8 ms·

Signal is open source, you and anyone else can inspect the code. You can then build it from source and install on your android directly avoiding the play store.

by dylkil 6y ago

kitkat_new 6y ago
and how does this proof that they don't save what you send them?
- dylkil 6y ago
  what use are my encrypted messages to them?
  - cygx 6y ago
    Building social graphs and activity logs, for one.
  - kitkat_new 6y ago
    1) Meta data 2) Decrypt in case of security breach or more advanced computing
theshrike79 6y ago
So how do I build the Signal server and confirm it's identical to the one they're running?
- jolmg 6y ago
  It doesn't matter if it's not. Security should depend completely on the clients. Public-key crypto allows private communication through insecure channels.
  - genghizkhan 6y ago
    That's not going to be true of metadata, though. A malicious server could keep a lot of valuable metadata about you.
  - hutzlibu 6y ago
    No, it does. In some cases (think dictatorship) - you not only want the secret police to not read your messages - you don't want them to know at all, who are you talking to(and how often and when!). Otherwise you might all go to jail (or worse), if they are after one contact of yours. And then you can try to feel save, that they don't know your encryption password. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
    - 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
      here https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/jk-after-police-crackdown-netizens-removing-vpns-to-avoid-hassles-806720.html https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/jk-a... not allowed to use VPNs because national security issues. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/india-launches-fresh-crackdown-on-kashmiri-netizens/1944552# https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/india-launches-fresh-c... "social media muisuse" i remember last year this word was so much used, "misuse" which translates to criticizing the ruiling dictator government. it still is, https://thenextweb.com/in/2020/01/08/kashmirs-police-want-people-to-register-their-whatsapp-groups/ https://thenextweb.com/in/2020/01/08/kashmirs-police-want-pe... here. a whatsapp group needs to be "registered" with police. and lastly more recently, https://theintercept.com/2020/12/06/kashmir-social-media-police/ https://theintercept.com/2020/12/06/kashmir-social-media-pol... this is a reason why i never signed up for whatsapp, havent joined signal, don't tweet or post on facebook. Why? because PII the danger is real and i am living it. people better realize it
      - hutzlibu 6y ago
        Well, if a government goes authorian, than it does not matter much, what service you use, if you have to assume your phone has spyware on it. If the main danger is, police scanning the phone for compromised material (without a police spyware on it), then there are some ways to deal with it technically, by using services that don't leave a trace. Telegram for example has a "secret chat" function, which won't save the messages, meaning someone scanning your phone later, won't find them. (which I head is also a main reason for many people to join telegram, because so they can chat with their affairs and not have their wifes read it) Then there are simply private tabs of chrome or ff, from where you can use chat-services without trace. (if the chat services are not cooperating with the police, or are decentralised by default, I think in that scenario I would use matrix) Anyway, you live in kashmir? I know mainly of the conflict by reading Shalimar the Clown, from Rushdie. Just curious about your opinion, if you know the book. I heard it was not well received in Kashmir itself? I think it was very well written, but I don't know how accurate it is.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  Other than literally showing up at somebody's datacenter and taking their machines away you won't be able to do this with any service ever.
2rsf 6y ago
That is a somewhat misleading statement, you may know what's on your device but you don't know what is happening on the servers
- dylkil 6y ago
  Its end to end encrypted chat. They could store the encrypted messages sure. I think the biggest fear people should have with signal is the client side encryption.
- jolmg 6y ago
  Because of public-key crypto, it doesn't matter if the servers are malicious.
  - kitkat_new 6y ago
    not true with respect to meta data
    - jolmg 6y ago
      which I don't think is as concerning, but is there a particular piece of metadata that concerns you?
      - codethief 6y ago
        I do think it is a valid concern. Over the years, various sources reported that intelligence agencies mostly use metadata (who's talking to whom, i.e. the social network) in their analysis because message content is harder to parse and understand (and, outside of email traffic, harder to obtain in the first place).
      - fuzzylightbulb 6y ago
        https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/your-call-and-text-records-are-far-more-revealing-you-think https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/your-call-and-text-r... Metadata can be as damning as the actual message data, and in a lot of places you don't want the authorities to know that you are even communicating at all.
cassianoleal 6y ago
As much as it is open source, there's no way to know for sure that the software running on their servers is the same that's published on Github.
- restingrobot 6y ago
  The software on the server doesn't matter, as long as the encryption is solid on the device. That's the whole point, the devices handles all encryption/decryption so the server can't understand any of the data coming and going. The reason they don't store the data is because it would be pointless. The Github repos contain the device source code which, for most platforms, can be verified.
helsinkiandrew 6y ago
> You can then build it from source To be secure you would HAVE to build and install it from source. But then again your OS could possibly inject code to get the keys. Or a keystroke logger may have been installed.
danielrhodes 6y ago
While this is a great way to build trust, there is obviously no way to confirm the App Store version is the same as one built from their public source. In fact, due to the way Apple optimizes apps for each device, this becomes even harder. Furthermore, just because you compile it from source and put it on your phone does not mean that you can reasonably stay aware of or understand all the internal workings that happen inside the app.
- aarchi 6y ago
  I know that developers can post LLVM bitcode to the App Store instead of a binary, which allows Apple to recompile it for architectural changes. I'd be surprised if Apple optimized per device. Creating separate builds with optimizations for different iPhone models would make more sense. Do you have more details on that?
  - restingrobot 6y ago
    I think he meant "iPhone models" when he said "devices". I'm not the op, but they definitely do optimize per model, not individual device.
    - danielrhodes 6y ago
      Per model is what I meant.
- j-james 6y ago
  > Furthermore, just because you compile it from source and put it on your phone does not mean that you can reasonably stay aware of or understand all the internal workings that happen inside the app. Can you elaborate on this? That's exactly what I'd expect of an app I compiled from source.
  - danielrhodes 6y ago
    Are you going to read every commit and fully explore the entire app to know your messages and encryption are being handled securely? And keep doing this every time you update? If so, you have more time than I do. :-)

