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I just set up one of these Signal proxies. Hope it helps you and others in your country communicate freely and safely. [1] Regarding Tor: if you want a Signal-

by 2cb 6y ago

I just set up one of these Signal proxies. Hope it helps you and others in your country communicate freely and safely. [1] Regarding Tor: if you want a Signal-like app that uses an onion router look at Session. [2] It uses the same encryption protocol and very similar UI to Signal but routes all traffic through the Loki network so your traffic passes through three nodes. It is an onion network like Tor. One other benefit of Session is the lack of metadata inherent to its design. No phone numbers or even usernames are attached to your account. You get a set of characters that looks similar to a bitcoin address and a QR code to make sharing it easier. Of course this lacks the convenience of Signal but it’s as hard to block as Tor. [1] https://signal.tube/#signal.xanny.family https://signal.tube/#signal.xanny.family [2] https://getsession.org https://getsession.org

aftbit 6y ago
Session has: 1. An associated crypto-currency (not outright bad but weird smell IMO) [1] 2. Abandoned perfect forward secrecy and deniability [2] 3. Never completed an audit (though supposedly one is in progress) [3] There are a million and one encrypted chat programs out there. Why should I use this one? [1]: https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-mobile-wallet https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-mobile-wallet [2]: https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-information/ https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-informatio... [3]: https://getsession.org/faq/ https://getsession.org/faq/
- 2cb 6y ago
  I mentioned it because it has a seamlessly built in onion routing protocol. I read further down the thread that Tor is blocked in Iran, but I’m guessing the same is unlikely to be true of Loki/Oxen simply because it isn’t nearly as well known. The lack of metadata is also quite a unique selling point in my eyes. There’s a million encrypted messengers now sure. How many automatically connect through an onion router with zero config required and don’t require you to create an account at all, but instead assign you a random ID disconnected entirely from your phone number, email, and other personal identifiers? It’s certainly an option to consider is the only thing I’m saying. Tor was mentioned so Session popped into my head for the reasons mentioned above. Regarding PFS. They currently implement the Signal Protocol. Session is of course FOSS so anyone can check this. Your source does say they’re planning to fork it as the Session Protocol later this year so it integrates with their network more easily. But that’s an upcoming, unfinished project. To be honest I don’t know much about it as it’s still in development. I do know that currently Session uses the Signal Protocol through an onion router without the need to so much as create an account. And yes the network itself is a bit of a convoluted idea that tries to do many things at once, but the fact they run on a blockchain means they already have a lot of nodes set up in different countries around the world through which to route traffic, and the reason they could build a decentralised network quite quickly despite being a relatively young project is they incentivise those node operators with cryptocurrency. Because it is a young project they are still undergoing audit yes. This is absolutely something worth noting. It’s a relatively new project. It’s no longer in beta, but nowhere near as well established as Signal. However it’s precisely because of this it’s unlikely governments are bothering to target it yet.
  - olah_1 6y ago
    Session protocol is currently running on session now[1]. It’s actually the reason that they were able to allow up to 100 people in closed groups now. [1]: https://getsession.org/session-release-roundup-10/ https://getsession.org/session-release-roundup-10/
    - 2cb 6y ago
      Looking at the technical writeup [1] it sounds like they're currently running a hybrid of the two as they do a staged rollout of the various changes they've made to the Signal Protocol. But yes you are correct it looks like they're justifying ditching PFS by saying "if someone has your keys you're screwed anyway." However they're not just stripping away security outright, it's more that they're betting on onion routing to cover the user instead - no one who is sniffing traffic on your WiFi network will be able to get your keys because the traffic is routed through the onion network, therefore the only way anyone would get those keys is by pwning your entire device or having physical access to it while it's decrypted which, as they note, is endgame no matter what messenger you use. I don't necessarily think this is smart as it's best to not put all your eggs in one basket especially where security is concerned. But given all traffic goes between 5-7 nodes [1] the scope for someone without remote or physical access to your device to get your keys is extremely limited assuming their onion network is as secure as they claim. As for deniability, they sign the message with the long-term keypair, but once the message is validated this signature is wiped. So again it pretty much comes down to relying on their onion routing to ensure this signature isn't intercepted in transit. Finally I think it's relevant Session is really designed for a different use case than Signal - since your ID is not connected to any personal identifiers, you can wipe it whenever you want and get a new ID that has zero cryptographic connection to the old one. So while there's no ratcheting of keys, the intention isn't really for someone to stick with the same account for years like it is for Signal where your account uses your phone number as an identifier. I'll wait for the results of the audit, if they come out and say Session is fundamentally flawed I'll happily concede. I have zero ties to this project aside from finding it useful for particular use cases. My prediction is the initial audit will find some potential vulns as they roll out more of the Session Protocol simply because it's a new fork. Probably why they're getting the audit done now. That's the responsible move when forking a crypto protocol it seems to me. I maintain that for people who want a messenger that knows as little about them as possible, doesn't rely on a personal identifier, and connects to an onion router reliably (by comparison, using Tor on mobile is... not a good experience) it's at very least an interesting project to watch even if it still needs time to mature. [1] https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-information/ https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-informatio...
