic test. When proper end-to-end encryption is optional, guess what happens.
- bjoli 8y ago
  Well. I'd rather not have anyone suggest tox. The whole "we use nacl so we are safe" attitude from a couple of years ago seems to still be around. Good on them for using nacl. A shame they don't seem to realize that you can write bad crypto with it. The whole forward secrecy seems to be unresolved still. They have session keys,but other than that there is no rekeying. And then we have the whole issue with it relying on supernodes for much of its functionality (offline messages, mobile phone client rs) which leads to it having a subset of the issues many have with signal.
  - snvzz 8y ago
    >The whole "we use nacl so we are safe" attitude from a couple of years ago seems to still be around. Citation needed. >Well. I'd rather not have anyone suggest tox. I'm repeating myself, but for all the hate it gets, I'm unable to come up with a better suggestion than Tox. There's always some kind of flaw: Centralized, no forward secrecy, end to end encryption optional, no way to verify contacts and so on.
    - bjoli 8y ago
      Regarding the citation, it is just a matter of reading how the core devs reply to potential security issues. Sure, it has gotten better, but it is not too far from the good old https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/issues/121 https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/issues/121 The fact is we mostly know what kind of attacks are possible on signal. We know metadata is a potential problem. We know what kind of tradeoffs we get with a centralised architecture. We know how that works and how to mitigate some things. Openwhispersystems have been clear about what Signal provides and what it does not provide (even the wording around disappearing messages is well chosen not to confuse people ). With tox there is a lot we don't know. Are the supernodes an attack vector? Why aren't the devs clear about using a less distributed architecture for mobile clients? Why don't they provide proper forward secrecy yet they claim to do so? There might be lots of strange properties of doing crypto distributed. I would not recommend it for secure communication until the amount of unknowns is smaller. It is really that simple.
ddevault 8y ago
Author here, this is a fair criticism. Other alternatives (which I have not reviewed in depth) include Tox, Telegram, Wire, and Ring (not an endorsement of any of these). I'm an old curmodgen who just uses IRC+OTR and GPG, though, so I have to depend on others for recommendations. Also, Matrix enables end-to-end encryption by default on clients that support it.
- kelnage 8y ago
  You suggest Telegram over Signal? Now we know you're spreading FUD.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
    I don't actually endorse any of the alternatives, just listing them. I haven't had time to research them in depth. I have worked with Tox before and I know some of the guys behind it, though, but I think it's dead in the water.
    - topkeks 8y ago
      Oh, so you are just a retard who doesn't understand anything?
      - sctb 8y ago
        We've banned this account.
- jhasse 8y ago
  Let's also not forget XMPP+OMEMO.
- verbify 8y ago
  According to friends in the cryptography space and from a cursory reading of wikipedia, Telegram is a shitshow compared to Signal. It's one thing not to trust Signal. It's another to recommend alternatives that are far worse.
Arathorn 8y ago
Fwiw, Matrix E2E actually exists in separate codebases in: Riot/Web, Riot/iOS, Riot/Android, nheko, matrix-python-sdk, libpurple (in PR), and shortly in Fractal (thanks to https://gitlab.gnome.org/jhaye/olm-rs https://gitlab.gnome.org/jhaye/olm-rs etc). So yup, it sucks that it's not turned on by default in private rooms, but we're working away as fast as we can.
- r3bl 8y ago
  I love your project and am really looking forward to replacing a lot of stuff with Matrix-powered chat. However, I strongly disagree with the author that Matrix should be recommended as a secure communication platform until E2E is stable (and, from what I understand about your project, you'll enable it by default as soon as you consider it stable enough).
- mindB 8y ago
  For the record, E2E is currently in libpurple master (only decryption not encryption) and in PR on matrix-python-sdk. Just a slight flip there.
  - Arathorn 8y ago
    my bad; i thought all the python ones had landed now. in practice the work is done. Also, since writing this list yesterday, another client has got E2E running: Seaglass (a native Cocoa macOS client): https://neilalexander.eu/seaglass/ https://neilalexander.eu/seaglass/
drdaeman 8y ago
Last time I've tried Matrix (this spring) with a group of peers, my E2E rooms were full of random "failed to decrypt" and lots of out-of-band communications "hey, are my messages working for you today?" Yes, we had one Synapse server running on a resource-constrained machine that sometimes "fell behind" the rest of the network. I believe that is what had caused such issues. Still, the fact things easily break with server load or network issues means there is something faulty about the protocol. Resilience and reliability are no less important than security.
- mynewtb 8y ago
  That mirrors my experience with the matrix.org homeserver. It has not improved much over all the months.
  - Arathorn 8y ago
    We've been working away fixing causes of 'unable to decrypt' bugs, to the extent that (as a poweruser) I almost never see them. If you see them, please report them via bug report so we can dig into them. Meanwhile, the performance of the matrix.org server has definitely improved massively over the last few weeks. We hit a performance ceiling from May through mid July, but since July 19th or so we've finally got CPU headroom back again thanks to stuff like https://twitter.com/matrixdotorg/status/1019957885026144257 https://twitter.com/matrixdotorg/status/1019957885026144257 and https://twitter.com/matrixdotorg/status/1022095383978233856 https://twitter.com/matrixdotorg/status/1022095383978233856.
aepc2 8y ago
Or conversations.im? Matrix + riot leaves a heap of meta data about you on the federated server. If that server is compromised, so are you.
- Arathorn 8y ago
  Surely Matrix doesn't leave any more metadata than XMPP with MAM enabled (which presumably most XMPPers use these days)?

