5 ms·

I am happy to see I am not the only person in the world that feels like this about Signal. The interesting fact is that I "Ctrl+F" this page for Wire and I hav

I am happy to see I am not the only person in the world that feels like this about Signal. The interesting fact is that I "Ctrl+F" this page for Wire and I have seen nothing, even though this comment is about something that made me switch over Wire from Signal: to date, that's the unique instant messaging that has FOSS'ed both the server and the clients. (OK, the article also says about Matrix.) I admire Wire for a number of reasons, but certainly FOSS'ing all their code is one the main reasons. (The other is... Haskell! And also Rust.) And just to point out, not only Wire bug-fixed the library implementation of the Signal protocol, as they use the Signal protocol. And their web interface is very good! Oh, yes... And they are not based in USA. EDIT: I am not affiliated with Wire, but just a happy customer. :)

mathnmusic 8y ago
Signal, in an indirect way, requires 1/6th of the world's population to part with their biometrics. It requires phone number, and in India, getting a phone # requires Aadhaar, which is a centralized, biometrics-based ID (photo, fingerprints AND iris at the moment).
- j16sdiz 8y ago
  I see this as a good thing because it effectively rate limit the spam bot creations
  - alexnewman 8y ago
    Ya really think phone numbers are hard to get?
    - FrozenTraffic 8y ago
      Since there is someone above claiming that getting a phone number in some countries "requires" biometric identification, I'd say yes.
      - snaky 8y ago
        As usual with restrictions and regulations, it's easy to obtain for bad guys and not easy for good guys.
  - lucb1e 8y ago
    I think there are better solutions for that such as CAPTCHAs, rate limiting, etc. We don't need to resort to giving out biometrics to solve spam bots.
- angry_octet 8y ago
  Are you seriously telling me that everyone in India is using the phone number which matches their biometrics? Lol. Besides which, there are well established ways to get a Signal number online, like Google Voice or VoIP telephony companies.
Vinnl 8y ago
> that's the unique instant messaging that has FOSS'ed both the server and the clients. Signal's server code is open source as well: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server And apparently the client can verify that the server is running that code: https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/#trust-but-verify https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/#trust-but...
- Gaelan 8y ago
  Note: my understanding of SGX is that this still requires trust of Intel. Still, far better than nothing
  - saurik 8y ago
    It also requires there to not be a hardware sidechannel exploit on the device running SGX... such as the variants of Spectre that have ben trickling out every few weeks now all year... so yeah: Moxie's trust of SGX is pretty damning.
    - Vinnl 8y ago
      As I understood it, the "trust" comes down to: "it has some limits, but it's strictly better than nothing". I wouldn't call that damning.
- Boulth 8y ago
  Server and the contact directory service are two different things. The remote attestation is just for a small part of the code (SGX code have a lot of constraints, including size). Also, I don't know if it changed but the new contact discovery service was not in production last time I checked.
okatsu 8y ago
I was on Wire for a time and even got other people on board. Then the experience suddenly degraded out of nowhere. The desktop and web clients would never finish syncing. Some other stuff I don't remember. I really liked the app though. I mean the unfortunate reality of chat programs is that there are so many that when I'm having weird problems I'm not gonna spend time opening issues on GitHub and sending logs; I'll just go back to what works. That's even more true for my non-technical friends.
- Tomte 8y ago
  This. User experience is everything. In my case, not Wire, but Signal. My Signal contact list is exactle two people long. Trying to get people to move from WhatsApp elsewhere is hard, especially if some of them even additionally installed Threema a few years back when Facebook bought WhatsApp. But at least two people. With one of them I was regularly conversing on Signal, so much that she even preferred it to WhatsApp. One day she messaged me on WhatsApp again. She said Signal had not set notifications for my messages a few times now, and she's fed up. I never had that problem. Maybe she misunderstood or misconfigured something. But it doesn't matter. Signal is dead to her. It's really easy to lose perspective as a developer how much this usability stuff matters. Sure, we all pay lip service to it, tell each other how bad the UI on some tool is and fake humility about our missing sense for anything design (including UI design). But we don't really get it.
- walterbell 8y ago
  Wire mobile apps have been reliable through several years of daily use. Does not require a phone number and Wire is working on interoperability with other E2E messaging services, via the IETF MLS protocol.
  - okatsu 8y ago
    I'm happy for you. Buf that doesn't undo what happened to us.
    - walterbell 8y ago
lmm 8y ago
An open-source server is certainly a step up from Signal, but since Wire doesn't support federation (either in their ToS or in practice) I'd favour Matrix.
