4 ms·

>Bundle an Open source IME to be used when in incognito mode Is there a good open source IME? I thought Apple/Google/Microsoft haven't been able to ship a dece

by FDSGSG 6y ago

>Bundle an Open source IME to be used when in incognito mode Is there a good open source IME? I thought Apple/Google/Microsoft haven't been able to ship a decent one and most people use Baidu's. > 2. Warn users when they switch to incognito that their IME may still be recording the words they type. Is a blanket "Your phone might be compromised, we can't help you if it is." warning actually useful? This doesn't really provide the user with any actionable information. >This isn't just about compromised phones. This is 100% about compromised phones running malicious keyboard apps.

edent 6y ago
I use AnySoft for English and used to use Trime for Chinese. I now use SwiftKey (not open source) for Pinyin. What activists have been saying - and you should speak to them, not me - is that a warning is better than lulling people into a false sense of security. Again, your phone may not be compromised but your IME could still be malicious. The fact that Moxie and his team won't even engage with the people who originally brought this up is somewhat vexing.
- FDSGSG 6y ago
  >is that a warning is better than lulling people into a false sense of security. But in the end any such warning is meaningless as it can't possibly be acted upon. >Again, your phone may not be compromised but your IME could still be malicious. If you're using a malicious keyboard app I think it's fair to say that your phone is compromised.
  - detaro 6y ago
    It can be acted on: you can realize that you probably shouldn't talk about everything using Signal despite the person urging you to install it swearing that it's secure. (which was the exact event that was given as a reason to add this: some journalist telling Chinese students(?) to use Signal to talk to them freely)
    - ryanlol 6y ago
      Should Signal then come with a blanket warning “Do not trust Signal!”?
      - detaro 6y ago
        A brief explanation of the threat model (i.e. what it aims to protect against and what it doesn't) would probably be more useful. "Do not trust people that tell you Signal is perfectly secure" is true but probably doesn't lead to the right user behavior. I'm not claiming communicating these things well is easy. (and obviously a bunch of the blame lies with people that do uncritically push Signal, if you are journalist not misleading your "sources" is important, but again they need to be educated too and it's not surprising that's not happening perfectly - efforts in that would also have been a reasonable response IMHO. And of course this is based on the assumption that the events have been presented somewhat accurately)
        kelnos 6y ago
        Why is it the responsibility of the Signal developers to do people's threat modeling for them? If your situation is that you need to communicate things that could get you killed or imprisoned, you should be using a burner phone that has pretty much nothing installed on it but Signal (or whatever app you choose to use for secure comms). You should also be using a third-party OS/ROM that you can be pretty sure hasn't been backdoored by a local telco or government, or a device that you've managed to import from abroad that likely doesn't have local modifications. I would assume that most people do not do this, and yet somehow expect Signal to magically make the entire stack below it secure, which is a ridiculous expectation.
        detaro 6y ago
        It shouldn't do their threat modeling, but it is being widely promoted as "secure" (with little to no further restrictions) by and to people without detailed tech knowledge and is in an excellent position to inform their "threat modeling". As a principle, "People should know better" somewhat works for experts tools, tools for non-experts should where possible let users know what they are not aware of. (What exactly that means and where the limits are is, as said, a non-trivial question)
cmiles74 6y ago
I don't think this framing of the issue is helpful in this case. The people who have installed a custom keyboard likely did so for a tangible benefit, they may not have understood the warning from the phone at installation time or they may have forgotten about the warning entirely. I think it is unreasonable to characterize these phones as "compromised" or these keyboard applications as "malicious". While some keyboard apps are truly out to get people, this isn't the case for all of these applications and they meet a real need (i.e. foreign language keyboards). As you say, a blanket warning that the customer's phone may be compromised is unhelpful. Warning customers who have a custom keyboard of the risks those keyboards pose (similar to the warning Android displays at custom keyboard install time)[0] could go a long way towards educating customers. Signal markets itself as a one stop solution to privacy issues. I think it makes sense that they should outline the areas where they cannot, in fact, assure the customer's privacy. [0]: https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/article_attachments/115011050849/Android_Warning_Message.png https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/article_attachments/11501105...
- FDSGSG 6y ago
  I think jsiepkes addressed this quite well in a sibling comment: >Shouldn't Signal then also warn or refuse to work on Android versions with known vulnerabilities? Or if there are apps installed on the device with the accessibility permission? >Where would you say the line should be drawn?
  - cmiles74 6y ago
    I don't see how this is related... In this case they are talking about known vulnerabilities on specific Android versions. Here we are not talking about a specific vulnerability but about the way Android works and how custom keyboards function. Perhaps the accessibility permissions are relevant. If Signal could detect these settings and warn the customer if these settings are egregiously open, that would be a valuable feature in my opinion. To me, support for older versions of Android sound like an entirely different discussion. Signal does include the "incognito" function[0]; Signal is already taking some steps to address the issue. However I'd argue that many people have likely forgotten that they ever installed a custom keyboard and if it was pre-installed on their phone they may not be aware of it. [0]: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360055276112-Incognito-Keyboard https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360055276112-In...

by FDSGSG 6y ago

edent 6y ago

I use AnySoft for English and used to use Trime for Chinese. I now use SwiftKey (not open source) for Pinyin. What activists have been saying - and you should speak to them, not me - is that a warning is better than lulling people into a false sense of security. Again, your phone may not be compromised but your IME could still be malicious. The fact that Moxie and his team won't even engage with the people who originally brought this up is somewhat vexing.

