10 ms·

Session Encrypted Messenger

72 points by kuba-orlik 5y ago

encryptluks2 5y ago
Looks like a non-standard XMPP clone. XMPP already offers standard encryption.
- soziawa 5y ago
  It's actually forked from Signal.
  - christophilus 5y ago
    Couldn’t find the “why’d we fork” anywhere. Got a link?
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      Not a link, but from quick reading: - Session does not require phone numbers, which is Signal's greatest and well-known weakness and has led to a lot of (police/stalker) harassment - Session uses some form of onion routing, and the messages arriving while you're offline are stored for a certain amount of time (TTL) by "Oxen service nodes" ; no centralized server controlled by Amazon & other evil corps relying on Intel's SGX "secure enclaves" (yes, that is actually Signal's threat model lol) - Session appears to be involved with the Oxen blockchain where you can pay for a global username to be registered to your public key; i don't know if there's recovery mechanisms if you loose you key/device, but i do know it took me only two clicks from homepage to reach talk of blockchain and tokens and that does not inspire me confidence - Session claims loud and clear to be developed by a non-profit and to be user/UX-oriented, which is great! Signal's finances and decision making have never been very transparent, and interviews published here in the past year implied they needed more users in order to monetize the platform (how?)
- bjoli 5y ago
  I dont know where you got that impression. It is not based on xmpp. It is, more or less, a decentralised signal with onion routing. Edit: apparently they switched away from the signal protocol 2021. It is no longer signal-with-onion-routing. It has diverged significantly sice they forked.
  - kitkat_new 5y ago
    well, maybe decentralized Signal UI. Since it does neither use Signal encryption nor does its encryption have the properties modern E2EE encryption has (Perfect Forward Secrecy, existing in Signal, Matrix, Wire and even WhatsApp), it cannot really be called Signal anymore
    - bjoli 5y ago
      You are right: they have switched away from the signal protocol to their own session protocol during 2021. I did not know that. Last time I checked (late 2020) they were using signals protocol.
    - ajconway 5y ago
      Here is their reasoning for a change of protocol: https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-information https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-informatio... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690036 Summary: forward secrecy and deniability are nice to have, but removing them makes significant UX improvements possible.
  - Arnt 5y ago
    Looking at the web site, I can see how one might get that impression. The code base comes from signal, but the web site looks more than a bit like various XMPP things from a few years ago. It seems to say "we have features most XMPP clients don't" as I read it. Compare this to signal.org, which seems to be written from a list of FAQs/complaints. "Privacy" in the first sentence, four endorsements, and then a variety of FAQ points: "No creepy affiliates", "no SMS charges", "we have groups", "share GIFs freely".
soziawa 5y ago
Session is a cool fork from Signal. They adress the two biggest privacy issues, push tokens and IP addresses. But I can't see it gaining too much main stream traction any time soon. Too me it feels like WhatsApp has hit the sweet spot for people who can't get themselfes to care about security and privacy.
- ElectronShak 5y ago
  I have doubts regarding its privacy, but I think WhatsApp's security is up to the mark[1]. A lot of secure messengers fall short of simplifying security stuff on their UI/UX, for the average user, and i genuinely think it's a hard thing to do. In fact you could argue that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” But maybe we'll get there, as more and more users understand the need for security [1]https://www.whatsapp.com/security https://www.whatsapp.com/security
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    How would you know, since we don't have the source code?
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
Even though the website looks like yet another "secure messenger scam", at least these guys check the important checkbox of having a reproducible build available at F-Droid. [or apparently not, see below for more] This check box is actually quite import; I laugh at anyone who promises that "they won't reveal identities, not even under a court order" when the court can just force them to ship a silent binary update that does whatever the heck the court wants.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Strongly agree. I would also add that even if you as an app developer are not a malicious individual who would help law enforcement persecute political activists, Google will certainly give away all info it has on the persons who downloaded the app, and may as well publish targeted binary updates without anyone's knowledge, which is frightening. On F-Droid on the other hand, the recipe is open source and the build process is automated and reproducible. That means if your threat model requires it, you can setup your own F-Droid build server and only download from it and/or verify all checksums of packages published on f-droid.org repo. Outside the Android ecosystem, that's precisely what GNU/guix project is doing with the guix challenge command: https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-challenge.html https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-chall...
