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Still trying to grasp the idea of archiving messages from E2E encrypted communication system into a storage that entirely breaks the purpose of using something

Still trying to grasp the idea of archiving messages from E2E encrypted communication system into a storage that entirely breaks the purpose of using something like Signal. It’s like encashing on the trust of Signal protocol, app while breaking its security model so that someone else can search through all messages. What am I missing here?

RIMR 1y ago
There are compliance reasons where you want the communications encrypted in flight, but need them retained at rest for compliance reasons. Federal record keeping laws would otherwise prohibit the use of a service like Signal. I'm honestly impressed that the people involved actually took the extra effort for compliance when nothing else they did was above board...
- abhisek 1y ago
  > There are compliance reasons Makes sense. But still debatable if the compliance requirements are acting against the security model or perhaps there are biggest concerns here than just secure communication.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  I would not assume the archives were meant for compliance and federal records.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    We also have no evidence it was in use back in March. It may be a response to that oops.
Xylakant 1y ago
You can never control what I do on my device with the message received- I can make screenshots, or, if the app prevents that, take a picture of the screen. The goal of signal is trusted end-to-end encrypted communication. Device/Message security on either end is not in scope for Signals threat model.
- colanderman 1y ago
  TM SGNL changes the security model from "I trust the people in the chat" to "I trust the people in the chat and also the company archiving the chat". If you don't trust the people in your chat, they shouldn't be in your chat.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    > If you don't trust the people in your chat, they shouldn't be in your chat. I assure you, none of these people trust each other. Backstabbing is normal. They're also likely using it to talk to foreign counterparts. Again, most of whom they don't trust a bit. Encryption isn't just about "do I trust the recipient".
    - colanderman 1y ago
      You are conflating levels of trust. The trust level required with Signal is, "do I trust the people in this chat not to share the specific communications I am sending to them with some other party whom I do not want to have a copy". There are many many situations where this level of trust applies that "trust" in the general sense does not apply. It is a useful property. And if you don't have that level of trust, don't put it in writing. TM SGNL changes the trust required to, "do I also trust this 3rd party not to share the contents of any of my communications, possibly inadvertently due to poor security practices". This is a categorical and demonstrably material difference in security model. I do not understand why so many are claiming it is not.
      - philipwhiuk 1y ago
        > This is a categorical and demonstrably material difference in security model. I do not understand why so many are claiming it is not. Because all it takes is one user to decide they trust the third party. Right now you actually have to do more than trust everyone, you have to trust everyone they trust with their chat history. Which already can include this sort of third party.
grishka 1y ago
Any client-side limitations are not part of the security model because you don't control other people's devices. Even with an unmodified app, they're trivially bypassed using a rooted/jailbroken device.
- colanderman 1y ago
  Not part of Signal's security model, but trusting people in that chat very much can and should be part of the user's security model. If you don't trust them, why are they in the chat in the first place?
  - barryrandall 1y ago
    It's not a person in the chat, it's an account. The account is usually controlled by the person associated with it, but you can't assume that it's always controlled by that person.
    - philipwhiuk 1y ago
      Is it though? I think TM Signal is just emailing the chats to a server from the phone it's installed on.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    > If you don't trust them, why are they in the chat in the first place? Journalist? Taliban negotiator? Ex-wife?
    - colanderman 1y ago
      You are conflating "trust in all ways" with "trust to receive the communications in the specific chat they are party to". The former is not relevant.
      - Muromec 1y ago
        Well the ex-wife in question can be trusted to receive it a-okay and screenshot them to send to her lawyer and cops too, depending on contents. So do US government officials. Now we just know how exactly they do it.
namdnay 1y ago
> What am I missing here? OK, say you're a bank. The SEC states you need to keep archives of every discussion your traders have with anyone at any time (I'm simplifying things but you get the point). You keep getting massive fines because traders were whatsapping about deals So now you've got several options - you can use MS Teams, which of course offers archival, compliance monitoring etc. But that means trusting MSFT, and making sure your traders only use Teams and nothing else. You can use a dedicated application for the financial industry, like Symphony or ICE Chat or Bloomberg, but they're clunkier than B2C apps. And then the Smarsh (owners of Telemessage) salesman calls you, and says "your users can keep using the apps they love - WhatsApp, Signal - but we make it compliant". And everyone loves it (as long as no-one in your Security or Legal teams are looking too hard at the implications of distributing a cracked version of WhatsApp through your MDM...) Edit: here's the install document for their cracked WhatsApp binary https://smarsh.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#30000001FgxH/a/Pb000000r00H/0aFJJ3tCViox8quTxN05CvEu53Cz22.IvHqz4o4EoIc https://smarsh.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#30000001FgxH/a/Pb000...