- lorenzhs 8y ago
  > An open-source server is certainly a step up from Signal https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server. You are spreading a lot of incorrect or misleading information about Signal in this thread. That makes it difficult to assume that you're arguing in good faith here.
  - ddevault 8y ago
    The server might as well be closed source. We have no guarantees that Moxie is actually running this in production and he refuses to federate with third-party servers.
    - lorenzhs 8y ago
      This is addressed in https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/ https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/ – using Intel SGX, it's possible for the clients to verify that the server is running the code it should be running. I'm not sure whether this is already deployed, but it refutes any claim that Signal isn't serious about your concern. I don't see how federation is related to this at all. We know you're bummed about it, you don't need to inject it into every subthread.
      - ddevault 8y ago
        SGX is not a magic bullet, it's only part of a secure system. It's also come under some fire, check out this paper: https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-17/thursday/us-17-Swami-SGX-Remote-Attestation-Is-Not-Sufficient-wp.pdf https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-17/thursday/us-17-Swami-SGX... SGX alone cannot solve this problem. Even in the idealized case, you can sniff traffic on the router to find out which user IPs are talking to each other and when.
leetbulb 8y ago
I love wire. Never have any issues with the desktop client nor mobile app. Even though it's Electron, it seems to be extremely focused on security. Unfortunately, it suffers from the same metadata issues as Signal. If you really need higher security messaging, p2p is your best bet, but then you may face correlation attacks by ISPs and whatnot... Maybe we all just need to get our HAM radio licenses :)
- samstave 8y ago
  How is HAM secure? (I don't know anything about HAM)
  - detaro 8y ago
    It's not secure by definition, since encryption is forbidden in ham radio.
- angry_octet 8y ago
  Well, Electron is a security trash fire. I wouldn't use it for anything if need to be remotely secure. Hopefully will be replaced by webasm in the near future, though that will likely have problems too.
brynjolf 8y ago
There is a german guide to privacy I read that has some real issues with Wire, most that I agree with [0]. I will Google translate it for you (ironic): > "10/06/2017: Wire.com operational Security > Wire.com is referred to as a new star among crypto messengers. I briefly looked at the (experimental) Linux version of Wire.com and found some significant security flaws: > Mannings Bug: Wire.com has good end-to-end encryption based on Axolotl. The chats are all but unencrypted (!) Logged on the hard disk of the computer. The logging can not be switched off. > The unencrypted storage of encrypted communication is not a bug but an epic FAIL! > Access data: (Account name, password) to Wire.com account are also stored somewhere unencrypted on the hard drive. When starting the person does not have to authenticate in front of the screen but is automatically connected to all accounts. > This is not a bug but a FAIL! Remote Code Execution: The Linux Wire Client contains a lot of Javascript code. Updates for the Javascript code will be downloaded and executed via HTTPS from the Amazon Cloud. After a superficial examination, the authenticity of the executed code is not additionally cryptographically verified (this is a guess, not checked in the code!). Security therefore depends solely on HTTPS encryption. The HTTPS encryption of the contacted wire servers app.wire.com, prod-assets.wire.com and prod-nginz-https.wire.com does NOT meet the BSI's requirements for secure HTTPS encryption. These servers are Amazon Cloud Server and Cloudfront Server (not your own infrastructure). > DANE / TLSA or HPKP are NOT used to validate SSL certificates of HTTPS connections. In addition, no CAA record is defined in the DNS, which should actually be mandatory for HTTPS for a month. The security of the transport encryption between client and server thus does not correspond to the feasible state of the art. > Potent attackers could attack with fake but valid SSL certificates as man-in-the-middle the communication to the wire servers, in combination with the remote code execution possibly also attack the end-to-end encryption (assumption!), and there are enough potent attackers who want to attack the encryption of crypto messengers. The domain wire.com is not signed DNSSEC. Instead of the privacy-friendly OCSP.Stapling, OCSP.Get is used and several CAs are contacted to verify SSL certificates via OCSP. OCSP.Get can be easily tricked, as M. Marlspike demonstrated in 2009. It contacts third party servers that are not under the control of the operators (maps.googleapis.com, images.unsplash.com) to download anything. > Conclusion: The operational security of Wire.com is not (yet) suitable for security-critical applications after a small, superficial test. In particular, whistleblowers should learn from Manning's example and not use it. > Disclaimer: this is NOT an audit but a short test of the Linux version." [0] https://www.privacy-handbuch.de/diskussion.htm https://www.privacy-handbuch.de/diskussion.htm

