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To be completely fair tptacek is a recognised security expert. Yes, he likes Signal. Apparently like you, I disagree (their refusal to implement non-personall

To be completely fair tptacek is a recognised security expert. Yes, he likes Signal. Apparently like you, I disagree (their refusal to implement non-personally identifying information as an identity is enough for me). However, I'm not a recognised security expert (and just between you and me, I'm not actually a security expert... or even more than mildly competent... maybe not even that... ;-) ). He's got his opinions and he states them pretty clearly. I don't think that's a crime. I've discussed his opinions with him in threads before and I can't see anywhere where he's obviously wrong. When I've asked him directly about the identifiers, he's declined to answer -- which makes me think that he probably agrees but thinks that the other issues are more important than that. I could be wrong, but that's my impression.

johnisgood 7y ago
Phone number as a requirement and an identifier is pretty serious in the context of security and pro-privacy. In my opinion it disqualifies any IM software if security and privacy is desired. Yes, there are other things to consider, but this issue alone is a deal-breaker, at least to me.
pvg 7y ago
he's declined to answer -- which makes me think You don't have to, it's easy to pull the plentiful relevant hadith: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:tptacek%20signal%20phone%20number&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:tptacek%20signal%20phon...
- mikekchar 7y ago
  Cool. Thank you. It seems that my assumption was correct :-)
  - pvg 7y ago
    About the phone numbers? Not really how I read it. But that's just me - my impression from reading endless secure messenger HN threads is that both 'phone numbers' and 'federation' are ideological sideshows that have very little to do with the actual security and privacy properties of secure messengers.
    - mikekchar 7y ago
      I can only give you my feeling. There are 2 issues. One is security of the message itself. Can someone other than the key holder read the message? Do you have forward security (i.e. if I expose earlier messages do new messages become readable as well)? Is any of the meta data exposed? Can a third person collect information about the message apart from the message itself? Generally Signal looks good as far as I can tell from those perspectives. Where it runs into problem is with authentication and protecting users from third parties collecting information about which people are exchanging information with each other. Signal makes the assumption that you don't mind that the person you are communicating with knows who you are. This makes it unacceptable for certain dissidents. The key you use to identify yourself allows the government (or almost anyone, really) to find out your name and your address. All people in a conversation know who all the people participating in the conversation are. So even if the target of your conversation doesn't mind being identified, you may have third parties who make introductions. Those third parties must be identified with Signal. This allows a potential attacker to build up profiles of who is associating with whom. At one point Moxie was discussing the idea of a protocol which would allow parties to introduce one another without having to reveal their identities. As far as I know this hasn't been implemented yet (but I haven't been keeping track of development). Additionally, as far as I can tell, Signal can potentially know which people are talking to which other people. Now, in the source code for their server, it doesn't, but there is actually no way to know that they are really using that source code in production unmodified. The lack of federation means that there is no way to mitigate this risk (To be fair, I completely understand their point on federation, but again I find it disingenuous that all discussion of federation is thrown out of the window as being too difficult to implement -- without any acknowledgement that we still have a problem that we need to address!) I don't think any of these issues are in dispute. The answer is simply: Signal does not intend to solve these problems. Their goal is to provide end to end encryption in the context of how you would use SMS. If that doesn't fit your purposes, then Signal will not work for you. I honestly feel that people are being a bit disingenuous. There are plenty of situations where email is a great medium for exchanging information. To say that "Email can not be secured" and that you should go to a messaging format is not exactly telling the whole story. There are applications where email can be secured "enough". There are applications where SMS messaging can be secured "enough". There are applications where neither is good enough. And yet, the argument against email is taken to the nth degree (the fact that you can take the contents of an encrypted email and send it unencrypted is purportedly a serious security flaw, while the fact that I can take the contents of Signal message and do the same thing is apparently not). However, like I said, I don't think tptacek is trying to be disingenuous. He honestly does like Signal and it honestly does improve security in the average case. He doesn't care that it doesn't do the things that it doesn't do because he thinks those things are less important. It's fair. He's an expert and certainly his opinions reasonably carry a lot of weight. You don't have to unthinkingly accept those opinions, though.
dngray 7y ago
> To be completely fair tptacek is a recognised security expert. Recognized how, by whom? > Yes, he likes Signal. Apparently like you, I disagree (their refusal to implement non-personally identifying information as an identity is enough for me). No, what my point is, is that it isn't a solution to everything like he has purported repeatedly on here. PGP can be used over an slab of text, a file, or anonymously. That's where my main disagreement lies. The other thing being, with signal is that it is fine if you want to give your phone number to people, but what if you don't? Then the whole platform cannot be used. You're communicating with me now, what if we wanted to continue this privately? would you want me having your phone number? I am just some guy on the internet. What If then you did give me your phone number, and I started calling you at 2am from a rented number in India? Would you have to change your phone number? You wouldn't be able to really use the law on me if I covered my tracks. Spam calls/SMS is already a issue. Using disposable numbers isn't an option, because you don't know if there will be number reuse, someone else could be issued that number and then you might be talking to a different person. You don't own a phone number. There's a reason why when you delete your google account, nobody can signup with the same username. Many countries now also store metadata, which means it would be trivial to determine your social graph, from data obtained from other sources. This means you'll never be able to get any kind of anonymous or pseudonymous communication with Signal. That means it can only be used with specific communication use cases in mind. Also it's a centralized platform with a single point of failure, that is very hostile to anyone making their own client that might provide a better experience than the official one. When you consider that point it's not much better than the other options out there that are widely in use.