- protocolture 1y ago
  Seems like it doesnt resolve the trust issue it just shifts it to a smaller firm with more to lose.
  - namdnay 1y ago
    It definitely doesn't resolve the trust issue! I would trust MSFT a million times more than these cowboys. What it does give you is peace with your traders (who can be real divas..) - they can keep using "WhatsApp" and "Signal" and you can monitor everything
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- amarcheschi 1y ago
  ok, this absolutely reminds me of using indian whatsapp mods years ago. stickers, more features, local and portable backups... wouldn't try that as a member of the government though
catlikesshrimp 1y ago
Maybe someone wanted to please the procedure of law but also had to please the bros. The result is a hack of a secure program that adds conversation archiving.
sneak 1y ago
One of the most popular “e2ee” communication systems, iMessage, does exactly this each night when the iMessage user’s phone backs up its endpoint keys or its iMessage history to Apple in a non-e2ee fashion. This allows Apple (and the US intelligence community, including FBI/DHS) to surveil approximately 100% of all non-China iMessages in close to realtime (in the usual case where it’s set to backup cross-device iMessage sync keys). (China, cleverly, requires Apple to not only store all the Chinese iCloud data in China, but also requires that it happen on machines owned and operated by a joint venture with a Chinese-government-controlled entity, keeping them from having to negotiate continued access to the data the way the FBI did.) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv... Yet Apple can still legitimately claim that iMessage is e2ee, even though the plaintext is being backed up in a way that is readable to them. It’s a backdoor by another name. Everyone wins: Apple gets to say E2EE, the state gets to surveil the texts of everyone in the whole country without a warrant thanks to FISA.
- nearbuy 1y ago
  I suppose if both you and the recipient have cloud backups disabled, then Apple can no longer view your messages. But outside of that scenario, is there any advantage to iMessage using e2ee instead of just regular TLS? Edit: Apparently it's up to you whether you want your iCloud backups to use e2ee. There's an account setting: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651. Standard protection is a sensible default for regular who aren't tech-savvy, as with e2ee they're at risk of losing all their iCloud data if they lose their key.
- watermelon0 1y ago
  That's an old article. According to Apple docs, Advanced Data Protection covers Device and Messages backups, which means they are E2EE.
  - sneak 1y ago
    Correct, but nobody turns it on because it’s opt in, and even if you turn it on, 100% of your iMessages will still be escrowed in a form readable to Apple due to the fact that the other ends of your iMessage conversations won’t have ADP enabled because it’s off by default. Again, Apple gets to say “we have e2ee, any user who wants it can turn it on” and the FBI gets to read 100% of the texts in the country unimpeded. If Apple really wanted to promote privacy, they’d have deployed the so-called “trust circle” system they designed and implemented which allowed a quorum of trusted contacts to use their own keys to allow you to recover your account e2ee keys without Apple being able to access it, rolled that out, and then slowly migrated their entire user base over to e2ee backups. They have not, and they will not, because that will compromise the surveillance backdoor, and get them regulated upon, or worse. The current administration has already shown that they are willing to impose insanely steep tariffs on the iPhone. You can’t fight city hall, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, etc. The US intelligence community has a heart attack gun. Tim Apple does not. Separately it is an interesting aside that Apple’s 1A rights are being violated here by the presumptive retaliation should they publish such a migration feature (software code being protected speech).
jowea 1y ago
My guesses: You want to talk to people who want to use Signal, but you yourself don't care about E2E You trust Telemedia, but not Telegram, or Meta. And you want convenient archiving.
SequoiaHope 1y ago
My wild speculation is that someone wants to use AI to monitor everyone’s communication.
- blitzar 1y ago
  What they should have done is write a bot that you invite to every conversation for "archival purposes". No new app.
  - danesparza 1y ago
    Then you have a new attack surface. It's still missing the point of signal.
    - blitzar 1y ago
      If your institution has to log the messages, they are a third party to the conversation, I would rather they were "in the chat" than the lowest bidder third party. A chat participant bot would also be handy if you wanted to feed everything through your Ai bot at the same time.
Spooky23 1y ago
The purpose of using something like Signal is not compatible with the needs of the government or the law. I’ve worked for non-Federal government. Your work product is not your own, and the public interest, as expressed by the law requires that your communications and decisions can be reviewed by the government you serve. The US government created the dark web to enable espionage — its pretty obvious why they need to read their employees mail.
rkuykendall-com 1y ago
OK, say you're a bank. The SEC does not care what you do and is actively working to make sure nobody else does either. You never get fines and all the traders are whatsapping about deals and it's awesome. But what if the FEC decides to care in the future? Just mark all your messages as self-deleting. But what if you want to be able to read them in the future? And then the Smarsh (owners of Telemessage) salesman calls you, and says "your users can keep using the apps they love - WhatsApp, Signal - but we archive the self-deleting messages somewhere you can hide from the SEC if they happen to change their mind". And everyone loves it (you already fired all the Security or Legal teams).