- _jomo 5y ago
  > reproducible build available at F-Droid It's not available at F-Droid. They have an F-Droid compatible repository that you can manually add to your F-Droid client where they ship binaries. I also can't find any mention of reproducible builds on their website, and their builts seem to include proprietary binaries. The issue [0] to publish the app on F-Droid is still open. 0: https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/issues/73 https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/issues/73
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Indeed, from reading that issue, it appears their app cannot be bundled for the official F-Droid repository because it uses Google Play Services for notifications. The ticket also mentions spyware like Crashlytics and Firebase analytics, which according to Exodus Privacy [0] have been removed in version 1.2.3 (good): https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/search/network.loki.messenger/?page=2 https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/search/netw... I understand why some apps need to distribute updates outside of f-droid.org repo because it's too slow to vet/build updates: for example Newpipe needs to update as quickly as Youtube breaks 3rd party clients, and F-Droid's update vetting process takes too much time for that. But i don't understand why an app like Session would setup their own repo and not try to push to f-droid.org repo without the Google trash. [1] At least, they're not actively trying to shut down libre forks (with spyware removed) like Signal did to LibreSignal years ago, that's already a very good point for them! [0] Exodus Privacy is pretty cool. It uses static analysis to find known trackers/malware in Android APKs, and is developed by a french non-profit. If you don't use only F-Droid apps, you should definitely use Exodus Privacy to know what kind of crapware you're setting up. (Spoiler alert: >90% of Google Play Store is malware). [1] The argument in the ticket is about the notification system. Because some Android (and iOS!) phones have energy policies preventing most background connections (unless privileged like for Apple/Google notification servers). That is not a problem on a device you own (eg. Replicant/Lineage) but is definitely a problem on CrapDroids (like Samsung and Huawei i believe) and on all iPhones, and this produces a situation where users will miss notifications until phone goes out of sleep and will blame the app for that, while their OS is responsible for the loss. One of the many shameful consequences of letting evil corporations control our computing devices, that leads to further centralization of all network activities.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
It is linked to a cryptocurrency called Loki. https://crypto.com/price/loki https://crypto.com/price/loki
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Apparently Loki has been renamed Oxen in the meantime. I'm curious if/how Session is usable without any form of "coin". EDIT: So apparently their tokens are used to form market-based Sybil resistance: > This supply-demand effect is further reinforced by something called lock-up. If Oxen is staked to a Service Node, it can’t be moved or traded — meaning that the purchasable supply reduces as the number of Service Nodes increases. If a prospective attacker attempted to buy up a massive amount of Oxen (in order to stake a large number of nodes), the cost would ramp up as they purchased, making it extremely expensive to actually conduct a successful Sybil attack. [0] I find their FAQ very unclear so far (haven't read the whitepaper yet), but from what i understand Session is free-to-use because the servers (Oxen Service Nodes) are remunerated by cryptocurrency speculation (lock-up) and block rewards. I find it worrying though, that the entire threat model relies on the financial cost to mount an attack... I hope like with Tor, many different circuits can be built in parallel. [0] https://getsession.org/blog/how-session-protects-your-anonymity-with-blockchain-and-crypto https://getsession.org/blog/how-session-protects-your-anonym...
- ddevault 5y ago
  God dammit.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Thorentis 5y ago
  Once again, a project that exists solely to promote a glorified MLM.
majaxg 5y ago