johnisgood 7y ago

Phone number as a requirement and an identifier is pretty serious in the context of security and pro-privacy. In my opinion it disqualifies any IM software if security and privacy is desired. Yes, there are other things to consider, but this issue alone is a deal-breaker, at least to me.

pvg 7y ago

he's declined to answer -- which makes me think You don't have to, it's easy to pull the plentiful relevant hadith: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:tptacek%20signal%20phone%20number&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:tptacek%20signal%20phon...

mikekchar 7y ago
Cool. Thank you. It seems that my assumption was correct :-)
- pvg 7y ago
  About the phone numbers? Not really how I read it. But that's just me - my impression from reading endless secure messenger HN threads is that both 'phone numbers' and 'federation' are ideological sideshows that have very little to do with the actual security and privacy properties of secure messengers.
  - mikekchar 7y ago
    I can only give you my feeling. There are 2 issues. One is security of the message itself. Can someone other than the key holder read the message? Do you have forward security (i.e. if I expose earlier messages do new messages become readable as well)? Is any of the meta data exposed? Can a third person collect information about the message apart from the message itself? Generally Signal looks good as far as I can tell from those perspectives. Where it runs into problem is with authentication and protecting users from third parties collecting information about which people are exchanging information with each other. Signal makes the assumption that you don't mind that the person you are communicating with knows who you are. This makes it unacceptable for certain dissidents. The key you use to identify yourself allows the government (or almost anyone, really) to find out your name and your address. All people in a conversation know who all the people participating in the conversation are. So even if the target of your conversation doesn't mind being identified, you may have third parties who make introductions. Those third parties must be identified with Signal. This allows a potential attacker to build up profiles of who is associating with whom. At one point Moxie was discussing the idea of a protocol which would allow parties to introduce one another without having to reveal their identities. As far as I know this hasn't been implemented yet (but I haven't been keeping track of development). Additionally, as far as I can tell, Signal can potentially know which people are talking to which other people. Now, in the source code for their server, it doesn't, but there is actually no way to know that they are really using that source code in production unmodified. The lack of federation means that there is no way to mitigate this risk (To be fair, I completely understand their point on federation, but again I find it disingenuous that all discussion of federation is thrown out of the window as being too difficult to implement -- without any acknowledgement that we still have a problem that we need to address!) I don't think any of these issues are in dispute. The answer is simply: Signal does not intend to solve these problems. Their goal is to provide end to end encryption in the context of how you would use SMS. If that doesn't fit your purposes, then Signal will not work for you. I honestly feel that people are being a bit disingenuous. There are plenty of situations where email is a great medium for exchanging information. To say that "Email can not be secured" and that you should go to a messaging format is not exactly telling the whole story. There are applications where email can be secured "enough". There are applications where SMS messaging can be secured "enough". There are applications where neither is good enough. And yet, the argument against email is taken to the nth degree (the fact that you can take the contents of an encrypted email and send it unencrypted is purportedly a serious security flaw, while the fact that I can take the contents of Signal message and do the same thing is apparently not). However, like I said, I don't think tptacek is trying to be disingenuous. He honestly does like Signal and it honestly does improve security in the average case. He doesn't care that it doesn't do the things that it doesn't do because he thinks those things are less important. It's fair. He's an expert and certainly his opinions reasonably carry a lot of weight. You don't have to unthinkingly accept those opinions, though.

dngray 7y ago

> To be completely fair tptacek is a recognised security expert. Recognized how, by whom? > Yes, he likes Signal. Apparently like you, I disagree (their refusal to implement non-personally identifying information as an identity is enough for me). No, what my point is, is that it isn't a solution to everything like he has purported repeatedly on here. PGP can be used over an slab of text, a file, or anonymously. That's where my main disagreement lies. The other thing being, with signal is that it is fine if you want to give your phone number to people, but what if you don't? Then the whole platform cannot be used. You're communicating with me now, what if we wanted to continue this privately? would you want me having your phone number? I am just some guy on the internet. What If then you did give me your phone number, and I started calling you at 2am from a rented number in India? Would you have to change your phone number? You wouldn't be able to really use the law on me if I covered my tracks. Spam calls/SMS is already a issue. Using disposable numbers isn't an option, because you don't know if there will be number reuse, someone else could be issued that number and then you might be talking to a different person. You don't own a phone number. There's a reason why when you delete your google account, nobody can signup with the same username. Many countries now also store metadata, which means it would be trivial to determine your social graph, from data obtained from other sources. This means you'll never be able to get any kind of anonymous or pseudonymous communication with Signal. That means it can only be used with specific communication use cases in mind. Also it's a centralized platform with a single point of failure, that is very hostile to anyone making their own client that might provide a better experience than the official one. When you consider that point it's not much better than the other options out there that are widely in use.