RIMR 1y ago

There are compliance reasons where you want the communications encrypted in flight, but need them retained at rest for compliance reasons. Federal record keeping laws would otherwise prohibit the use of a service like Signal. I'm honestly impressed that the people involved actually took the extra effort for compliance when nothing else they did was above board...

abhisek 1y ago
> There are compliance reasons Makes sense. But still debatable if the compliance requirements are acting against the security model or perhaps there are biggest concerns here than just secure communication.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
actionfromafar 1y ago
I would not assume the archives were meant for compliance and federal records.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  We also have no evidence it was in use back in March. It may be a response to that oops.

Xylakant 1y ago

You can never control what I do on my device with the message received- I can make screenshots, or, if the app prevents that, take a picture of the screen. The goal of signal is trusted end-to-end encrypted communication. Device/Message security on either end is not in scope for Signals threat model.

colanderman 1y ago
TM SGNL changes the security model from "I trust the people in the chat" to "I trust the people in the chat and also the company archiving the chat". If you don't trust the people in your chat, they shouldn't be in your chat.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  > If you don't trust the people in your chat, they shouldn't be in your chat. I assure you, none of these people trust each other. Backstabbing is normal. They're also likely using it to talk to foreign counterparts. Again, most of whom they don't trust a bit. Encryption isn't just about "do I trust the recipient".
  - colanderman 1y ago
    You are conflating levels of trust. The trust level required with Signal is, "do I trust the people in this chat not to share the specific communications I am sending to them with some other party whom I do not want to have a copy". There are many many situations where this level of trust applies that "trust" in the general sense does not apply. It is a useful property. And if you don't have that level of trust, don't put it in writing. TM SGNL changes the trust required to, "do I also trust this 3rd party not to share the contents of any of my communications, possibly inadvertently due to poor security practices". This is a categorical and demonstrably material difference in security model. I do not understand why so many are claiming it is not.
    - philipwhiuk 1y ago
      > This is a categorical and demonstrably material difference in security model. I do not understand why so many are claiming it is not. Because all it takes is one user to decide they trust the third party. Right now you actually have to do more than trust everyone, you have to trust everyone they trust with their chat history. Which already can include this sort of third party.

grishka 1y ago

Any client-side limitations are not part of the security model because you don't control other people's devices. Even with an unmodified app, they're trivially bypassed using a rooted/jailbroken device.

colanderman 1y ago
Not part of Signal's security model, but trusting people in that chat very much can and should be part of the user's security model. If you don't trust them, why are they in the chat in the first place?
- barryrandall 1y ago
  It's not a person in the chat, it's an account. The account is usually controlled by the person associated with it, but you can't assume that it's always controlled by that person.
  - philipwhiuk 1y ago
    Is it though? I think TM Signal is just emailing the chats to a server from the phone it's installed on.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  > If you don't trust them, why are they in the chat in the first place? Journalist? Taliban negotiator? Ex-wife?
  - colanderman 1y ago
    You are conflating "trust in all ways" with "trust to receive the communications in the specific chat they are party to". The former is not relevant.
    - Muromec 1y ago
      Well the ex-wife in question can be trusted to receive it a-okay and screenshot them to send to her lawyer and cops too, depending on contents. So do US government officials. Now we just know how exactly they do it.

namdnay 1y ago

> What am I missing here? OK, say you're a bank. The SEC states you need to keep archives of every discussion your traders have with anyone at any time (I'm simplifying things but you get the point). You keep getting massive fines because traders were whatsapping about deals So now you've got several options - you can use MS Teams, which of course offers archival, compliance monitoring etc. But that means trusting MSFT, and making sure your traders only use Teams and nothing else. You can use a dedicated application for the financial industry, like Symphony or ICE Chat or Bloomberg, but they're clunkier than B2C apps. And then the Smarsh (owners of Telemessage) salesman calls you, and says "your users can keep using the apps they love - WhatsApp, Signal - but we make it compliant". And everyone loves it (as long as no-one in your Security or Legal teams are looking too hard at the implications of distributing a cracked version of WhatsApp through your MDM...) Edit: here's the install document for their cracked WhatsApp binary https://smarsh.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#30000001FgxH/a/Pb000000r00H/0aFJJ3tCViox8quTxN05CvEu53Cz22.IvHqz4o4EoIc https://smarsh.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#30000001FgxH/a/Pb000...