FDSGSG 6y ago
>is that a warning is better than lulling people into a false sense of security. But in the end any such warning is meaningless as it can't possibly be acted upon. >Again, your phone may not be compromised but your IME could still be malicious. If you're using a malicious keyboard app I think it's fair to say that your phone is compromised.
- detaro 6y ago
  It can be acted on: you can realize that you probably shouldn't talk about everything using Signal despite the person urging you to install it swearing that it's secure. (which was the exact event that was given as a reason to add this: some journalist telling Chinese students(?) to use Signal to talk to them freely)
  - ryanlol 6y ago
    Should Signal then come with a blanket warning “Do not trust Signal!”?
    - detaro 6y ago
      A brief explanation of the threat model (i.e. what it aims to protect against and what it doesn't) would probably be more useful. "Do not trust people that tell you Signal is perfectly secure" is true but probably doesn't lead to the right user behavior. I'm not claiming communicating these things well is easy. (and obviously a bunch of the blame lies with people that do uncritically push Signal, if you are journalist not misleading your "sources" is important, but again they need to be educated too and it's not surprising that's not happening perfectly - efforts in that would also have been a reasonable response IMHO. And of course this is based on the assumption that the events have been presented somewhat accurately)
      - kelnos 6y ago
        Why is it the responsibility of the Signal developers to do people's threat modeling for them? If your situation is that you need to communicate things that could get you killed or imprisoned, you should be using a burner phone that has pretty much nothing installed on it but Signal (or whatever app you choose to use for secure comms). You should also be using a third-party OS/ROM that you can be pretty sure hasn't been backdoored by a local telco or government, or a device that you've managed to import from abroad that likely doesn't have local modifications. I would assume that most people do not do this, and yet somehow expect Signal to magically make the entire stack below it secure, which is a ridiculous expectation.
        detaro 6y ago
        It shouldn't do their threat modeling, but it is being widely promoted as "secure" (with little to no further restrictions) by and to people without detailed tech knowledge and is in an excellent position to inform their "threat modeling". As a principle, "People should know better" somewhat works for experts tools, tools for non-experts should where possible let users know what they are not aware of. (What exactly that means and where the limits are is, as said, a non-trivial question)

cmiles74 6y ago

I don't think this framing of the issue is helpful in this case. The people who have installed a custom keyboard likely did so for a tangible benefit, they may not have understood the warning from the phone at installation time or they may have forgotten about the warning entirely. I think it is unreasonable to characterize these phones as "compromised" or these keyboard applications as "malicious". While some keyboard apps are truly out to get people, this isn't the case for all of these applications and they meet a real need (i.e. foreign language keyboards). As you say, a blanket warning that the customer's phone may be compromised is unhelpful. Warning customers who have a custom keyboard of the risks those keyboards pose (similar to the warning Android displays at custom keyboard install time)[0] could go a long way towards educating customers. Signal markets itself as a one stop solution to privacy issues. I think it makes sense that they should outline the areas where they cannot, in fact, assure the customer's privacy. [0]: https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/article_attachments/115011050849/Android_Warning_Message.png https://support.swiftkey.com/hc/article_attachments/11501105...

FDSGSG 6y ago
I think jsiepkes addressed this quite well in a sibling comment: >Shouldn't Signal then also warn or refuse to work on Android versions with known vulnerabilities? Or if there are apps installed on the device with the accessibility permission? >Where would you say the line should be drawn?
- cmiles74 6y ago
  I don't see how this is related... In this case they are talking about known vulnerabilities on specific Android versions. Here we are not talking about a specific vulnerability but about the way Android works and how custom keyboards function. Perhaps the accessibility permissions are relevant. If Signal could detect these settings and warn the customer if these settings are egregiously open, that would be a valuable feature in my opinion. To me, support for older versions of Android sound like an entirely different discussion. Signal does include the "incognito" function[0]; Signal is already taking some steps to address the issue. However I'd argue that many people have likely forgotten that they ever installed a custom keyboard and if it was pre-installed on their phone they may not be aware of it. [0]: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360055276112-Incognito-Keyboard https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360055276112-In...