- olah_1 6y ago
  My only annoyance with the crypto currency is that it doesn’t have a good UX yet. They have stated before though that Session will always remain free for everyone. I think compensating node operators in some capacity makes sense but if it’s not implemented well, node operators feel a bit screwed over. Regarding your footnote #2 about PFS, it said this (among other things). > In some theoretical scenarios, these properties do protect users; however the utility of these protections in real-world scenarios is often more limited in scope than might be expected. We must also consider that these safeguards are offered at the expense of additional complexity, decreased account portability, and multi-device limitations. These protocols were simply not designed to be run over a decentralised network. I have to say, I’ve considered the utility of it myself. It seems to me that I’m far, far more likely to have my chats compromised through my chats being stored in plain text on my devices than in a technical scenario that PFS could have prevented. What do you think?
  - 2cb 6y ago
    I haven't played with their crypto wallet honestly so I can't provide any kind of informed opinion on it. It's a fork of Monero, but Monero is more widely accepted. Although Monero's wallet has a terrible UX too so if they've forked their wallet too, that'll be why. Session has a pretty nice UX though, better than Wickr which has been around longer, although not as refined as Wire. It's pretty much a more barebones Signal without phone numbers as far as pure UX goes. It should follow the system setting for dark mode though. No idea why it doesn't. > I have to say, I’ve considered the utility of it myself. It seems to me that I’m far, far more likely to have my chats compromised through my chats being stored in plain text on my devices than in a technical scenario that PFS could have prevented. What do you think? To be honest I agree. It's always good to have layers of security in case there's an exploited vulnerability in one. However, it seems pretty far fetched that someone with the ability to pull off a successful attack to grab your keys in the first place is going to be stopped from grabbing past messages by PFS. If they've got your keys they've either cracked the layers of encryption that protect them in transit (highly unlikely) or they've pwned your device (much more likely). If they've got remote code execution on your device PFS isn't going to make any difference to anything. As you say, messages stored in plaintext is a far bigger real world risk. This is why I always have disappearing messages on. That makes me feel safer than PFS. At least then in the worst case scenario past messages simply aren't there in storage. To put it another way, if I had to choose between disappearing messages and PFS, and I could only have one, I'd choose disappearing messages. And it does also seem to me less like they're removing security, more like they're relying on a different form of it. They're having to strip PFS to make the protocol work reliably on their onion network. The fact all my traffic goes E2EE through 5-7 nodes, as per the technical description, should provide a strong level of protection against any traffic sniffing threat model assuming their fancy new way of doing onion routing is as secure as they say. It seems to me that's what it really hinges on. As long as their onion router is actually secure, the E2EE messages are going to be secure in transit. The biggest risk then would come back to unpatched exploits or 0days in the OS or side channel attacks in Session itself. That's how most attacks on messengers succeed after all, not by complex attacks on the crypto protocol but through side channel attacks in the application or exploits in the underlying OS.
- upofadown 6y ago
  >Abandoned perfect forward secrecy and deniability... I suspect that is the future for encrypted messaging. Pretty much everyone ends up keeping their old messages around thus negating the value of forward secrecy[1]. Deniability ends up being just some forgability scheme in most cases[2]. So the benefit of those features turned out to not be worth the extra risk of the added complexity. [1]: https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:forward_secrecy https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:forward_secrecy [2]: https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:repudiability https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:repudiability
southerntofu 6y ago
I don't understand the point of reinventing many wheels. Why not build a friendly chat app on top of established onion routing protocols (Tor/I2P), or add your own onion routing backend (proxy) to established federated chat apps like Conversations, which already has perfect Tor integration for Jabber/XMPP over .onion servers? Also, Session is promoted as a non-profit project, but following links around about LokiNet and Oxen you find out about a blockchain-based cryptocurrency, which is known to be an anti-pattern on many levels (though they use Proof-of-Service not Proof-of-Work which is slightly less worse). Finally, Session appears to be free-software (good), but is not distributed on F-Droid, the only privacy/security-friendly app store for Android. They encourage you to download random APKs from Google Play (which requires Google Play Services malware and a google account) or Github (owned by Microsoft, though i note they sign checksums with PGP on Github so it's safer to download from there than Google Play, even though they don't provide instructions on how to verify signatures). On F-Droid, they could either have F-Droid build/distribute the package with Fdroid's PGP key, or open their own F-Droid repo with their own PGP key (like Newpipe did), or both. I really appreciate their communication around dissent and the need to protect communications to help the people against their governments. However these three points i just noted are really shady to say the least. I understand they need to please investors to put money in their fridges, however trying to mix for-profit incentives with non-profit services to the communities is always a dead-end.
jacko0 6y ago
Here's my Signal proxy, I hope it helps someone: https://signal.tube/#signal.jacko.co.uk https://signal.tube/#signal.jacko.co.uk