A good implementation in secure messaging app that doesn't use meta data at all, ( only a pubkey ) is olvid. https://www.olvid.io/assets/documents/2020-12-15_Olvid-specifications.pdf https://www.olvid.io/assets/documents/2020-12-15_Olvid-speci...
- southerntofu 5y ago
  This Olvid looks like bullshit. 1) there's no source code. Security via obscurity is not a feature for software (but it's a first line of defense for networks). 2) Olvid is distributed via malicious repos Apple AppStore and Google Play Store 3) Olvid is distributed with spyware: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/io.olvid.messenger/latest/ https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/io.olvid.me... 4) They insist on "French tech", which is an ultra nationalist startup-nation label which does not imply any form of security, but rather that they report to french intelligence services (DGSI/DGSE) not USA intelligence services 5) They claim on the website that they're the first messenger certified by ANSSI, which is true but misleading. ANSSI has previously certified other secure messaging components (such as PGP implementations), and has very likely been involved in approving (though not certifying for private use) the french government's fork of Element matrix client (Tchap) as the official secure messenger application of the French government. All in all, it's just a french startup making claims to make money. Nothing to see there, unlike Session which has some actual source code and novel approaches to show off (despite my reluctance due to blockchain tech).
  - majaxg 5y ago
    1) it isn't open source yet because of reduced team https://olvid.io/faq/is-olvid-open-source/ https://olvid.io/faq/is-olvid-open-source/ it'll change soon 2) If you consider AppStore and PlayStore as malicious repos you can stop using Android or Apple phone i think ... 3) if you search "network.loki.messenger" app on exodus you can find "Loki Messenger" (old name of Session ) with two "spyware" inside too 4) & 5) ok but i trust the very skilled person behind this software (https://dblp.org/pid/f/MatthieuFiniasz.html https://dblp.org/pid/f/MatthieuFiniasz.html) that worked 6 years on this project. I think Session is just another textsecure implementation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TextSecure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TextSecure) that limit meta data nothing new under the sun.
unixhero 5y ago
Is this Signal killer?
- agilob 5y ago
  Is this another platform developed by FBI?
- xvector 5y ago
  Skeptical because Signal has reached critical mass so that even normal people are starting to use it. I hate how Signal requires phone numbers, something Session does not.
- throwawaysess 5y ago
  Definitely not.
colesantiago 5y ago
It seems encrypted messengers are turning into cryptocurrency ponzi scam projects. Keybase -> Stellar Session -> Oxen/Loki Whatsapp -> Diem/Novi Signal -> Mobilecoin [0] There really is no defence of introducing this at all and it's sad that this is becoming a trend, looks like one has to look at Threema, Wire and possibly Element as our only hope. [0] https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messaging-cryptocurrency/ https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messa...
- xorcist 5y ago
  Conversations too. It works well, ticks all the boxes except voip, and is available on f-droid.
  - colesantiago 5y ago
    But Session being linked to a cryptocurrency project is a non starter and inexcusable.
    - md_ 5y ago
      Why?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - colesantiago 5y ago
        Take a look a Signal, which the whole of Signal is to be a private WhatsApp alternative not a trojan horse to introduce a cryptocurrency pump and dump scam. [0] So for Session, I am unfortunately also sceptical on them as well, I would say they are arguably worse since their project is embedded within cryptocurrencies and it won't be long until they force their Loki/Oxen coin in their apps. [0] https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/signal.html https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/signal.html
        5y ago
chrisxcross 5y ago
The company/main developer seems to have ties to the alt-right https://nitter.42l.fr/WPalant/status/1281540005190672384 https://nitter.42l.fr/WPalant/status/1281540005190672384
- Zerverus 5y ago
  Of course they are. Next they sell to the same gullible audience as every other Ponzi scheme. After all, they need a new communications solution for their next January 6th event after Parler handed over their comms and that sweet ultra secure alt-right phone turned out to be a rebranded budget set. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
  - thinkforonce 5y ago
    funny talking about people being gullible and then taking some random tweet as gospel and proceed to ramble about unrelated things.
- jdthedisciple 5y ago
  So what? They disagree with your worldview ... and?
  - ResearchCode 5y ago
    And big surveillance tech has allied with Team Blue to get away with surveillance capitalism and anti-competitive behavior, so anyone on Team Red must be unpersoned. One way to do this is by whipping the programmer minions of woke corporations into a stress session frenzy.
