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Typical security industry contrarianism. "Stop using that thing that mostly works as intended and is integrated into lots of email clients and systems, and has

Typical security industry contrarianism. "Stop using that thing that mostly works as intended and is integrated into lots of email clients and systems, and has a number of independent implementations, and has the decentralized properties that match email." "What should we use instead?" "shrug You can send encrypted stickers in Signal, isn't that neat?" If you're going to advocate for everyone to stop using something that they rely on, make sure there's a viable alternative for them to switch to first (or throw your weight behind making/enhancing one). Otherwise you're just telling people to stop using plastic straws and giving them shitty paper straws in exchange. People know they're bad but the alternatives are worse to them so they stick with the bad thing.

lvh 7y ago
> Stop using that thing that mostly works as intended and is integrated into lots of email clients and systems, and has a number of independent implementations, and has the decentralized properties that match email. I want to be sure I don’t misrepresent your point. By the thing that works as intended and has plenty of implementations, you’re referring to GPG/OpenPGP?
nothrabannosir 7y ago
If you consider PGP something that mostly works, and Signal the fringe contrarian view, then we have wildly different experiences around usability, and the relative popularity of those tools. I couldn’t get any of my friends or family on PGP to save my life, and some of them are programmers. I am now at a 50/50 split in volume on Signal v WhatsApp, and most people I never even suggested it to. And they use it correctly (because that’s the only way you can). Seriously: how is PGP something that mostly works, and how is Signal contrarianism? Isn’t it the other way around by now?
- sergiosgc 7y ago
  Signal is non-federated. That, alone, is a showstopper as an email replacement. Open and federated protocols and services should be our target. It is hard designing them, but if we could do that in the past, we should be able to do so today.
  - nothrabannosir 7y ago
    Two replies about email replacement; I feel like we’re getting off track. Signal is for secure, end to end encrypted communication. Ideally that would be all communication, but that isn’t realistic in today’s world. TFA merely says: if you were gonna use PGP, use Signal instead. It’s a trade off. While we target these open and federated protocols, let’s not throw people who actually need encryption today under the bus. So to the question of replacing email: unless all your email is currently PGP encrypted, you don’t need to drop your email just yet.
    - sergiosgc 7y ago
      > So to the question of replacing email: unless all your email is currently PGP encrypted, you don’t need to drop your email just yet. You don't need to drop email at all. If you trade protocol openness for encryption, you are acquiring technical debt. How long are going to do this dance of switching between instant messenger protocols? ICQ -> AIM -> MS Messenger -> Hangouts -> WhatsApp -> Signal -> ???. Open protocols (open in specs and federated in access) are the only way to stop this madness.
      - loudmax 7y ago
        IMHO, Matrix currently has the best shot at becoming the standard for the open internet. Those who value the freedom of choice should push for Matrix before Signal becomes the de-facto standard and is acquired by one of the tech giants looking to lock down control of communication.
        Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
        Matrix is too dependent on it's only vendor in existence, their only server in existence has performance issues. Also, a monolith standard is hardly viable for federated networks, where all nodes can't upgrade all at once.
        feanaro 7y ago
- emilsedgh 7y ago
  Nobody talked about usability or widespread adoption. Article was targeted at people who are using PGP and urged them to stop using it without, offering a viable alternative and the parent comment called it out.
  - soraminazuki 7y ago
    > Nobody talked about usability or widespread adoption This directly contradicts the original comment. > Article was targeted at people who are using PGP and urged them to stop using it without, offering a viable alternative and the parent comment called it out. The article has an entire section explaining alternatives. The first link in the article [1], also written by the same author, has an even longer list of alternatives. It's hard to miss. [1] https://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/16/the-pgp-problem.html https://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/16/the-pgp-problem.html
