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After the PIN/Intel SGX debacle, I trust Signal even less.

by 4ad 6y ago

AnonHP 6y ago
Seems like I missed this a month ago. I'm now catching up from Matthew Green's blog post. [1] [1]: https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2020/07/10/a-few-thoughts-about-signals-secure-value-recovery/ https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2020/07/10/a-few-th...
- codethief 6y ago
  Thanks for posting this! I had been waiting for Matthew Green's reaction.
codethief 6y ago
For anyone who doesn't know what this is about: https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-want-pin-dont-want-anything-stored-in-cloud/14057 https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-want-pin-dont-want-... https://community.signalusers.org/t/mandatory-pin-without-clear-explanation-within-the-app-might-cause-significant-number-of-users-to-quit-using-signal/11597 https://community.signalusers.org/t/mandatory-pin-without-cl... TL;DR: - Signal introduced mandatory PINs to store certain user information (profile, contact list) on their servers in an encrypted fashion (protected by the user's PIN and, if the user chooses a short PIN, Intel SGX enclaves that Signal uses) - PIN UI was/is exceptionally bad, didn't explain what PIN was for and came with annoying Do-you-still-remember-your-PIN popups which made zero sense when user chooses long passphrase. - Most importantly: If user chooses a short PIN, protection of their information will hinge purely on Intel SGX enclaves. But: The PIN UI didn't recommend choosing a long passphrase and also didn't explain this point. - Lots of users didn't want any of their information on Signal servers to begin with, were annoyed by popups and/or didn't trust SGX and ran amok (see the above two links) - It seems PINs can now be disabled[0] [0]: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059792-Signal-PINs#pin_disable https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059792-Si... For more details, see the post by Matthew Green that was posted in a sibling comment.

After the PIN/Intel SGX debacle, I trust Signal even less.

by 4ad 6y ago

After the PIN/Intel SGX debacle, I trust Signal even less.

Seems like I missed this a month ago. I'm now catching up from Matthew Green's blog post. [1] [1]: https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2020/07/10/a-few-thoughts-about-signals-secure-value-recovery/ https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2020/07/10/a-few-th...

codethief 6y ago
Thanks for posting this! I had been waiting for Matthew Green's reaction.

codethief 6y ago

For anyone who doesn't know what this is about: https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-want-pin-dont-want-anything-stored-in-cloud/14057 https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-want-pin-dont-want-... https://community.signalusers.org/t/mandatory-pin-without-clear-explanation-within-the-app-might-cause-significant-number-of-users-to-quit-using-signal/11597 https://community.signalusers.org/t/mandatory-pin-without-cl... TL;DR: - Signal introduced mandatory PINs to store certain user information (profile, contact list) on their servers in an encrypted fashion (protected by the user's PIN and, if the user chooses a short PIN, Intel SGX enclaves that Signal uses) - PIN UI was/is exceptionally bad, didn't explain what PIN was for and came with annoying Do-you-still-remember-your-PIN popups which made zero sense when user chooses long passphrase. - Most importantly: If user chooses a short PIN, protection of their information will hinge purely on Intel SGX enclaves. But: The PIN UI didn't recommend choosing a long passphrase and also didn't explain this point. - Lots of users didn't want any of their information on Signal servers to begin with, were annoyed by popups and/or didn't trust SGX and ran amok (see the above two links) - It seems PINs can now be disabled[0] [0]: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059792-Signal-PINs#pin_disable https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059792-Si... For more details, see the post by Matthew Green that was posted in a sibling comment.