    - Jordanpomeroy 5y ago
      Yikes please be /s
      - jdthedisciple 5y ago
0xdeadb00f 5y ago
I've looked into this before a little. But no one seems concerned these guys are located in Australia. We (Australia) have what I'd call quite frankly, "Awful" encryption and privacy laws. edit: they touch on it here: https://getsession.org/blog/on-the-recent-australian-surveillance-legislation https://getsession.org/blog/on-the-recent-australian-surveil... But AFAIK with the news laws nothing is stopping the feds from requesting them to upload a backdoored apk one of these days (if someone can shed more clarity on that, I'd be appreciative).
runawaybottle 5y ago
How do we know this is not an FBI honeypot?
- 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
  How we you know signal, matrix, et al aren't either?
dhx 5y ago
The whitepaper at [1] is more impressive than I expected it to be, not for what is built today (which on a quick read appears to be rather unexciting), but for the class of attacks recognised as unsolved, and identified as requiring future work. Improvements identified include: 1) Encrypted messages should have a constant size (padded). Note that the Signal protocol used by Session currently uses variable length messages[2]. 2) Encrypted messages should be sent as noise by clients through the onion network and back to themselves at random intervals frequent enough that messages to/from other parties are statistically indistinguishable to an eavesdropper from the noise generated. 3) Intermediate nodes in the onion network should hold and delay encrypted messages so they are adequately mixed before being sent forward. This makes it statistically difficult for an eavesdropper to match up a message entering a node and a message leaving a node. Ideally messages would be mixed across enough nodes of the onion network that to an eavesdropper, the full list of possible destinations is equal to the total number of clients on the network. 4) Proof of work should be replaced with a better technique for preventing degradation of service or spam attacks. The paper quite rightly identifies that proof of work would favour Eve who has setup a data center filled with custom ASICs solving proof of work problems, rather than favouring Alice or Bob with an energy efficient mobile phone SoC. CAPTCHAs are identified as a possible future solution to this class of attacks. I doubt those improvements would have much application outside of labs and experiments though. Unless a significant part of the global economy surprisingly becomes dependent on a traffic analysis resistant anonymising protocol, it is too easy to just block such protocols similar to what China does with its Great Firewall. [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.04609.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.04609.pdf [2] https://github.com/signalapp/libsignal-protocol-c/blob/master/src/protocol.c https://github.com/signalapp/libsignal-protocol-c/blob/maste...
yewenjie 5y ago
There are so many encrypted messaging apps now but none has the feature-parity and convenience of Telegram. The user experience is just unparallel, and it is quite astonishing to see so high-quality software being produced by an actual company these days. However, there are a couple of drawbacks of Telegram which are seriously important to consider - no self-hostable server option (of course they don't have a federated model so interoperability will not be easy even if they release the server source). - the encryption protocol is non-standard, does not sync between devices, and is not enabled by default. I would really love it if there is a client-side encryption app which uses established time-tested encryption protocol to encrypt and decrypt messages fully at client side and will just let me use something heavily feature-rich like Telegram for sending the messages.
- gaius_baltar 5y ago
  > There are so many encrypted messaging apps now but none has the feature-parity and convenience of Telegram. Perhaps because Telegram's servers store and have access to the entire message history (except for secret chats, that are very limited in features compared with both Signal and WhatsApp), and this really helps a lot when synchronizing among devices and managing groups -- all at cost of security and privacy. They also can selectively remove groups, and recently did it, so there is not a theoretical problem anymore. Remember: they have all the information and can use it for anything once they turn evil (I call it "being bitten by a radioactive Zuckerberg").
t0bia_s 5y ago
Looks good but it is centralised if I understand correctly. Same weakness as Signal or Threeema. Element [Matrix] should be prefered for decentralisation.
- darcys22 5y ago
  Not at all, session is completely decentralised
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    We could argue Session is centralized on a blockchain