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- aquabeagle 7y ago
  If you consider PGP something that mostly works, and Signal the fringe contrarian view We're talking about email here, so yeah, the number of encrypted emails I've received with PGP is non-zero and through Signal is zero.
- eitland 7y ago
  There's a lot of good things to say about Signal, but if it should replace email: How do I export it for long time storage and for auditing? Edit: to avoid confusion, I read in the help files that I can export my chats, but it seems clear that those exports are only supposed to be imported into another instance of Signal.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    I don't think Signal should replace email. I don't think email is going anywhere.
    - eitland 7y ago
      Edit: So, your point over the last couple of years can be distilled down to: - use Signal if you need actually secret mesaging. - otherwise: anything goes, including iMessage and email. - don't participate in security theatre ? (Was: ------ So, again if I read correctly: - unencrypted mail good, - encrypted mail bad ? ------ But this is a not so subtle reference to Animal Farm and while it is probably funny it goes far beyond what I mean. )
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ColanR 7y ago
  I don't think either are good options. I was reading on here recently about the $2.1M that the US gov paid (indirectly) to Signal, with the implication of the associated compromise of integrity. And PGP is so labyrinthine that most of the mail tools implementing it had been compromised for more than a decade. [1] Whatsapp? It's owned by Facebook, as we know, and I wonder if we can believe that we put on there is actually safe. I think that would be naive. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/06/decades-old-pgp-bug-allowed-hackers-to-spoof-just-about-anyones-signature/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/06/decad...
  - westmeal 7y ago
    Hi, I'm having trouble finding any information on the 2.1M that you said the US gov paid Signal Foundation. Do you have a source? I'd love to know if this is true.
    - dunkelheit 7y ago
      The OP is probably referring to financing that Open Whisper Systems (precursor to the Signal foundation) received from Open Technology Fund (https://www.opentech.fund/results/supported-projects/open-whisper-systems/ https://www.opentech.fund/results/supported-projects/open-wh...) which according to the Wikipedia has ties to the US government (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Technology_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Technology_Fund). I guess the idea was to provide encrypted means of communication to dissidents in US-hostile countries. Though I think it is a moot point. Signal foundation is a US organization and its officers are US citizens. I don't think the US government will have any trouble coercing them to do its bidding regardless of whether it financed them or not.
      - westmeal 7y ago
        I see. Since the PATRIOT act was put into place the US government can pretty much justify anything at this point so i tend to share the same viewpoint. Thanks for the sources man.
  - upofadown 7y ago
- rstuart4133 7y ago
  > Seriously: how is PGP something that mostly works The entire Debian infrastructure is secured with PGP. PGP emails, PGP signatures, PGP encryption. Seriously: it doesn't just "mostly work". It's rock solid battle tested for 20 years, and thousands of people use it without needing hand holding.
  - nothrabannosir 7y ago
    The topic here is “PGP in e-mail”, not PGP full stop. It’s all in the TFA, including a comprehensive list of reasons why it does not just work. Even with handholding, let alone without. If you disagree with any of those specific examples, please do elaborate, but at least address them. They’re good points. Nobody is suggesting people switch to Signal for distributing .debs...
ifdefdebug 7y ago
The author is not saying to stop using email. He wants you to stop pretending it can be secured. If people think that "works as intended" means their email communication privacy is secured, and their personal safety depends on it, then those people are in danger. Basically, he argues you can't trust encrypted email for any content you would not also be fine to send over an TLS secured wire.
