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But this ostensible "Signal's servers store no contact lists at all" policy also incurs several serious risks: * The Signal client regularly re-sends your comp

by gojomo 6y ago

But this ostensible "Signal's servers store no contact lists at all" policy also incurs several serious risks: * The Signal client regularly re-sends your complete local contact phone numbers to the Intel SGX contact-intersection code on Signal servers. So, potential flaws in that process would mean Signal servers continually receive, & could possibly log, far more metadata than competing systems that upload all your contacts' phone numbers. * Signal leaks that your phone number has enrolled with the Signal service to anyone who chooses to query it.

tptacek 6y ago
You are comparing the possibility that something could go wrong and expose contact graphs to systems in which exposure of the contact graph is a foregone conclusion, because the servers store them, durably, online, in plaintext. The point of the Signal design is not having to do that thing, and, indeed, it doesn't, unlike other secure messengers that do.
- gojomo 6y ago
  No, I'm comparing Signal to desirable properties of a secure messenger for many important uses. It's great that Signal has devised a system that, ostensibly, obviates the need for them to keep persistent lists of everyone's correspondents. But as that same system requires the constant, repeated uploading of phone-number-identifiers, and complete trust in Intel SGX™, it misses the primary thing most want from an end-to-end, open-source solution: no reliance on remote personnel or systems. Signal's created a fancy 'Maginot Line' that ultimately reduces to the same core flaw as much-simpler architectures: if a small number of hard-to-monitor key people or servers are compromised, even temporarily, the metadata is also compromised. You tout that "Signal's servers store no contact lists at all". But can you prove that? Signal's servers are still sent all the same data that would be required to do that. Meanwhile, other secure messengers manage to: * avoid ever knowing a users' phone number, or revealing a users' phone number to their correspondents * avoid broadcasting the fact of a user's participation to anyone who cares to query It's important to remember these caveats & tradeoffs when alleging Signal stores no contact lists at all.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    Again: your argument is that, because someone at Signal could misbehave and log metadata, Signal is equivalent to systems that log metadata all the time, durably, by design. Given the choice, I'll take the system that can at least plausibly protect my metadata over the one literally premised on not doing that.
    - gojomo 6y ago
      I'm not alleging 'equivalence', I'm emphasizing assumptions & tradeoffs. I want readers to know that your headline claim, "Signal's servers store no contact lists at all", should be coupled with the important caveat that believing that claim still requires trust in Signal and Intel personnel/servers. And even if someone, like yourself, assumes such trust in Signal & Intel, the metadata protection Signal does offer still requires other metadata tradeoffs. That's not 'equivalent' to other options, it's different in notable ways. For some users, like say an anonymous whistleblower without a 'burner' phone number, Signal's metadata handling is arguably worse than other extant options. You find Signal a preferable, perhaps even dominant choice; I think they're a mixed-bag once aware of all the tradeoffs.

by gojomo 6y ago

tptacek 6y ago

You are comparing the possibility that something could go wrong and expose contact graphs to systems in which exposure of the contact graph is a foregone conclusion, because the servers store them, durably, online, in plaintext. The point of the Signal design is not having to do that thing, and, indeed, it doesn't, unlike other secure messengers that do.

gojomo 6y ago
No, I'm comparing Signal to desirable properties of a secure messenger for many important uses. It's great that Signal has devised a system that, ostensibly, obviates the need for them to keep persistent lists of everyone's correspondents. But as that same system requires the constant, repeated uploading of phone-number-identifiers, and complete trust in Intel SGX™, it misses the primary thing most want from an end-to-end, open-source solution: no reliance on remote personnel or systems. Signal's created a fancy 'Maginot Line' that ultimately reduces to the same core flaw as much-simpler architectures: if a small number of hard-to-monitor key people or servers are compromised, even temporarily, the metadata is also compromised. You tout that "Signal's servers store no contact lists at all". But can you prove that? Signal's servers are still sent all the same data that would be required to do that. Meanwhile, other secure messengers manage to: * avoid ever knowing a users' phone number, or revealing a users' phone number to their correspondents * avoid broadcasting the fact of a user's participation to anyone who cares to query It's important to remember these caveats & tradeoffs when alleging Signal stores no contact lists at all.
- tptacek 6y ago
  Again: your argument is that, because someone at Signal could misbehave and log metadata, Signal is equivalent to systems that log metadata all the time, durably, by design. Given the choice, I'll take the system that can at least plausibly protect my metadata over the one literally premised on not doing that.
  - gojomo 6y ago
    I'm not alleging 'equivalence', I'm emphasizing assumptions & tradeoffs. I want readers to know that your headline claim, "Signal's servers store no contact lists at all", should be coupled with the important caveat that believing that claim still requires trust in Signal and Intel personnel/servers. And even if someone, like yourself, assumes such trust in Signal & Intel, the metadata protection Signal does offer still requires other metadata tradeoffs. That's not 'equivalent' to other options, it's different in notable ways. For some users, like say an anonymous whistleblower without a 'burner' phone number, Signal's metadata handling is arguably worse than other extant options. You find Signal a preferable, perhaps even dominant choice; I think they're a mixed-bag once aware of all the tradeoffs.