Signal is open source, you and anyone else can inspect the code. You can then build it from source and install on your android directly avoiding the play store.

by dylkil 6y ago

Signal is open source, you and anyone else can inspect the code. You can then build it from source and install on your android directly avoiding the play store.

kitkat_new 6y ago

and how does this proof that they don't save what you send them?

dylkil 6y ago
what use are my encrypted messages to them?
- cygx 6y ago
  Building social graphs and activity logs, for one.
- kitkat_new 6y ago
  1) Meta data 2) Decrypt in case of security breach or more advanced computing

theshrike79 6y ago

So how do I build the Signal server and confirm it's identical to the one they're running?

jolmg 6y ago
It doesn't matter if it's not. Security should depend completely on the clients. Public-key crypto allows private communication through insecure channels.
- genghizkhan 6y ago
  That's not going to be true of metadata, though. A malicious server could keep a lot of valuable metadata about you.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  No, it does. In some cases (think dictatorship) - you not only want the secret police to not read your messages - you don't want them to know at all, who are you talking to(and how often and when!). Otherwise you might all go to jail (or worse), if they are after one contact of yours. And then you can try to feel save, that they don't know your encryption password. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
  - 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
    here https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/jk-after-police-crackdown-netizens-removing-vpns-to-avoid-hassles-806720.html https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/jk-a... not allowed to use VPNs because national security issues. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/india-launches-fresh-crackdown-on-kashmiri-netizens/1944552# https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/india-launches-fresh-c... "social media muisuse" i remember last year this word was so much used, "misuse" which translates to criticizing the ruiling dictator government. it still is, https://thenextweb.com/in/2020/01/08/kashmirs-police-want-people-to-register-their-whatsapp-groups/ https://thenextweb.com/in/2020/01/08/kashmirs-police-want-pe... here. a whatsapp group needs to be "registered" with police. and lastly more recently, https://theintercept.com/2020/12/06/kashmir-social-media-police/ https://theintercept.com/2020/12/06/kashmir-social-media-pol... this is a reason why i never signed up for whatsapp, havent joined signal, don't tweet or post on facebook. Why? because PII the danger is real and i am living it. people better realize it
    - hutzlibu 6y ago
      Well, if a government goes authorian, than it does not matter much, what service you use, if you have to assume your phone has spyware on it. If the main danger is, police scanning the phone for compromised material (without a police spyware on it), then there are some ways to deal with it technically, by using services that don't leave a trace. Telegram for example has a "secret chat" function, which won't save the messages, meaning someone scanning your phone later, won't find them. (which I head is also a main reason for many people to join telegram, because so they can chat with their affairs and not have their wifes read it) Then there are simply private tabs of chrome or ff, from where you can use chat-services without trace. (if the chat services are not cooperating with the police, or are decentralised by default, I think in that scenario I would use matrix) Anyway, you live in kashmir? I know mainly of the conflict by reading Shalimar the Clown, from Rushdie. Just curious about your opinion, if you know the book. I heard it was not well received in Kashmir itself? I think it was very well written, but I don't know how accurate it is.
UncleMeat 6y ago
Other than literally showing up at somebody's datacenter and taking their machines away you won't be able to do this with any service ever.

