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Someone needs to invite a malicious homeserver to the group. So what’s the scenario here? You have an encrypted group chat with so many members that some rando

by pkulak 4y ago

Someone needs to invite a malicious homeserver to the group. So what’s the scenario here? You have an encrypted group chat with so many members that some rando nefarious user can slip in? And then the big deal is that the E2E breaks down, so the home server that they probably own can read the messages that they are already reading?

tptacek 4y ago
We are talking about end-to-end encryption. "Malicious homeserver" is literally the table stakes. If you trust your server, you can use anything. Go ahead and use Slack.
- dodgerdan 4y ago
  This is the issue distilled. And the retort seems to be “but we give a warning”. Awfully weak stuff for a cypherpunk-ish protocol. The CCC crowd that rabidly hates anything centralised, thinks it’s insecure and corporate, are probably having a existential crisis. Matrix is doing a terrible job fixing the issues, worse they seem to downplaying and denying too. And the Tech press seem to dismiss the issue believing Matrixs’ claims there isn’t an issue.
  - Arathorn 4y ago
    I’m sorry - how are we doing a terrible job fixing the issues? We are working solidly to switch Element over to the newly audited vodozemac crypto implementation (https://matrix.org/blog/2022/05/16/independent-public-audit-of-vodozemac-a-native-rust-reference-implementation-of-matrix-end-to-end-encryption https://matrix.org/blog/2022/05/16/independent-public-audit-...), and then implementing both TOFU and client-controlled group membership. https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/fayed/cryptographic-membership/proposals/3917-cryptographic-membership.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/fay... We are not denying these issues - we just dare to disagree that they are as catastrophic as some suggest.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      Just so we're clear, I didn't say that you're doing a terrible job fixing the issues (I know the comment you're responding to said that, I'm just being careful not to cosign that.)

by pkulak 4y ago

tptacek 4y ago

We are talking about end-to-end encryption. "Malicious homeserver" is literally the table stakes. If you trust your server, you can use anything. Go ahead and use Slack.

dodgerdan 4y ago
This is the issue distilled. And the retort seems to be “but we give a warning”. Awfully weak stuff for a cypherpunk-ish protocol. The CCC crowd that rabidly hates anything centralised, thinks it’s insecure and corporate, are probably having a existential crisis. Matrix is doing a terrible job fixing the issues, worse they seem to downplaying and denying too. And the Tech press seem to dismiss the issue believing Matrixs’ claims there isn’t an issue.
- Arathorn 4y ago
  I’m sorry - how are we doing a terrible job fixing the issues? We are working solidly to switch Element over to the newly audited vodozemac crypto implementation (https://matrix.org/blog/2022/05/16/independent-public-audit-of-vodozemac-a-native-rust-reference-implementation-of-matrix-end-to-end-encryption https://matrix.org/blog/2022/05/16/independent-public-audit-...), and then implementing both TOFU and client-controlled group membership. https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/fayed/cryptographic-membership/proposals/3917-cryptographic-membership.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/fay... We are not denying these issues - we just dare to disagree that they are as catastrophic as some suggest.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Just so we're clear, I didn't say that you're doing a terrible job fixing the issues (I know the comment you're responding to said that, I'm just being careful not to cosign that.)