- GoblinSlayer 7y ago
  The title is "Stop Using Encrypted Email" though.
  - jtbayly 7y ago
    And you should. Because it’s pointless, as he demonstrated quite well.
  - lvh 7y ago
    That sounds congruent with both GP’s point, and the intent of the author.
  - soraminazuki 7y ago
    Yes, which confirms the parent comment's point. Note the title refers to encrypted email, and not email in general.
- belorn 7y ago
  That sounds awful close to advocating in favor of more plain text and less encryption.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    It sounds like that, but because of how encrypted email actually works in the real world, it's actually the opposite.
    - belorn 7y ago
tptacek 7y ago
This, to steal a term from Paul Graham, is a lowbrow dismissal. You could make it without having read the article; in fact, there's no evidence in this comment that you have read the article at all. And the rebuttals to this comment are all in the article, which does not talk about "stickers" or require people to run Signal.
rstuart4133 7y ago
> and has a number of independent implementations Actually it's slightly more than that: it's standardised. Signal for all it's niceties isn't. Even if you did emulate it (and you can because it's open source), it's a moving target so there is no guarantee what works today would work tomorrow. AFAIK, all existing reimplementations are incompatible. Worse, it's infrastructure is centralised. There aren't 10 different lookup servers you can use interchangeably and cross validate. There is just one, situated in one country, and it happens to be a country whose government intelligence agencies have a long and colourful history of infiltrating and compromising organisations just like Signal. The other thing major different is the PGP ecosystem does have key validation system, and in my experience it is actually used. People go to key signing parties and take them seriously. Signal also has very good key validation of course, but nobody uses it. So while it's true to Signal can let kids chat to each other securely, the reality is it that security is very weak because they don't want to go to all that tedious setup the PGP / X509 ecosystems wants them to do. When they start a chat with someone new, they don't get a warning that could be anyone unless they use Signal's inbuilt (and very well designed) validation system. I guess such a warning might get in the way of the "frictionless experience" seems to love about it. As a consequence, when someone changes phones they have no idea of the importance of porting their Signal identity across, and when the other end gets the "Warning: Person XYZ changed their identity" (or whatever the wording is) they just shrug ignore it ("they must have got a new phone"). And with that whatever security Signal does provide collapses like a house of cards. If the security industry claims Signal provides the same security as GPG/PGP while being easier to use, all that tells you is how little the people claiming to represent the security industry know about security. (This isn't to say if you use it correctly Signal won't provide a similar level of security - it does. But they it becomes as burdensome to use as PGP.)
- tptacek 7y ago
  These are arguments about things other than safety. In discussions about whether things are "standardized" or "federated" or how their "ecosystems" look, the safety of actual people is an externality. That's especially so because the overwhelming majority of technologists with strong opinions about secure messaging never send a message that needs real cryptographic protection against a motivated adversary; the entire concept of safety is an externality to those people. But the real, life-or-death cases are not rare. It is malpractice to suggest that people entrust their lives (or their life's savings) to shoddy encryption so that other technologists can have a federated ecosystem of standards. If this were and engineering discussion about tie rods holding elevated walkways in a downtown hotel, we'd have no trouble setting aside all the other arguments and recognize the core, overwhelming priority. But because our discipline is not an engineering discipline, despite pretending otherwise, we're forced to humor these frankly unethical debates.
norswap 7y ago
You seem to think poorly of Signal, but you don't give any reasons. What are they?