by 2cb 6y ago

aftbit 6y ago

Session has: 1. An associated crypto-currency (not outright bad but weird smell IMO) [1] 2. Abandoned perfect forward secrecy and deniability [2] 3. Never completed an audit (though supposedly one is in progress) [3] There are a million and one encrypted chat programs out there. Why should I use this one? [1]: https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-mobile-wallet https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-mobile-wallet [2]: https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-information/ https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-informatio... [3]: https://getsession.org/faq/ https://getsession.org/faq/

2cb 6y ago
I mentioned it because it has a seamlessly built in onion routing protocol. I read further down the thread that Tor is blocked in Iran, but I’m guessing the same is unlikely to be true of Loki/Oxen simply because it isn’t nearly as well known. The lack of metadata is also quite a unique selling point in my eyes. There’s a million encrypted messengers now sure. How many automatically connect through an onion router with zero config required and don’t require you to create an account at all, but instead assign you a random ID disconnected entirely from your phone number, email, and other personal identifiers? It’s certainly an option to consider is the only thing I’m saying. Tor was mentioned so Session popped into my head for the reasons mentioned above. Regarding PFS. They currently implement the Signal Protocol. Session is of course FOSS so anyone can check this. Your source does say they’re planning to fork it as the Session Protocol later this year so it integrates with their network more easily. But that’s an upcoming, unfinished project. To be honest I don’t know much about it as it’s still in development. I do know that currently Session uses the Signal Protocol through an onion router without the need to so much as create an account. And yes the network itself is a bit of a convoluted idea that tries to do many things at once, but the fact they run on a blockchain means they already have a lot of nodes set up in different countries around the world through which to route traffic, and the reason they could build a decentralised network quite quickly despite being a relatively young project is they incentivise those node operators with cryptocurrency. Because it is a young project they are still undergoing audit yes. This is absolutely something worth noting. It’s a relatively new project. It’s no longer in beta, but nowhere near as well established as Signal. However it’s precisely because of this it’s unlikely governments are bothering to target it yet.
- olah_1 6y ago
  Session protocol is currently running on session now[1]. It’s actually the reason that they were able to allow up to 100 people in closed groups now. [1]: https://getsession.org/session-release-roundup-10/ https://getsession.org/session-release-roundup-10/
  - 2cb 6y ago
    Looking at the technical writeup [1] it sounds like they're currently running a hybrid of the two as they do a staged rollout of the various changes they've made to the Signal Protocol. But yes you are correct it looks like they're justifying ditching PFS by saying "if someone has your keys you're screwed anyway." However they're not just stripping away security outright, it's more that they're betting on onion routing to cover the user instead - no one who is sniffing traffic on your WiFi network will be able to get your keys because the traffic is routed through the onion network, therefore the only way anyone would get those keys is by pwning your entire device or having physical access to it while it's decrypted which, as they note, is endgame no matter what messenger you use. I don't necessarily think this is smart as it's best to not put all your eggs in one basket especially where security is concerned. But given all traffic goes between 5-7 nodes [1] the scope for someone without remote or physical access to your device to get your keys is extremely limited assuming their onion network is as secure as they claim. As for deniability, they sign the message with the long-term keypair, but once the message is validated this signature is wiped. So again it pretty much comes down to relying on their onion routing to ensure this signature isn't intercepted in transit. Finally I think it's relevant Session is really designed for a different use case than Signal - since your ID is not connected to any personal identifiers, you can wipe it whenever you want and get a new ID that has zero cryptographic connection to the old one. So while there's no ratcheting of keys, the intention isn't really for someone to stick with the same account for years like it is for Signal where your account uses your phone number as an identifier. I'll wait for the results of the audit, if they come out and say Session is fundamentally flawed I'll happily concede. I have zero ties to this project aside from finding it useful for particular use cases. My prediction is the initial audit will find some potential vulns as they roll out more of the Session Protocol simply because it's a new fork. Probably why they're getting the audit done now. That's the responsible move when forking a crypto protocol it seems to me. I maintain that for people who want a messenger that knows as little about them as possible, doesn't rely on a personal identifier, and connects to an onion router reliably (by comparison, using Tor on mobile is... not a good experience) it's at very least an interesting project to watch even if it still needs time to mature. [1] https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-information/ https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-informatio...
olah_1 6y ago
My only annoyance with the crypto currency is that it doesn’t have a good UX yet. They have stated before though that Session will always remain free for everyone. I think compensating node operators in some capacity makes sense but if it’s not implemented well, node operators feel a bit screwed over. Regarding your footnote #2 about PFS, it said this (among other things). > In some theoretical scenarios, these properties do protect users; however the utility of these protections in real-world scenarios is often more limited in scope than might be expected. We must also consider that these safeguards are offered at the expense of additional complexity, decreased account portability, and multi-device limitations. These protocols were simply not designed to be run over a decentralised network. I have to say, I’ve considered the utility of it myself. It seems to me that I’m far, far more likely to have my chats compromised through my chats being stored in plain text on my devices than in a technical scenario that PFS could have prevented. What do you think?
- 2cb 6y ago
  I haven't played with their crypto wallet honestly so I can't provide any kind of informed opinion on it. It's a fork of Monero, but Monero is more widely accepted. Although Monero's wallet has a terrible UX too so if they've forked their wallet too, that'll be why. Session has a pretty nice UX though, better than Wickr which has been around longer, although not as refined as Wire. It's pretty much a more barebones Signal without phone numbers as far as pure UX goes. It should follow the system setting for dark mode though. No idea why it doesn't. > I have to say, I’ve considered the utility of it myself. It seems to me that I’m far, far more likely to have my chats compromised through my chats being stored in plain text on my devices than in a technical scenario that PFS could have prevented. What do you think? To be honest I agree. It's always good to have layers of security in case there's an exploited vulnerability in one. However, it seems pretty far fetched that someone with the ability to pull off a successful attack to grab your keys in the first place is going to be stopped from grabbing past messages by PFS. If they've got your keys they've either cracked the layers of encryption that protect them in transit (highly unlikely) or they've pwned your device (much more likely). If they've got remote code execution on your device PFS isn't going to make any difference to anything. As you say, messages stored in plaintext is a far bigger real world risk. This is why I always have disappearing messages on. That makes me feel safer than PFS. At least then in the worst case scenario past messages simply aren't there in storage. To put it another way, if I had to choose between disappearing messages and PFS, and I could only have one, I'd choose disappearing messages. And it does also seem to me less like they're removing security, more like they're relying on a different form of it. They're having to strip PFS to make the protocol work reliably on their onion network. The fact all my traffic goes E2EE through 5-7 nodes, as per the technical description, should provide a strong level of protection against any traffic sniffing threat model assuming their fancy new way of doing onion routing is as secure as they say. It seems to me that's what it really hinges on. As long as their onion router is actually secure, the E2EE messages are going to be secure in transit. The biggest risk then would come back to unpatched exploits or 0days in the OS or side channel attacks in Session itself. That's how most attacks on messengers succeed after all, not by complex attacks on the crypto protocol but through side channel attacks in the application or exploits in the underlying OS.
upofadown 6y ago
>Abandoned perfect forward secrecy and deniability... I suspect that is the future for encrypted messaging. Pretty much everyone ends up keeping their old messages around thus negating the value of forward secrecy[1]. Deniability ends up being just some forgability scheme in most cases[2]. So the benefit of those features turned out to not be worth the extra risk of the added complexity. [1]: https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:forward_secrecy https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:forward_secrecy [2]: https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:repudiability https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:repudiability