2rsf 6y ago

That is a somewhat misleading statement, you may know what's on your device but you don't know what is happening on the servers

dylkil 6y ago
Its end to end encrypted chat. They could store the encrypted messages sure. I think the biggest fear people should have with signal is the client side encryption.
jolmg 6y ago
Because of public-key crypto, it doesn't matter if the servers are malicious.
- kitkat_new 6y ago
  not true with respect to meta data
  - jolmg 6y ago
    which I don't think is as concerning, but is there a particular piece of metadata that concerns you?
    - codethief 6y ago
      I do think it is a valid concern. Over the years, various sources reported that intelligence agencies mostly use metadata (who's talking to whom, i.e. the social network) in their analysis because message content is harder to parse and understand (and, outside of email traffic, harder to obtain in the first place).
    - fuzzylightbulb 6y ago
      https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/your-call-and-text-records-are-far-more-revealing-you-think https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/your-call-and-text-r... Metadata can be as damning as the actual message data, and in a lot of places you don't want the authorities to know that you are even communicating at all.

cassianoleal 6y ago

As much as it is open source, there's no way to know for sure that the software running on their servers is the same that's published on Github.

restingrobot 6y ago
The software on the server doesn't matter, as long as the encryption is solid on the device. That's the whole point, the devices handles all encryption/decryption so the server can't understand any of the data coming and going. The reason they don't store the data is because it would be pointless. The Github repos contain the device source code which, for most platforms, can be verified.

helsinkiandrew 6y ago

> You can then build it from source To be secure you would HAVE to build and install it from source. But then again your OS could possibly inject code to get the keys. Or a keystroke logger may have been installed.

danielrhodes 6y ago

While this is a great way to build trust, there is obviously no way to confirm the App Store version is the same as one built from their public source. In fact, due to the way Apple optimizes apps for each device, this becomes even harder. Furthermore, just because you compile it from source and put it on your phone does not mean that you can reasonably stay aware of or understand all the internal workings that happen inside the app.

aarchi 6y ago
I know that developers can post LLVM bitcode to the App Store instead of a binary, which allows Apple to recompile it for architectural changes. I'd be surprised if Apple optimized per device. Creating separate builds with optimizations for different iPhone models would make more sense. Do you have more details on that?
- restingrobot 6y ago
  I think he meant "iPhone models" when he said "devices". I'm not the op, but they definitely do optimize per model, not individual device.
  - danielrhodes 6y ago
    Per model is what I meant.
j-james 6y ago
> Furthermore, just because you compile it from source and put it on your phone does not mean that you can reasonably stay aware of or understand all the internal workings that happen inside the app. Can you elaborate on this? That's exactly what I'd expect of an app I compiled from source.
- danielrhodes 6y ago
  Are you going to read every commit and fully explore the entire app to know your messages and encryption are being handled securely? And keep doing this every time you update? If so, you have more time than I do. :-)