lvh 7y ago

> Stop using that thing that mostly works as intended and is integrated into lots of email clients and systems, and has a number of independent implementations, and has the decentralized properties that match email. I want to be sure I don’t misrepresent your point. By the thing that works as intended and has plenty of implementations, you’re referring to GPG/OpenPGP?

nothrabannosir 7y ago

If you consider PGP something that mostly works, and Signal the fringe contrarian view, then we have wildly different experiences around usability, and the relative popularity of those tools. I couldn’t get any of my friends or family on PGP to save my life, and some of them are programmers. I am now at a 50/50 split in volume on Signal v WhatsApp, and most people I never even suggested it to. And they use it correctly (because that’s the only way you can). Seriously: how is PGP something that mostly works, and how is Signal contrarianism? Isn’t it the other way around by now?

sergiosgc 7y ago
Signal is non-federated. That, alone, is a showstopper as an email replacement. Open and federated protocols and services should be our target. It is hard designing them, but if we could do that in the past, we should be able to do so today.
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  Two replies about email replacement; I feel like we’re getting off track. Signal is for secure, end to end encrypted communication. Ideally that would be all communication, but that isn’t realistic in today’s world. TFA merely says: if you were gonna use PGP, use Signal instead. It’s a trade off. While we target these open and federated protocols, let’s not throw people who actually need encryption today under the bus. So to the question of replacing email: unless all your email is currently PGP encrypted, you don’t need to drop your email just yet.
  - sergiosgc 7y ago
    > So to the question of replacing email: unless all your email is currently PGP encrypted, you don’t need to drop your email just yet. You don't need to drop email at all. If you trade protocol openness for encryption, you are acquiring technical debt. How long are going to do this dance of switching between instant messenger protocols? ICQ -> AIM -> MS Messenger -> Hangouts -> WhatsApp -> Signal -> ???. Open protocols (open in specs and federated in access) are the only way to stop this madness.
    - loudmax 7y ago
      IMHO, Matrix currently has the best shot at becoming the standard for the open internet. Those who value the freedom of choice should push for Matrix before Signal becomes the de-facto standard and is acquired by one of the tech giants looking to lock down control of communication.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
        Matrix is too dependent on it's only vendor in existence, their only server in existence has performance issues. Also, a monolith standard is hardly viable for federated networks, where all nodes can't upgrade all at once.
        feanaro 7y ago
emilsedgh 7y ago
Nobody talked about usability or widespread adoption. Article was targeted at people who are using PGP and urged them to stop using it without, offering a viable alternative and the parent comment called it out.
- soraminazuki 7y ago
  > Nobody talked about usability or widespread adoption This directly contradicts the original comment. > Article was targeted at people who are using PGP and urged them to stop using it without, offering a viable alternative and the parent comment called it out. The article has an entire section explaining alternatives. The first link in the article [1], also written by the same author, has an even longer list of alternatives. It's hard to miss. [1] https://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/16/the-pgp-problem.html https://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/16/the-pgp-problem.html
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
aquabeagle 7y ago
If you consider PGP something that mostly works, and Signal the fringe contrarian view We're talking about email here, so yeah, the number of encrypted emails I've received with PGP is non-zero and through Signal is zero.
eitland 7y ago
There's a lot of good things to say about Signal, but if it should replace email: How do I export it for long time storage and for auditing? Edit: to avoid confusion, I read in the help files that I can export my chats, but it seems clear that those exports are only supposed to be imported into another instance of Signal.
- tptacek 7y ago
  I don't think Signal should replace email. I don't think email is going anywhere.
  - eitland 7y ago
    Edit: So, your point over the last couple of years can be distilled down to: - use Signal if you need actually secret mesaging. - otherwise: anything goes, including iMessage and email. - don't participate in security theatre ? (Was: ------ So, again if I read correctly: - unencrypted mail good, - encrypted mail bad ? ------ But this is a not so subtle reference to Animal Farm and while it is probably funny it goes far beyond what I mean. )
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ColanR 7y ago
I don't think either are good options. I was reading on here recently about the $2.1M that the US gov paid (indirectly) to Signal, with the implication of the associated compromise of integrity. And PGP is so labyrinthine that most of the mail tools implementing it had been compromised for more than a decade. [1] Whatsapp? It's owned by Facebook, as we know, and I wonder if we can believe that we put on there is actually safe. I think that would be naive. [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/06/decades-old-pgp-bug-allowed-hackers-to-spoof-just-about-anyones-signature/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/06/decad...
- westmeal 7y ago
  Hi, I'm having trouble finding any information on the 2.1M that you said the US gov paid Signal Foundation. Do you have a source? I'd love to know if this is true.
  - dunkelheit 7y ago
    The OP is probably referring to financing that Open Whisper Systems (precursor to the Signal foundation) received from Open Technology Fund (https://www.opentech.fund/results/supported-projects/open-whisper-systems/ https://www.opentech.fund/results/supported-projects/open-wh...) which according to the Wikipedia has ties to the US government (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Technology_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Technology_Fund). I guess the idea was to provide encrypted means of communication to dissidents in US-hostile countries. Though I think it is a moot point. Signal foundation is a US organization and its officers are US citizens. I don't think the US government will have any trouble coercing them to do its bidding regardless of whether it financed them or not.
    - westmeal 7y ago
      I see. Since the PATRIOT act was put into place the US government can pretty much justify anything at this point so i tend to share the same viewpoint. Thanks for the sources man.
- upofadown 7y ago
rstuart4133 7y ago
> Seriously: how is PGP something that mostly works The entire Debian infrastructure is secured with PGP. PGP emails, PGP signatures, PGP encryption. Seriously: it doesn't just "mostly work". It's rock solid battle tested for 20 years, and thousands of people use it without needing hand holding.
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  The topic here is “PGP in e-mail”, not PGP full stop. It’s all in the TFA, including a comprehensive list of reasons why it does not just work. Even with handholding, let alone without. If you disagree with any of those specific examples, please do elaborate, but at least address them. They’re good points. Nobody is suggesting people switch to Signal for distributing .debs...

