2 ms·

> Your messages are only as secure as the least secure part of the network. In an absurd example, that other client could take your messages and publish all con

by mort96 4y ago

> Your messages are only as secure as the least secure part of the network. In an absurd example, that other client could take your messages and publish all conversations straight to Twitter in the public. Wait, are you talking about malware clients now? Because the original example was a client which does what its user wants to. Nothing can save you if the human at the other end wants to do something evil with the messages you send them, you don't need to use a modified client to share screenshots on Twitter. > [The trust thing] I suppose I don't see what the difference is though. Signal has complete control of the app, which means they have full access to all my messages if they want. Where does the "low trust" come in? How is it different from, say, Facebook Messenger, where Facebook also has access to all my messages?

godelski 4y ago
> Wait, are you talking about malware clients now? Not necessarily malware, but borderline malicious. I would consider someone uploading our chats in plain text (even to their backup) a "malicious" actor, even though they are probably naive. The point I'm making here is that modified clients can be harmful to _your_ security and that open sourcing a program makes it easier to modify in a way that does this. There are trade-offs here. > I suppose I don't see what the difference is though. I'm sorry, you don't see the difference between a binary outcome and spectrum? There just are very few things in the world that are actually binary. People trying to convince you that they are are typically bad actors. > Signal has complete control of the app, which means they have full access to all my messages if they want. Under what mechanism? The upside of an open sourced app is that you can actually verify that they don't have such a mechanism. That's where the low trust comes in. That they show evidence of their claims. They release court documents detailing exactly what they've released to governments[0], in combination with the ACLU. Which now means the ACLU is putting their reputation on the line as well. There's a lot of 3rd party actors that put their reputations on the line here and Signal going out of their way to demonstrate that they have nothing to hide. "Don't trust us, this is all the code here. Check it yourself." [0] https://signal.org/bigbrother/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/

by mort96 4y ago

godelski 4y ago

> Wait, are you talking about malware clients now? Not necessarily malware, but borderline malicious. I would consider someone uploading our chats in plain text (even to their backup) a "malicious" actor, even though they are probably naive. The point I'm making here is that modified clients can be harmful to _your_ security and that open sourcing a program makes it easier to modify in a way that does this. There are trade-offs here. > I suppose I don't see what the difference is though. I'm sorry, you don't see the difference between a binary outcome and spectrum? There just are very few things in the world that are actually binary. People trying to convince you that they are are typically bad actors. > Signal has complete control of the app, which means they have full access to all my messages if they want. Under what mechanism? The upside of an open sourced app is that you can actually verify that they don't have such a mechanism. That's where the low trust comes in. That they show evidence of their claims. They release court documents detailing exactly what they've released to governments[0], in combination with the ACLU. Which now means the ACLU is putting their reputation on the line as well. There's a lot of 3rd party actors that put their reputations on the line here and Signal going out of their way to demonstrate that they have nothing to hide. "Don't trust us, this is all the code here. Check it yourself." [0] https://signal.org/bigbrother/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/