mathnmusic 8y ago

Signal, in an indirect way, requires 1/6th of the world's population to part with their biometrics. It requires phone number, and in India, getting a phone # requires Aadhaar, which is a centralized, biometrics-based ID (photo, fingerprints AND iris at the moment).

j16sdiz 8y ago
I see this as a good thing because it effectively rate limit the spam bot creations
- alexnewman 8y ago
  Ya really think phone numbers are hard to get?
  - FrozenTraffic 8y ago
    Since there is someone above claiming that getting a phone number in some countries "requires" biometric identification, I'd say yes.
    - snaky 8y ago
      As usual with restrictions and regulations, it's easy to obtain for bad guys and not easy for good guys.
- lucb1e 8y ago
  I think there are better solutions for that such as CAPTCHAs, rate limiting, etc. We don't need to resort to giving out biometrics to solve spam bots.
angry_octet 8y ago
Are you seriously telling me that everyone in India is using the phone number which matches their biometrics? Lol. Besides which, there are well established ways to get a Signal number online, like Google Voice or VoIP telephony companies.

Vinnl 8y ago

> that's the unique instant messaging that has FOSS'ed both the server and the clients. Signal's server code is open source as well: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server And apparently the client can verify that the server is running that code: https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/#trust-but-verify https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/#trust-but...

Gaelan 8y ago
Note: my understanding of SGX is that this still requires trust of Intel. Still, far better than nothing
- saurik 8y ago
  It also requires there to not be a hardware sidechannel exploit on the device running SGX... such as the variants of Spectre that have ben trickling out every few weeks now all year... so yeah: Moxie's trust of SGX is pretty damning.
  - Vinnl 8y ago
    As I understood it, the "trust" comes down to: "it has some limits, but it's strictly better than nothing". I wouldn't call that damning.
Boulth 8y ago
Server and the contact directory service are two different things. The remote attestation is just for a small part of the code (SGX code have a lot of constraints, including size). Also, I don't know if it changed but the new contact discovery service was not in production last time I checked.

okatsu 8y ago

I was on Wire for a time and even got other people on board. Then the experience suddenly degraded out of nowhere. The desktop and web clients would never finish syncing. Some other stuff I don't remember. I really liked the app though. I mean the unfortunate reality of chat programs is that there are so many that when I'm having weird problems I'm not gonna spend time opening issues on GitHub and sending logs; I'll just go back to what works. That's even more true for my non-technical friends.

Tomte 8y ago
This. User experience is everything. In my case, not Wire, but Signal. My Signal contact list is exactle two people long. Trying to get people to move from WhatsApp elsewhere is hard, especially if some of them even additionally installed Threema a few years back when Facebook bought WhatsApp. But at least two people. With one of them I was regularly conversing on Signal, so much that she even preferred it to WhatsApp. One day she messaged me on WhatsApp again. She said Signal had not set notifications for my messages a few times now, and she's fed up. I never had that problem. Maybe she misunderstood or misconfigured something. But it doesn't matter. Signal is dead to her. It's really easy to lose perspective as a developer how much this usability stuff matters. Sure, we all pay lip service to it, tell each other how bad the UI on some tool is and fake humility about our missing sense for anything design (including UI design). But we don't really get it.
walterbell 8y ago
Wire mobile apps have been reliable through several years of daily use. Does not require a phone number and Wire is working on interoperability with other E2E messaging services, via the IETF MLS protocol.
- okatsu 8y ago
  I'm happy for you. Buf that doesn't undo what happened to us.
  - walterbell 8y ago

lmm 8y ago

An open-source server is certainly a step up from Signal, but since Wire doesn't support federation (either in their ToS or in practice) I'd favour Matrix.