by r3bl 8y ago

pmlnr 8y ago

Nonsense. You can run your own Matrix server and set whatever defaults you want.

detaro 8y ago
A Matrix server can force E2E on all messages passing it?
- pmlnr 8y ago
  https://blog.cryptoaustralia.org.au/2017/03/21/run-your-end-to-end-encrypted-chat-server-matrix-riot/ https://blog.cryptoaustralia.org.au/2017/03/21/run-your-end-...
  - masklinn 8y ago
    That looks like a no given the article has a "Create a new secure room" section where you have to explicitly enable encryption for that specific room.
    - pmlnr 8y ago
      e2e, by nature, is client specific. So Matrix, as a connectivity glue protocol, has nothing to do with it. Synapse, the reference server, can handle rooms, and force encryption on the rooms. p2p is client side. Riot, as reference client, is the one that takes care of this, and, if I get everything right, it is on by default.
      - masklinn 8y ago
        Regardless of the truth of your assertions, the article you provided as evidence does not support them. At no point does it demonstrate that a matrix server can force E2E on all communications, that synapse can be configured thus, or that riot can require that configuration.
- Arathorn 8y ago
  Yes, it can - for instance the Matrix servers that the French government runs do this by default already. We haven't exposed this as a config option and pushed it into mainstream Synapse yet because of https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/6779 https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/6779, but the tweak for doing it is: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/pull/3426/files https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/pull/3426/files
  - mindB 8y ago
    Is this true? As far as I know, even in rooms with m.room.encryption, you can still send normal m.room.messages. Or does the config option you're describing automatically setup room PLs such that m.room.message can't be sent?
    - Arathorn 8y ago
      technically you can still send normal m.room.messages (or anything else), but any spec-compliant client will refuse to do so in a room where m.room.encryption has been enabled.

snvzz 8y ago

That ticks me off too. I'd rather suggest Tox. For all the hate it gets, it does only have mode of communication: End-to-end encrypted, for your contact (as people's addresses are pubkeys) and with forward secrecy. Most "secure" IM systems fail this basic test. When proper end-to-end encryption is optional, guess what happens.

bjoli 8y ago
Well. I'd rather not have anyone suggest tox. The whole "we use nacl so we are safe" attitude from a couple of years ago seems to still be around. Good on them for using nacl. A shame they don't seem to realize that you can write bad crypto with it. The whole forward secrecy seems to be unresolved still. They have session keys,but other than that there is no rekeying. And then we have the whole issue with it relying on supernodes for much of its functionality (offline messages, mobile phone client rs) which leads to it having a subset of the issues many have with signal.
- snvzz 8y ago
  >The whole "we use nacl so we are safe" attitude from a couple of years ago seems to still be around. Citation needed. >Well. I'd rather not have anyone suggest tox. I'm repeating myself, but for all the hate it gets, I'm unable to come up with a better suggestion than Tox. There's always some kind of flaw: Centralized, no forward secrecy, end to end encryption optional, no way to verify contacts and so on.
  - bjoli 8y ago
    Regarding the citation, it is just a matter of reading how the core devs reply to potential security issues. Sure, it has gotten better, but it is not too far from the good old https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/issues/121 https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/issues/121 The fact is we mostly know what kind of attacks are possible on signal. We know metadata is a potential problem. We know what kind of tradeoffs we get with a centralised architecture. We know how that works and how to mitigate some things. Openwhispersystems have been clear about what Signal provides and what it does not provide (even the wording around disappearing messages is well chosen not to confuse people ). With tox there is a lot we don't know. Are the supernodes an attack vector? Why aren't the devs clear about using a less distributed architecture for mobile clients? Why don't they provide proper forward secrecy yet they claim to do so? There might be lots of strange properties of doing crypto distributed. I would not recommend it for secure communication until the amount of unknowns is smaller. It is really that simple.