72 points by kuba-orlik 5y ago

encryptluks2 5y ago

Looks like a non-standard XMPP clone. XMPP already offers standard encryption.

soziawa 5y ago
It's actually forked from Signal.
- christophilus 5y ago
  Couldn’t find the “why’d we fork” anywhere. Got a link?
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Not a link, but from quick reading: - Session does not require phone numbers, which is Signal's greatest and well-known weakness and has led to a lot of (police/stalker) harassment - Session uses some form of onion routing, and the messages arriving while you're offline are stored for a certain amount of time (TTL) by "Oxen service nodes" ; no centralized server controlled by Amazon & other evil corps relying on Intel's SGX "secure enclaves" (yes, that is actually Signal's threat model lol) - Session appears to be involved with the Oxen blockchain where you can pay for a global username to be registered to your public key; i don't know if there's recovery mechanisms if you loose you key/device, but i do know it took me only two clicks from homepage to reach talk of blockchain and tokens and that does not inspire me confidence - Session claims loud and clear to be developed by a non-profit and to be user/UX-oriented, which is great! Signal's finances and decision making have never been very transparent, and interviews published here in the past year implied they needed more users in order to monetize the platform (how?)
bjoli 5y ago
I dont know where you got that impression. It is not based on xmpp. It is, more or less, a decentralised signal with onion routing. Edit: apparently they switched away from the signal protocol 2021. It is no longer signal-with-onion-routing. It has diverged significantly sice they forked.
- kitkat_new 5y ago
  well, maybe decentralized Signal UI. Since it does neither use Signal encryption nor does its encryption have the properties modern E2EE encryption has (Perfect Forward Secrecy, existing in Signal, Matrix, Wire and even WhatsApp), it cannot really be called Signal anymore
  - bjoli 5y ago
    You are right: they have switched away from the signal protocol to their own session protocol during 2021. I did not know that. Last time I checked (late 2020) they were using signals protocol.
  - ajconway 5y ago
    Here is their reasoning for a change of protocol: https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-information https://getsession.org/session-protocol-technical-informatio... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690036 Summary: forward secrecy and deniability are nice to have, but removing them makes significant UX improvements possible.
- Arnt 5y ago
  Looking at the web site, I can see how one might get that impression. The code base comes from signal, but the web site looks more than a bit like various XMPP things from a few years ago. It seems to say "we have features most XMPP clients don't" as I read it. Compare this to signal.org, which seems to be written from a list of FAQs/complaints. "Privacy" in the first sentence, four endorsements, and then a variety of FAQ points: "No creepy affiliates", "no SMS charges", "we have groups", "share GIFs freely".

soziawa 5y ago

Session is a cool fork from Signal. They adress the two biggest privacy issues, push tokens and IP addresses. But I can't see it gaining too much main stream traction any time soon. Too me it feels like WhatsApp has hit the sweet spot for people who can't get themselfes to care about security and privacy.

ElectronShak 5y ago
I have doubts regarding its privacy, but I think WhatsApp's security is up to the mark[1]. A lot of secure messengers fall short of simplifying security stuff on their UI/UX, for the average user, and i genuinely think it's a hard thing to do. In fact you could argue that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” But maybe we'll get there, as more and more users understand the need for security [1]https://www.whatsapp.com/security https://www.whatsapp.com/security
- southerntofu 5y ago
  How would you know, since we don't have the source code?

AshamedCaptain 5y ago

Even though the website looks like yet another "secure messenger scam", at least these guys check the important checkbox of having a reproducible build available at F-Droid. [or apparently not, see below for more] This check box is actually quite import; I laugh at anyone who promises that "they won't reveal identities, not even under a court order" when the court can just force them to ship a silent binary update that does whatever the heck the court wants.