lorenzhs 8y ago
> An open-source server is certainly a step up from Signal https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server. You are spreading a lot of incorrect or misleading information about Signal in this thread. That makes it difficult to assume that you're arguing in good faith here.
- ddevault 8y ago
  The server might as well be closed source. We have no guarantees that Moxie is actually running this in production and he refuses to federate with third-party servers.
  - lorenzhs 8y ago
    This is addressed in https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/ https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/ – using Intel SGX, it's possible for the clients to verify that the server is running the code it should be running. I'm not sure whether this is already deployed, but it refutes any claim that Signal isn't serious about your concern. I don't see how federation is related to this at all. We know you're bummed about it, you don't need to inject it into every subthread.
    - ddevault 8y ago
      SGX is not a magic bullet, it's only part of a secure system. It's also come under some fire, check out this paper: https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-17/thursday/us-17-Swami-SGX-Remote-Attestation-Is-Not-Sufficient-wp.pdf https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-17/thursday/us-17-Swami-SGX... SGX alone cannot solve this problem. Even in the idealized case, you can sniff traffic on the router to find out which user IPs are talking to each other and when.

leetbulb 8y ago

I love wire. Never have any issues with the desktop client nor mobile app. Even though it's Electron, it seems to be extremely focused on security. Unfortunately, it suffers from the same metadata issues as Signal. If you really need higher security messaging, p2p is your best bet, but then you may face correlation attacks by ISPs and whatnot... Maybe we all just need to get our HAM radio licenses :)

samstave 8y ago
How is HAM secure? (I don't know anything about HAM)
- detaro 8y ago
  It's not secure by definition, since encryption is forbidden in ham radio.
angry_octet 8y ago
Well, Electron is a security trash fire. I wouldn't use it for anything if need to be remotely secure. Hopefully will be replaced by webasm in the near future, though that will likely have problems too.

brynjolf 8y ago

There is a german guide to privacy I read that has some real issues with Wire, most that I agree with [0]. I will Google translate it for you (ironic): > "10/06/2017: Wire.com operational Security > Wire.com is referred to as a new star among crypto messengers. I briefly looked at the (experimental) Linux version of Wire.com and found some significant security flaws: > Mannings Bug: Wire.com has good end-to-end encryption based on Axolotl. The chats are all but unencrypted (!) Logged on the hard disk of the computer. The logging can not be switched off. > The unencrypted storage of encrypted communication is not a bug but an epic FAIL! > Access data: (Account name, password) to Wire.com account are also stored somewhere unencrypted on the hard drive. When starting the person does not have to authenticate in front of the screen but is automatically connected to all accounts. > This is not a bug but a FAIL! Remote Code Execution: The Linux Wire Client contains a lot of Javascript code. Updates for the Javascript code will be downloaded and executed via HTTPS from the Amazon Cloud. After a superficial examination, the authenticity of the executed code is not additionally cryptographically verified (this is a guess, not checked in the code!). Security therefore depends solely on HTTPS encryption. The HTTPS encryption of the contacted wire servers app.wire.com, prod-assets.wire.com and prod-nginz-https.wire.com does NOT meet the BSI's requirements for secure HTTPS encryption. These servers are Amazon Cloud Server and Cloudfront Server (not your own infrastructure). > DANE / TLSA or HPKP are NOT used to validate SSL certificates of HTTPS connections. In addition, no CAA record is defined in the DNS, which should actually be mandatory for HTTPS for a month. The security of the transport encryption between client and server thus does not correspond to the feasible state of the art. > Potent attackers could attack with fake but valid SSL certificates as man-in-the-middle the communication to the wire servers, in combination with the remote code execution possibly also attack the end-to-end encryption (assumption!), and there are enough potent attackers who want to attack the encryption of crypto messengers. The domain wire.com is not signed DNSSEC. Instead of the privacy-friendly OCSP.Stapling, OCSP.Get is used and several CAs are contacted to verify SSL certificates via OCSP. OCSP.Get can be easily tricked, as M. Marlspike demonstrated in 2009. It contacts third party servers that are not under the control of the operators (maps.googleapis.com, images.unsplash.com) to download anything. > Conclusion: The operational security of Wire.com is not (yet) suitable for security-critical applications after a small, superficial test. In particular, whistleblowers should learn from Manning's example and not use it. > Disclaimer: this is NOT an audit but a short test of the Linux version." [0] https://www.privacy-handbuch.de/diskussion.htm https://www.privacy-handbuch.de/diskussion.htm