ddevault 8y ago

Author here, this is a fair criticism. Other alternatives (which I have not reviewed in depth) include Tox, Telegram, Wire, and Ring (not an endorsement of any of these). I'm an old curmodgen who just uses IRC+OTR and GPG, though, so I have to depend on others for recommendations. Also, Matrix enables end-to-end encryption by default on clients that support it.

kelnage 8y ago
You suggest Telegram over Signal? Now we know you're spreading FUD.
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  I don't actually endorse any of the alternatives, just listing them. I haven't had time to research them in depth. I have worked with Tox before and I know some of the guys behind it, though, but I think it's dead in the water.
  - topkeks 8y ago
    Oh, so you are just a retard who doesn't understand anything?
    - sctb 8y ago
      We've banned this account.
jhasse 8y ago
Let's also not forget XMPP+OMEMO.
verbify 8y ago
According to friends in the cryptography space and from a cursory reading of wikipedia, Telegram is a shitshow compared to Signal. It's one thing not to trust Signal. It's another to recommend alternatives that are far worse.

Arathorn 8y ago

Fwiw, Matrix E2E actually exists in separate codebases in: Riot/Web, Riot/iOS, Riot/Android, nheko, matrix-python-sdk, libpurple (in PR), and shortly in Fractal (thanks to https://gitlab.gnome.org/jhaye/olm-rs https://gitlab.gnome.org/jhaye/olm-rs etc). So yup, it sucks that it's not turned on by default in private rooms, but we're working away as fast as we can.

r3bl 8y ago
I love your project and am really looking forward to replacing a lot of stuff with Matrix-powered chat. However, I strongly disagree with the author that Matrix should be recommended as a secure communication platform until E2E is stable (and, from what I understand about your project, you'll enable it by default as soon as you consider it stable enough).
mindB 8y ago
For the record, E2E is currently in libpurple master (only decryption not encryption) and in PR on matrix-python-sdk. Just a slight flip there.
- Arathorn 8y ago
  my bad; i thought all the python ones had landed now. in practice the work is done. Also, since writing this list yesterday, another client has got E2E running: Seaglass (a native Cocoa macOS client): https://neilalexander.eu/seaglass/ https://neilalexander.eu/seaglass/

drdaeman 8y ago

Last time I've tried Matrix (this spring) with a group of peers, my E2E rooms were full of random "failed to decrypt" and lots of out-of-band communications "hey, are my messages working for you today?" Yes, we had one Synapse server running on a resource-constrained machine that sometimes "fell behind" the rest of the network. I believe that is what had caused such issues. Still, the fact things easily break with server load or network issues means there is something faulty about the protocol. Resilience and reliability are no less important than security.

mynewtb 8y ago
That mirrors my experience with the matrix.org homeserver. It has not improved much over all the months.
- Arathorn 8y ago
  We've been working away fixing causes of 'unable to decrypt' bugs, to the extent that (as a poweruser) I almost never see them. If you see them, please report them via bug report so we can dig into them. Meanwhile, the performance of the matrix.org server has definitely improved massively over the last few weeks. We hit a performance ceiling from May through mid July, but since July 19th or so we've finally got CPU headroom back again thanks to stuff like https://twitter.com/matrixdotorg/status/1019957885026144257 https://twitter.com/matrixdotorg/status/1019957885026144257 and https://twitter.com/matrixdotorg/status/1022095383978233856 https://twitter.com/matrixdotorg/status/1022095383978233856.

aepc2 8y ago

Or conversations.im? Matrix + riot leaves a heap of meta data about you on the federated server. If that server is compromised, so are you.

Arathorn 8y ago
Surely Matrix doesn't leave any more metadata than XMPP with MAM enabled (which presumably most XMPPers use these days)?