5 ms·

It doesn't matter if it's not. Security should depend completely on the clients. Public-key crypto allows private communication through insecure channels.

by jolmg 6y ago

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.
    - 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
      Yeah. Just last year I had to teach neighbours and such to use a launcher like Evie which lets you hide apps. Many were stopped during random street checks and that saved their Turkey. Heh. 8 months or so ago I was stooped because it looked like I was "recording a video" on my phone when actually I was. Took a slow turn, double press power button and pickachu face that I wasnt. Still a couple guys around helped or I was history. No. I havent read Rushdie. It has that whole demon verse thing around him, he isnt liked The problem with telegram as with WhatsApp and signal is phone numbers. India has had this network analyzer on isp level for like 6-7 years, called "netra". So all unencrypted traffic goes through it. Same for all encrypted traffic. This is the reason why I stopped using tor, because my traffic would show up uniquely than rest and that gets them suspicious quickly. There is a lot of text written on the conflict which actually is more than 500 years old. Kashmir has been under foreign oppressive occupation for over 500 years constantly and even today is under 3 nations. Its not like the occupation wont affect the people. I am trying to get people I know on matrix because there is no PII, waiting for dendrite to come out of beta so that I can set up my own server and such. The joys of living in an open air prison.
- nackerhewz 6y ago
  Session is a signal-derived app that attempts to mitigate these types of information leaks. https://getsession.org/ https://getsession.org/ Edit: see discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690036

It doesn't matter if it's not. Security should depend completely on the clients. Public-key crypto allows private communication through insecure channels.

by 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.
  - 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
    Yeah. Just last year I had to teach neighbours and such to use a launcher like Evie which lets you hide apps. Many were stopped during random street checks and that saved their Turkey. Heh. 8 months or so ago I was stooped because it looked like I was "recording a video" on my phone when actually I was. Took a slow turn, double press power button and pickachu face that I wasnt. Still a couple guys around helped or I was history. No. I havent read Rushdie. It has that whole demon verse thing around him, he isnt liked The problem with telegram as with WhatsApp and signal is phone numbers. India has had this network analyzer on isp level for like 6-7 years, called "netra". So all unencrypted traffic goes through it. Same for all encrypted traffic. This is the reason why I stopped using tor, because my traffic would show up uniquely than rest and that gets them suspicious quickly. There is a lot of text written on the conflict which actually is more than 500 years old. Kashmir has been under foreign oppressive occupation for over 500 years constantly and even today is under 3 nations. Its not like the occupation wont affect the people. I am trying to get people I know on matrix because there is no PII, waiting for dendrite to come out of beta so that I can set up my own server and such. The joys of living in an open air prison.
nackerhewz 6y ago
Session is a signal-derived app that attempts to mitigate these types of information leaks. https://getsession.org/ https://getsession.org/ Edit: see discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690036