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Please make comments on individual cells for improvements to be seen/added more easily. This is obviously big research undertaking that got thrown together las

by lrvick 8y ago

Please make comments on individual cells for improvements to be seen/added more easily. This is obviously big research undertaking that got thrown together last weekend :) > Another example: "open server" and "on-premise" says nothing about whether or not you really want to run one of those instances. It just says that hypothetically one could. I know a number of people that run matrix.org servers for personal use and companies. The entire French government runs on riot.im/matrix.org. When security and really privacy matters, you don't want a third party being able to push updates to your clients/servers at any time without warning. > None of them implement even close to the privacy features Signal has implemented. But on this diagram it is clearly better because there is more green and less red. What features specifically? Happy to add more columns if signal really has anything unique to offer here. The things Signal gets red marks on are pretty fair though imo, and things others do better. > Use WhatsApp to talk to normal people. I think you will find many options above WhatsApp on the list in terms of security and privacy that have clients that are every bit as simple to use. Other than their (very) effective marketing advantage, -why- would you encourage people towards these respective walled gardens instead of more open alternatives listed?

lvh 8y ago
In order to comment on individual cells, we appear to first have to have an argument about how audits work. You say WhatsApp can only "claim" certain features as a consequence of it being closed source, but that's because of a misunderstanding about how audits work. In a backchannel, as a consequence of this HN article, someone (names withheld to protect the guilty, they can identify themselves if they'd like) started looking at Dust and figured out the key store password is a hardcoded, short, ASCII string and the messages are encrypted with unauthenticated AES-CBC. They did not need the source code to do that. JP Aumasson phrased it more eloquently than I could: https://research.kudelskisecurity.com/2018/10/02/open-source-crypto-is-no-better-than-closed-source-crypto/ https://research.kudelskisecurity.com/2018/10/02/open-source...
- lrvick 8y ago
  Even if they release all their code at this moment to a dozen third party code auditing firms, they can then undermine all the verified security with the next closed binary they release. I will never use Signal with their current direction and don't recommend anyone use it, but they get credit where it is due. They actually offer source code for their walled garden and allow that their basic crypto can -generally- be verified except for extreme cases like my other comment. Allo, Whatsapp and other closed systems that give you no reason to trust them other than faith in the people advocating them and that their engineers got it 100% right. Their claims can't be verified so they can only be marked as just that, claims. Sure, plenty of obvious flaws can be spotted without source code access, but many are hard to find even if you -do- have source code to the point they would probably have never been found were they not open to allow the right set of eyes to eventually read the right section of code (Heartbleed etc). I found random number generation flaws in Terraform I would of -never- found without source code access. It is for this reason I trust Terraform and Hashicorp quite a bit. They normally get it right, but are not afraid to have other people audit and point out flaws because they don't have this arrogant idea their engineers will get everything right 100% of the time. Security is -hard- and anyone that thinks they can get it right with a SPOF closed source approach is more interested in marketshare than security. Trust, but verify. Likewise if you are not even allowed to verify, you should instantly distrust.
  - lvh 8y ago