protocolture 1y ago
Seems like it doesnt resolve the trust issue it just shifts it to a smaller firm with more to lose.
- namdnay 1y ago
  It definitely doesn't resolve the trust issue! I would trust MSFT a million times more than these cowboys. What it does give you is peace with your traders (who can be real divas..) - they can keep using "WhatsApp" and "Signal" and you can monitor everything
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
amarcheschi 1y ago
ok, this absolutely reminds me of using indian whatsapp mods years ago. stickers, more features, local and portable backups... wouldn't try that as a member of the government though

catlikesshrimp 1y ago

Maybe someone wanted to please the procedure of law but also had to please the bros. The result is a hack of a secure program that adds conversation archiving.

sneak 1y ago

One of the most popular “e2ee” communication systems, iMessage, does exactly this each night when the iMessage user’s phone backs up its endpoint keys or its iMessage history to Apple in a non-e2ee fashion. This allows Apple (and the US intelligence community, including FBI/DHS) to surveil approximately 100% of all non-China iMessages in close to realtime (in the usual case where it’s set to backup cross-device iMessage sync keys). (China, cleverly, requires Apple to not only store all the Chinese iCloud data in China, but also requires that it happen on machines owned and operated by a joint venture with a Chinese-government-controlled entity, keeping them from having to negotiate continued access to the data the way the FBI did.) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv... Yet Apple can still legitimately claim that iMessage is e2ee, even though the plaintext is being backed up in a way that is readable to them. It’s a backdoor by another name. Everyone wins: Apple gets to say E2EE, the state gets to surveil the texts of everyone in the whole country without a warrant thanks to FISA.

nearbuy 1y ago
I suppose if both you and the recipient have cloud backups disabled, then Apple can no longer view your messages. But outside of that scenario, is there any advantage to iMessage using e2ee instead of just regular TLS? Edit: Apparently it's up to you whether you want your iCloud backups to use e2ee. There's an account setting: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651. Standard protection is a sensible default for regular who aren't tech-savvy, as with e2ee they're at risk of losing all their iCloud data if they lose their key.
watermelon0 1y ago
That's an old article. According to Apple docs, Advanced Data Protection covers Device and Messages backups, which means they are E2EE.
- sneak 1y ago
  Correct, but nobody turns it on because it’s opt in, and even if you turn it on, 100% of your iMessages will still be escrowed in a form readable to Apple due to the fact that the other ends of your iMessage conversations won’t have ADP enabled because it’s off by default. Again, Apple gets to say “we have e2ee, any user who wants it can turn it on” and the FBI gets to read 100% of the texts in the country unimpeded. If Apple really wanted to promote privacy, they’d have deployed the so-called “trust circle” system they designed and implemented which allowed a quorum of trusted contacts to use their own keys to allow you to recover your account e2ee keys without Apple being able to access it, rolled that out, and then slowly migrated their entire user base over to e2ee backups. They have not, and they will not, because that will compromise the surveillance backdoor, and get them regulated upon, or worse. The current administration has already shown that they are willing to impose insanely steep tariffs on the iPhone. You can’t fight city hall, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, etc. The US intelligence community has a heart attack gun. Tim Apple does not. Separately it is an interesting aside that Apple’s 1A rights are being violated here by the presumptive retaliation should they publish such a migration feature (software code being protected speech).

jowea 1y ago

My guesses: You want to talk to people who want to use Signal, but you yourself don't care about E2E You trust Telemedia, but not Telegram, or Meta. And you want convenient archiving.

SequoiaHope 1y ago

My wild speculation is that someone wants to use AI to monitor everyone’s communication.

blitzar 1y ago
What they should have done is write a bot that you invite to every conversation for "archival purposes". No new app.
- danesparza 1y ago
  Then you have a new attack surface. It's still missing the point of signal.
  - blitzar 1y ago
    If your institution has to log the messages, they are a third party to the conversation, I would rather they were "in the chat" than the lowest bidder third party. A chat participant bot would also be handy if you wanted to feed everything through your Ai bot at the same time.

Spooky23 1y ago

The purpose of using something like Signal is not compatible with the needs of the government or the law. I’ve worked for non-Federal government. Your work product is not your own, and the public interest, as expressed by the law requires that your communications and decisions can be reviewed by the government you serve. The US government created the dark web to enable espionage — its pretty obvious why they need to read their employees mail.

rkuykendall-com 1y ago

OK, say you're a bank. The SEC does not care what you do and is actively working to make sure nobody else does either. You never get fines and all the traders are whatsapping about deals and it's awesome. But what if the FEC decides to care in the future? Just mark all your messages as self-deleting. But what if you want to be able to read them in the future? And then the Smarsh (owners of Telemessage) salesman calls you, and says "your users can keep using the apps they love - WhatsApp, Signal - but we archive the self-deleting messages somewhere you can hide from the SEC if they happen to change their mind". And everyone loves it (you already fired all the Security or Legal teams).