ifdefdebug 7y ago

The author is not saying to stop using email. He wants you to stop pretending it can be secured. If people think that "works as intended" means their email communication privacy is secured, and their personal safety depends on it, then those people are in danger. Basically, he argues you can't trust encrypted email for any content you would not also be fine to send over an TLS secured wire.

GoblinSlayer 7y ago
The title is "Stop Using Encrypted Email" though.
- jtbayly 7y ago
  And you should. Because it’s pointless, as he demonstrated quite well.
- lvh 7y ago
  That sounds congruent with both GP’s point, and the intent of the author.
- soraminazuki 7y ago
  Yes, which confirms the parent comment's point. Note the title refers to encrypted email, and not email in general.
belorn 7y ago
That sounds awful close to advocating in favor of more plain text and less encryption.
- tptacek 7y ago
  It sounds like that, but because of how encrypted email actually works in the real world, it's actually the opposite.
  - belorn 7y ago

tptacek 7y ago

This, to steal a term from Paul Graham, is a lowbrow dismissal. You could make it without having read the article; in fact, there's no evidence in this comment that you have read the article at all. And the rebuttals to this comment are all in the article, which does not talk about "stickers" or require people to run Signal.

rstuart4133 7y ago

> and has a number of independent implementations Actually it's slightly more than that: it's standardised. Signal for all it's niceties isn't. Even if you did emulate it (and you can because it's open source), it's a moving target so there is no guarantee what works today would work tomorrow. AFAIK, all existing reimplementations are incompatible. Worse, it's infrastructure is centralised. There aren't 10 different lookup servers you can use interchangeably and cross validate. There is just one, situated in one country, and it happens to be a country whose government intelligence agencies have a long and colourful history of infiltrating and compromising organisations just like Signal. The other thing major different is the PGP ecosystem does have key validation system, and in my experience it is actually used. People go to key signing parties and take them seriously. Signal also has very good key validation of course, but nobody uses it. So while it's true to Signal can let kids chat to each other securely, the reality is it that security is very weak because they don't want to go to all that tedious setup the PGP / X509 ecosystems wants them to do. When they start a chat with someone new, they don't get a warning that could be anyone unless they use Signal's inbuilt (and very well designed) validation system. I guess such a warning might get in the way of the "frictionless experience" seems to love about it. As a consequence, when someone changes phones they have no idea of the importance of porting their Signal identity across, and when the other end gets the "Warning: Person XYZ changed their identity" (or whatever the wording is) they just shrug ignore it ("they must have got a new phone"). And with that whatever security Signal does provide collapses like a house of cards. If the security industry claims Signal provides the same security as GPG/PGP while being easier to use, all that tells you is how little the people claiming to represent the security industry know about security. (This isn't to say if you use it correctly Signal won't provide a similar level of security - it does. But they it becomes as burdensome to use as PGP.)

tptacek 7y ago
These are arguments about things other than safety. In discussions about whether things are "standardized" or "federated" or how their "ecosystems" look, the safety of actual people is an externality. That's especially so because the overwhelming majority of technologists with strong opinions about secure messaging never send a message that needs real cryptographic protection against a motivated adversary; the entire concept of safety is an externality to those people. But the real, life-or-death cases are not rare. It is malpractice to suggest that people entrust their lives (or their life's savings) to shoddy encryption so that other technologists can have a federated ecosystem of standards. If this were and engineering discussion about tie rods holding elevated walkways in a downtown hotel, we'd have no trouble setting aside all the other arguments and recognize the core, overwhelming priority. But because our discipline is not an engineering discipline, despite pretending otherwise, we're forced to humor these frankly unethical debates.

norswap 7y ago

You seem to think poorly of Signal, but you don't give any reasons. What are they?