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There's quite a few other hints in the marketing and decisions at Signal that reek a little bit of honeypot (by the NSA). Super hard to prove though... For me

There's quite a few other hints in the marketing and decisions at Signal that reek a little bit of honeypot (by the NSA). Super hard to prove though... For me personally the strongest hints are the fact that it's centralized, there's no getting around connecting to their server(s) for the app/clients to be useful and that it's impossible to know what exactly their server is running (by design?). Oh, and Signal is based in the US. That fact by itself pretty much means all bets are off when it comes to security or anonimity. I don't see how the NSA would not be pwning that server or owning/creating that server and/or organization (indirectly or directly). Or to put it differently: why would it be hard or illogical for the NSA to setup an innocent seeming "good guys" radiating non-profit chat service that is supposedly secure (yet centralized and non-anonymous by design and also a honeypot)?

tptacek 4y ago
Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=author%3Adang%20%22owe%20this%20community%22&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- dementiapatent 4y ago
  I always took that rule as "don't post insinuations (accusing other HN users of being) astroturfing, shilling, bots, foreign agents...". Can we not point out when corporate entities are comprised of these things?
  - tptacek 4y ago
    See the second link. (And, of course, the insinuation made above applies directly to several members of the HN community).
gruez 4y ago
>Oh, and Signal is based in the US. That fact by itself pretty much means all bets are off when it comes to security or anonimity. It has to be based somewhere right? Would you trust it if it was based in China or Russia? Or even mid tier countries like UAE or Singapore? Even "neutral" countries like Switzerland isn't safe, as we've seen with Crypto AG.
- awuji 4y ago
  The patriot act clearly compromises every 5-eyes nation. China and Russia have their own equivalents of a Patriot act, so hosting there is no good either. Mid tier and neutral countries can be compromised as in your example above. This is all truly depressing, but why does it have to be hosted on a central server. I hate web3 hype as much as the rest of HN, but this seems like a genuinely useful application for it.
godelski 4y ago
> why would it be hard or illogical for the NSA to setup an innocent seeming "good guys" radiating non-profit chat service that is supposedly secure Let's also investigate the inverse side of this. Supposing Signal works, would the NSA not instead want to launch a disinformation campaign against them and exaggerate downsides? I think such action would also be easy and logical. But I don't think that's happening, to be clear. I think people are just passionate about the subjects and with passion people are often excessively head strong (this is something disinformation campaigns prey on btw. They often play both sides because chaos is often more effective pushing a singular narrative. See "malinformation"). > Oh, and Signal is based in the US. That fact by itself pretty much means all bets are off when it comes to security or anonymity. (anonymity. FTFY) I do agree that being US based comes with certain risks, but the US is not authoritarian and is unable to force companies to collect data. This is enough to raise suspicion but not enough to be damning. The suspicion is also reduced given that Signal publicly discloses subpoenas that they receive. Insiders like Snowden also advocate for its usage as well as many major players in the security community, globally. One can come back and suggest that this is disinformation but that increases the complexity of the honeypot campaign and as history has shown, complex conspiracies unravel quickly. Especially in high profile cases, and since Signal is universally suggested as the gold standard by the security community, I'd argue it is pretty high profile. The problem with conspiracy theories is that it is easy to turn evidence against a conspiracy into part of the plot and coverup. But this just exponentially increases complexity. And anyone that has worked for or with the government will gladly tell you how ineffective they are (often in the form of complaints). After all, two can keep a secret only if one of them is dead. The fact that it is difficult to prove (and people have been trying for over a decade without yielding any more evidence than you have put here, +RadioFreeAsia) is actually evidence to the contrary. More should have been uncovered if there was a real plot (especially considering how complex it would need to be).
palata 4y ago
The whole point of e2ee is that you don't need to know what the server is running, just check the (open source) client. The point of their private contact discovery is to leverage SGX enclaves so that you can verify what code is running on their server. Sealed senders allow you to send a message without revealing to the server who you are. The whole point of Signal is to build something that you don't have to trust. But of course you need to put some effort to understand it (and what it means, e.g. if you don't trust your OS running the client or if you don't trust the SGX enclave).

tptacek 4y ago

Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=author%3Adang%20%22owe%20this%20community%22&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

dementiapatent 4y ago
I always took that rule as "don't post insinuations (accusing other HN users of being) astroturfing, shilling, bots, foreign agents...". Can we not point out when corporate entities are comprised of these things?
- tptacek 4y ago
  See the second link. (And, of course, the insinuation made above applies directly to several members of the HN community).

gruez 4y ago

>Oh, and Signal is based in the US. That fact by itself pretty much means all bets are off when it comes to security or anonimity. It has to be based somewhere right? Would you trust it if it was based in China or Russia? Or even mid tier countries like UAE or Singapore? Even "neutral" countries like Switzerland isn't safe, as we've seen with Crypto AG.

awuji 4y ago
The patriot act clearly compromises every 5-eyes nation. China and Russia have their own equivalents of a Patriot act, so hosting there is no good either. Mid tier and neutral countries can be compromised as in your example above. This is all truly depressing, but why does it have to be hosted on a central server. I hate web3 hype as much as the rest of HN, but this seems like a genuinely useful application for it.

godelski 4y ago

> why would it be hard or illogical for the NSA to setup an innocent seeming "good guys" radiating non-profit chat service that is supposedly secure Let's also investigate the inverse side of this. Supposing Signal works, would the NSA not instead want to launch a disinformation campaign against them and exaggerate downsides? I think such action would also be easy and logical. But I don't think that's happening, to be clear. I think people are just passionate about the subjects and with passion people are often excessively head strong (this is something disinformation campaigns prey on btw. They often play both sides because chaos is often more effective pushing a singular narrative. See "malinformation"). > Oh, and Signal is based in the US. That fact by itself pretty much means all bets are off when it comes to security or anonymity. (anonymity. FTFY) I do agree that being US based comes with certain risks, but the US is not authoritarian and is unable to force companies to collect data. This is enough to raise suspicion but not enough to be damning. The suspicion is also reduced given that Signal publicly discloses subpoenas that they receive. Insiders like Snowden also advocate for its usage as well as many major players in the security community, globally. One can come back and suggest that this is disinformation but that increases the complexity of the honeypot campaign and as history has shown, complex conspiracies unravel quickly. Especially in high profile cases, and since Signal is universally suggested as the gold standard by the security community, I'd argue it is pretty high profile. The problem with conspiracy theories is that it is easy to turn evidence against a conspiracy into part of the plot and coverup. But this just exponentially increases complexity. And anyone that has worked for or with the government will gladly tell you how ineffective they are (often in the form of complaints). After all, two can keep a secret only if one of them is dead. The fact that it is difficult to prove (and people have been trying for over a decade without yielding any more evidence than you have put here, +RadioFreeAsia) is actually evidence to the contrary. More should have been uncovered if there was a real plot (especially considering how complex it would need to be).

palata 4y ago

The whole point of e2ee is that you don't need to know what the server is running, just check the (open source) client. The point of their private contact discovery is to leverage SGX enclaves so that you can verify what code is running on their server. Sealed senders allow you to send a message without revealing to the server who you are. The whole point of Signal is to build something that you don't have to trust. But of course you need to put some effort to understand it (and what it means, e.g. if you don't trust your OS running the client or if you don't trust the SGX enclave).