southerntofu 6y ago

I don't understand the point of reinventing many wheels. Why not build a friendly chat app on top of established onion routing protocols (Tor/I2P), or add your own onion routing backend (proxy) to established federated chat apps like Conversations, which already has perfect Tor integration for Jabber/XMPP over .onion servers? Also, Session is promoted as a non-profit project, but following links around about LokiNet and Oxen you find out about a blockchain-based cryptocurrency, which is known to be an anti-pattern on many levels (though they use Proof-of-Service not Proof-of-Work which is slightly less worse). Finally, Session appears to be free-software (good), but is not distributed on F-Droid, the only privacy/security-friendly app store for Android. They encourage you to download random APKs from Google Play (which requires Google Play Services malware and a google account) or Github (owned by Microsoft, though i note they sign checksums with PGP on Github so it's safer to download from there than Google Play, even though they don't provide instructions on how to verify signatures). On F-Droid, they could either have F-Droid build/distribute the package with Fdroid's PGP key, or open their own F-Droid repo with their own PGP key (like Newpipe did), or both. I really appreciate their communication around dissent and the need to protect communications to help the people against their governments. However these three points i just noted are really shady to say the least. I understand they need to please investors to put money in their fridges, however trying to mix for-profit incentives with non-profit services to the communities is always a dead-end.

jacko0 6y ago

Here's my Signal proxy, I hope it helps someone: https://signal.tube/#signal.jacko.co.uk https://signal.tube/#signal.jacko.co.uk