southerntofu 5y ago
Strongly agree. I would also add that even if you as an app developer are not a malicious individual who would help law enforcement persecute political activists, Google will certainly give away all info it has on the persons who downloaded the app, and may as well publish targeted binary updates without anyone's knowledge, which is frightening. On F-Droid on the other hand, the recipe is open source and the build process is automated and reproducible. That means if your threat model requires it, you can setup your own F-Droid build server and only download from it and/or verify all checksums of packages published on f-droid.org repo. Outside the Android ecosystem, that's precisely what GNU/guix project is doing with the guix challenge command: https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-challenge.html https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-chall...
_jomo 5y ago
> reproducible build available at F-Droid It's not available at F-Droid. They have an F-Droid compatible repository that you can manually add to your F-Droid client where they ship binaries. I also can't find any mention of reproducible builds on their website, and their builts seem to include proprietary binaries. The issue [0] to publish the app on F-Droid is still open. 0: https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/issues/73 https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/issues/73
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Indeed, from reading that issue, it appears their app cannot be bundled for the official F-Droid repository because it uses Google Play Services for notifications. The ticket also mentions spyware like Crashlytics and Firebase analytics, which according to Exodus Privacy [0] have been removed in version 1.2.3 (good): https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/search/network.loki.messenger/?page=2 https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/search/netw... I understand why some apps need to distribute updates outside of f-droid.org repo because it's too slow to vet/build updates: for example Newpipe needs to update as quickly as Youtube breaks 3rd party clients, and F-Droid's update vetting process takes too much time for that. But i don't understand why an app like Session would setup their own repo and not try to push to f-droid.org repo without the Google trash. [1] At least, they're not actively trying to shut down libre forks (with spyware removed) like Signal did to LibreSignal years ago, that's already a very good point for them! [0] Exodus Privacy is pretty cool. It uses static analysis to find known trackers/malware in Android APKs, and is developed by a french non-profit. If you don't use only F-Droid apps, you should definitely use Exodus Privacy to know what kind of crapware you're setting up. (Spoiler alert: >90% of Google Play Store is malware). [1] The argument in the ticket is about the notification system. Because some Android (and iOS!) phones have energy policies preventing most background connections (unless privileged like for Apple/Google notification servers). That is not a problem on a device you own (eg. Replicant/Lineage) but is definitely a problem on CrapDroids (like Samsung and Huawei i believe) and on all iPhones, and this produces a situation where users will miss notifications until phone goes out of sleep and will blame the app for that, while their OS is responsible for the loss. One of the many shameful consequences of letting evil corporations control our computing devices, that leads to further centralization of all network activities.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

It is linked to a cryptocurrency called Loki. https://crypto.com/price/loki https://crypto.com/price/loki

southerntofu 5y ago
Apparently Loki has been renamed Oxen in the meantime. I'm curious if/how Session is usable without any form of "coin". EDIT: So apparently their tokens are used to form market-based Sybil resistance: > This supply-demand effect is further reinforced by something called lock-up. If Oxen is staked to a Service Node, it can’t be moved or traded — meaning that the purchasable supply reduces as the number of Service Nodes increases. If a prospective attacker attempted to buy up a massive amount of Oxen (in order to stake a large number of nodes), the cost would ramp up as they purchased, making it extremely expensive to actually conduct a successful Sybil attack. [0] I find their FAQ very unclear so far (haven't read the whitepaper yet), but from what i understand Session is free-to-use because the servers (Oxen Service Nodes) are remunerated by cryptocurrency speculation (lock-up) and block rewards. I find it worrying though, that the entire threat model relies on the financial cost to mount an attack... I hope like with Tor, many different circuits can be built in parallel. [0] https://getsession.org/blog/how-session-protects-your-anonymity-with-blockchain-and-crypto https://getsession.org/blog/how-session-protects-your-anonym...
ddevault 5y ago
God dammit.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Thorentis 5y ago
Once again, a project that exists solely to promote a glorified MLM.

majaxg 5y ago

A good implementation in secure messaging app that doesn't use meta data at all, ( only a pubkey ) is olvid. https://www.olvid.io/assets/documents/2020-12-15_Olvid-specifications.pdf https://www.olvid.io/assets/documents/2020-12-15_Olvid-speci...