    > Allo, whatsapp and other closed systems that give you no resaon to trust them other than faith in the people shilling them. Their claims can't be verified so they can only be marked as just that, claims. I have repeatedly refuted that point and you have repeatedly ignored it. > Sure, plenty of obvious flaws can be spotted without source code access, but many are hard to find even if you -do- have source code to the point they would probably have never been found were they not open to allow the right set of eyes to eventually read the right section of code (Heartbleed etc). You are implying that no source code prevents you from finding obvious flaws, and I have given you two counterexamples in a messaging service that came up in this thread that I had never heard of before. That was casual peeking, not even a serious audit. > I found random number generation flaws in Terraform I would of -never- found without source code access. Do you professionally audit software? The fact that you can't find a bug without source does not mean that no-one can. Project Zero finds bugs in Windows and Edge every other day that are a lot more complicated than figuring out what RNG Terraform uses and how Terraform uses it. > Security is -hard- and anyone that thinks they can get it right with a SPOF closed source approach is more interested in marketshare than security. Since you've impugned my motives in two separate places in that post (referring to me as a "shill"), I am no longer interested in discussing this with you. I'm sure people can make up their minds from the thread.
lvh 8y ago
The care Signal puts in that actually makes it a better, more secure messenger is primarily about metadata management. Consider how long it took for them to implement profiles, how much time they took to explain how their contact discovery works, et cetera. These are not trivial matters: they got subpoenaed and had nothing to respond with, because they're tried extraordinarily hard not to.
- lrvick 8y ago
  These are problems other tools have solved, without having to resort to a walled garden network or having a SPOF. Sure, maybe Signal has done some useful technicality -legal- protections for now for US citizens, but what happens when a state actor threatens to kill the family of a Signal employee if they don't ship a very subtle compromise in how their binaries source random numbers, or if they don't sell the metadata of who is talking to who. Signal is not anonymous so that metadata alone could have real value. It is at the end of the day using phone numbers as identifiers. Sure they do SGX remote attestation but that has been demonstrated broken multiple times and won't stand up to a motivated physical attacker. Even if it -is- solid now, I would not underestimate how far a state actor will go. (As demonstrated by NSA wiretaps on google datacenters). Can they compel the right Intel employee to CA certify a manipulated enclave? Can they just get handed the key? Also why would people outside the US trust the legal protections afforded to a US company to protect US citizens? Their refusal to federate their network just creates a Lavabit sized target... and I have yet to hear any technical reasons for doing so particularly when, again, other projects have demonstrated end to end encryption and decentralization are not ast mutually exclusive as Moxie claims. The idea that only Signal can do this right, and only if they keep it centralized on their servers, with them being the only people that can sign the binaries... is pure hubris imo. There are a lot of alternatives we all should be carefully considering for the next -standard- for ubiquitious secure messaging.
  - lvh 8y ago
    You asked "what valuable thing has Signal done" and offered to track them, and I responded with two examples. "What if someone threatens a Signal employee" is a moved goalpost. Who else has solved private contact discovery? Conversely: who else has solved Mossad as a threat model? I have repeatedly pointed out the Signal subpoena elsewhere, which is responsive to a number of your comments. If your threat model includes Mossad, you're going to get Mossaded upon. You say "thinking only Signal can do this is hubris", but in the same breath suggest we're just carefully consideration of a standard away from being safe against Mossad threatening someone's kids. That's hubris.

by lrvick 8y ago

lvh 8y ago

In order to comment on individual cells, we appear to first have to have an argument about how audits work. You say WhatsApp can only "claim" certain features as a consequence of it being closed source, but that's because of a misunderstanding about how audits work. In a backchannel, as a consequence of this HN article, someone (names withheld to protect the guilty, they can identify themselves if they'd like) started looking at Dust and figured out the key store password is a hardcoded, short, ASCII string and the messages are encrypted with unauthenticated AES-CBC. They did not need the source code to do that. JP Aumasson phrased it more eloquently than I could: https://research.kudelskisecurity.com/2018/10/02/open-source-crypto-is-no-better-than-closed-source-crypto/ https://research.kudelskisecurity.com/2018/10/02/open-source...

lrvick 8y ago
Even if they release all their code at this moment to a dozen third party code auditing firms, they can then undermine all the verified security with the next closed binary they release. I will never use Signal with their current direction and don't recommend anyone use it, but they get credit where it is due. They actually offer source code for their walled garden and allow that their basic crypto can -generally- be verified except for extreme cases like my other comment. Allo, Whatsapp and other closed systems that give you no reason to trust them other than faith in the people advocating them and that their engineers got it 100% right. Their claims can't be verified so they can only be marked as just that, claims. Sure, plenty of obvious flaws can be spotted without source code access, but many are hard to find even if you -do- have source code to the point they would probably have never been found were they not open to allow the right set of eyes to eventually read the right section of code (Heartbleed etc). I found random number generation flaws in Terraform I would of -never- found without source code access. It is for this reason I trust Terraform and Hashicorp quite a bit. They normally get it right, but are not afraid to have other people audit and point out flaws because they don't have this arrogant idea their engineers will get everything right 100% of the time. Security is -hard- and anyone that thinks they can get it right with a SPOF closed source approach is more interested in marketshare than security. Trust, but verify. Likewise if you are not even allowed to verify, you should instantly distrust.
- lvh 8y ago
  > Allo, whatsapp and other closed systems that give you no resaon to trust them other than faith in the people shilling them. Their claims can't be verified so they can only be marked as just that, claims. I have repeatedly refuted that point and you have repeatedly ignored it. > Sure, plenty of obvious flaws can be spotted without source code access, but many are hard to find even if you -do- have source code to the point they would probably have never been found were they not open to allow the right set of eyes to eventually read the right section of code (Heartbleed etc). You are implying that no source code prevents you from finding obvious flaws, and I have given you two counterexamples in a messaging service that came up in this thread that I had never heard of before. That was casual peeking, not even a serious audit. > I found random number generation flaws in Terraform I would of -never- found without source code access. Do you professionally audit software? The fact that you can't find a bug without source does not mean that no-one can. Project Zero finds bugs in Windows and Edge every other day that are a lot more complicated than figuring out what RNG Terraform uses and how Terraform uses it. > Security is -hard- and anyone that thinks they can get it right with a SPOF closed source approach is more interested in marketshare than security. Since you've impugned my motives in two separate places in that post (referring to me as a "shill"), I am no longer interested in discussing this with you. I'm sure people can make up their minds from the thread.

lvh 8y ago

The care Signal puts in that actually makes it a better, more secure messenger is primarily about metadata management. Consider how long it took for them to implement profiles, how much time they took to explain how their contact discovery works, et cetera. These are not trivial matters: they got subpoenaed and had nothing to respond with, because they're tried extraordinarily hard not to.

lrvick 8y ago
These are problems other tools have solved, without having to resort to a walled garden network or having a SPOF. Sure, maybe Signal has done some useful technicality -legal- protections for now for US citizens, but what happens when a state actor threatens to kill the family of a Signal employee if they don't ship a very subtle compromise in how their binaries source random numbers, or if they don't sell the metadata of who is talking to who. Signal is not anonymous so that metadata alone could have real value. It is at the end of the day using phone numbers as identifiers. Sure they do SGX remote attestation but that has been demonstrated broken multiple times and won't stand up to a motivated physical attacker. Even if it -is- solid now, I would not underestimate how far a state actor will go. (As demonstrated by NSA wiretaps on google datacenters). Can they compel the right Intel employee to CA certify a manipulated enclave? Can they just get handed the key? Also why would people outside the US trust the legal protections afforded to a US company to protect US citizens? Their refusal to federate their network just creates a Lavabit sized target... and I have yet to hear any technical reasons for doing so particularly when, again, other projects have demonstrated end to end encryption and decentralization are not ast mutually exclusive as Moxie claims. The idea that only Signal can do this right, and only if they keep it centralized on their servers, with them being the only people that can sign the binaries... is pure hubris imo. There are a lot of alternatives we all should be carefully considering for the next -standard- for ubiquitious secure messaging.
- lvh 8y ago
  You asked "what valuable thing has Signal done" and offered to track them, and I responded with two examples. "What if someone threatens a Signal employee" is a moved goalpost. Who else has solved private contact discovery? Conversely: who else has solved Mossad as a threat model? I have repeatedly pointed out the Signal subpoena elsewhere, which is responsive to a number of your comments. If your threat model includes Mossad, you're going to get Mossaded upon. You say "thinking only Signal can do this is hubris", but in the same breath suggest we're just carefully consideration of a standard away from being safe against Mossad threatening someone's kids. That's hubris.