southerntofu 5y ago
This Olvid looks like bullshit. 1) there's no source code. Security via obscurity is not a feature for software (but it's a first line of defense for networks). 2) Olvid is distributed via malicious repos Apple AppStore and Google Play Store 3) Olvid is distributed with spyware: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/io.olvid.messenger/latest/ https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/io.olvid.me... 4) They insist on "French tech", which is an ultra nationalist startup-nation label which does not imply any form of security, but rather that they report to french intelligence services (DGSI/DGSE) not USA intelligence services 5) They claim on the website that they're the first messenger certified by ANSSI, which is true but misleading. ANSSI has previously certified other secure messaging components (such as PGP implementations), and has very likely been involved in approving (though not certifying for private use) the french government's fork of Element matrix client (Tchap) as the official secure messenger application of the French government. All in all, it's just a french startup making claims to make money. Nothing to see there, unlike Session which has some actual source code and novel approaches to show off (despite my reluctance due to blockchain tech).
- majaxg 5y ago
  1) it isn't open source yet because of reduced team https://olvid.io/faq/is-olvid-open-source/ https://olvid.io/faq/is-olvid-open-source/ it'll change soon 2) If you consider AppStore and PlayStore as malicious repos you can stop using Android or Apple phone i think ... 3) if you search "network.loki.messenger" app on exodus you can find "Loki Messenger" (old name of Session ) with two "spyware" inside too 4) & 5) ok but i trust the very skilled person behind this software (https://dblp.org/pid/f/MatthieuFiniasz.html https://dblp.org/pid/f/MatthieuFiniasz.html) that worked 6 years on this project. I think Session is just another textsecure implementation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TextSecure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TextSecure) that limit meta data nothing new under the sun.

unixhero 5y ago

Is this Signal killer?

agilob 5y ago
Is this another platform developed by FBI?
xvector 5y ago
Skeptical because Signal has reached critical mass so that even normal people are starting to use it. I hate how Signal requires phone numbers, something Session does not.
throwawaysess 5y ago
Definitely not.

colesantiago 5y ago

It seems encrypted messengers are turning into cryptocurrency ponzi scam projects. Keybase -> Stellar Session -> Oxen/Loki Whatsapp -> Diem/Novi Signal -> Mobilecoin [0] There really is no defence of introducing this at all and it's sad that this is becoming a trend, looks like one has to look at Threema, Wire and possibly Element as our only hope. [0] https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messaging-cryptocurrency/ https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messa...

xorcist 5y ago
Conversations too. It works well, ticks all the boxes except voip, and is available on f-droid.
- colesantiago 5y ago
  But Session being linked to a cryptocurrency project is a non starter and inexcusable.
  - md_ 5y ago
    Why?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - colesantiago 5y ago
      Take a look a Signal, which the whole of Signal is to be a private WhatsApp alternative not a trojan horse to introduce a cryptocurrency pump and dump scam. [0] So for Session, I am unfortunately also sceptical on them as well, I would say they are arguably worse since their project is embedded within cryptocurrencies and it won't be long until they force their Loki/Oxen coin in their apps. [0] https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/signal.html https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/signal.html
      - 5y ago

chrisxcross 5y ago

The company/main developer seems to have ties to the alt-right https://nitter.42l.fr/WPalant/status/1281540005190672384 https://nitter.42l.fr/WPalant/status/1281540005190672384

Zerverus 5y ago
Of course they are. Next they sell to the same gullible audience as every other Ponzi scheme. After all, they need a new communications solution for their next January 6th event after Parler handed over their comms and that sweet ultra secure alt-right phone turned out to be a rebranded budget set. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
- thinkforonce 5y ago
  funny talking about people being gullible and then taking some random tweet as gospel and proceed to ramble about unrelated things.
jdthedisciple 5y ago
So what? They disagree with your worldview ... and?
- ResearchCode 5y ago
  And big surveillance tech has allied with Team Blue to get away with surveillance capitalism and anti-competitive behavior, so anyone on Team Red must be unpersoned. One way to do this is by whipping the programmer minions of woke corporations into a stress session frenzy.
  - Jordanpomeroy 5y ago
    Yikes please be /s
    - jdthedisciple 5y ago

0xdeadb00f 5y ago

I've looked into this before a little. But no one seems concerned these guys are located in Australia. We (Australia) have what I'd call quite frankly, "Awful" encryption and privacy laws. edit: they touch on it here: https://getsession.org/blog/on-the-recent-australian-surveillance-legislation https://getsession.org/blog/on-the-recent-australian-surveil... But AFAIK with the news laws nothing is stopping the feds from requesting them to upload a backdoored apk one of these days (if someone can shed more clarity on that, I'd be appreciative).

runawaybottle 5y ago

How do we know this is not an FBI honeypot?

0xdeadb00f 5y ago
How we you know signal, matrix, et al aren't either?

dhx 5y ago

The whitepaper at [1] is more impressive than I expected it to be, not for what is built today (which on a quick read appears to be rather unexciting), but for the class of attacks recognised as unsolved, and identified as requiring future work. Improvements identified include: 1) Encrypted messages should have a constant size (padded). Note that the Signal protocol used by Session currently uses variable length messages[2]. 2) Encrypted messages should be sent as noise by clients through the onion network and back to themselves at random intervals frequent enough that messages to/from other parties are statistically indistinguishable to an eavesdropper from the noise generated. 3) Intermediate nodes in the onion network should hold and delay encrypted messages so they are adequately mixed before being sent forward. This makes it statistically difficult for an eavesdropper to match up a message entering a node and a message leaving a node. Ideally messages would be mixed across enough nodes of the onion network that to an eavesdropper, the full list of possible destinations is equal to the total number of clients on the network. 4) Proof of work should be replaced with a better technique for preventing degradation of service or spam attacks. The paper quite rightly identifies that proof of work would favour Eve who has setup a data center filled with custom ASICs solving proof of work problems, rather than favouring Alice or Bob with an energy efficient mobile phone SoC. CAPTCHAs are identified as a possible future solution to this class of attacks. I doubt those improvements would have much application outside of labs and experiments though. Unless a significant part of the global economy surprisingly becomes dependent on a traffic analysis resistant anonymising protocol, it is too easy to just block such protocols similar to what China does with its Great Firewall. [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.04609.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2002.04609.pdf [2] https://github.com/signalapp/libsignal-protocol-c/blob/master/src/protocol.c https://github.com/signalapp/libsignal-protocol-c/blob/maste...

yewenjie 5y ago

There are so many encrypted messaging apps now but none has the feature-parity and convenience of Telegram. The user experience is just unparallel, and it is quite astonishing to see so high-quality software being produced by an actual company these days. However, there are a couple of drawbacks of Telegram which are seriously important to consider - no self-hostable server option (of course they don't have a federated model so interoperability will not be easy even if they release the server source). - the encryption protocol is non-standard, does not sync between devices, and is not enabled by default. I would really love it if there is a client-side encryption app which uses established time-tested encryption protocol to encrypt and decrypt messages fully at client side and will just let me use something heavily feature-rich like Telegram for sending the messages.

gaius_baltar 5y ago
> There are so many encrypted messaging apps now but none has the feature-parity and convenience of Telegram. Perhaps because Telegram's servers store and have access to the entire message history (except for secret chats, that are very limited in features compared with both Signal and WhatsApp), and this really helps a lot when synchronizing among devices and managing groups -- all at cost of security and privacy. They also can selectively remove groups, and recently did it, so there is not a theoretical problem anymore. Remember: they have all the information and can use it for anything once they turn evil (I call it "being bitten by a radioactive Zuckerberg").

t0bia_s 5y ago

Looks good but it is centralised if I understand correctly. Same weakness as Signal or Threeema. Element [Matrix] should be prefered for decentralisation.

darcys22 5y ago
Not at all, session is completely decentralised
- southerntofu 5y ago
  We could argue Session is centralized on a blockchain