5 ms·

Why would you post such an inane one-liner like that? Jimmytucson made a very good point, which is that the very intelligent Telegram authors tried really hard

by pvnick 13y ago

Why would you post such an inane one-liner like that? Jimmytucson made a very good point, which is that the very intelligent Telegram authors tried really hard to make a solid product, made a huge gamble that didn't quite pay off like they wanted, and that all we see now are the smug, told-you-so vultures swooping in to pat themselves on the back for being oh so much smarter than the stupid crypto guys.

daeken 13y ago
The problem is that if the authors had actually consulted crypto guys, none of this would have happened. Their lack of security shouldn't be excused.
- GigabyteCoin 13y ago
  The author of the hack himself declares at the very bottom of the article: "An expert in cryptography [I] am not, please correct [me] if I'm wrong." How embarassing for telegram if what he says is true. This excerpt was taken from the google translate version of the article.
- jalada 13y ago
  Yeah you're right, the 'crypto guys' would've probably just said "Don't even try it because you'll kill people and even we wouldn't want to try and do it". Crypto is hard to get right, that doesn't mean anyone shouldn't even bother trying.
  - jbri 13y ago
    If you want to build new crypto, people would be absolutely happy for you to design and present a new cryptographic scheme - hopefully with some advantages over existing ones. People will analyze it, tell you where the weaknesses are, and if they're not critical flaws you can fix them and come out stronger - and if they are critical flaws, you know your scheme is broken before it's been used for anything important. Likewise, building a hot new secure messaging app with existing well-analyzed, battle-tested cryptographic schemes is generally going to be welcomed. If you try to do both at once, you're building your application on shaky, untested cryptographical foundations. Cryptographers would similarly probably warn you not to base your application on a new cipher someone else announced at a cryptography conference last week - give it a bit of time for others to analyze it and spot any flaws it might have before you entrust anything sensitive to it.
  - Morgawr 13y ago
    You're welcome "try" crypto, like everybody else is. Just don't go market your product as "the most secure" encryption ever when you don't even bother to put it to the test beforehand and get it reviewed by actual experts. I could go and try to play around with real time systems for flying planes, it still wouldn't make sense for me to sell you the "safest" plane in the world without going through the proper steps to get such system certified beforehand.
XorNot 13y ago
No one cares that you tried really hard before failing, doubly so with security products.
- gohrt 13y ago
  This comment seems to harshly dismiss failures, but that's not the heart of the issue. Failure is celebrated -- if you make an effort, and try, and you fail, and you learn, and you share what you learned, people care. But when you (Telegram, not you, XorNot) have a bad idea, and people smarter than you patiently explain why its broken, and you try to buffalo and bluster and bullshit past them, and your product's entire purpose is to provide a security, then your product is worse than a buggy tool; it's worse than not using the product at all. It's the modern-day equivalent of patent-medicine snake oil, and it hurts people.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - skinnycow 13y ago
    Really?! So, as a teacher, if you gave me feedback and I repeated "No" smugly, over and over and over, and insisted that I was right and you were wrong... you're not going to at least have a twinge of "told you so"? We got Gandi over here posting on HN.
gohrt 13y ago
> stupid crypto guys. Because it is dangerous to everyone when non-crypto guys call themselves crypto guys.
ics 13y ago
The reason for these comments is because you're exactly right– they are gambling. Putting $200k on the line in the hopes of winning mindshare, reputation, etc. Of course if you lose, you'll lose all of that and your money. I'm really happy that more people are getting into crypto and not browbeating themselves out of creating new stuff because it's necessary for any field to grow. These negative responses are also necessary so that those people stop trying to raise their own victory flags prematurely, making it even harder for outsiders to be appreciated for their work. Note: This is not so much in response to thom's comment, but rather the criticism of jimmytucson's comment (which actually has some substance).
- chmike 13y ago
  I'm not sure they were gambling. My feeling is ghat they were victim of the bias of self judgment regarding the security of the protocol they designed. They overlooked some security weakness and didn't see it. They didn't do it on purpose like the NSA. In their eyes, the protocol was perfectly secure and most of it is of course. The only way to avoid this self judgment bias is to use review by other people.
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    > In their eyes, the protocol was perfectly secure and most of it is of course. That there is exactly the problem. There is no reason to believe the protocol is secure, and when looking at crypto you start from the assumption that it's "maybe broken", not "perfectly secure". Assuming that some new crypto is secure is hubris.
  - makomk 13y ago
    Actually, this security hole is almost exactly what you'd expect well-done deliberate sabotage of the protocol to look like - it's a small, easy to miss and just about plausibly deniable modification of a standard crypto primitive that totally destroys its security. (Though it's a bit weak in the area of plausible deniablity - why use xor rather than some more sensible key derivation function?)
  - danabramov 13y ago
saraid216 13y ago
jimmytucson's point is valid in the case of business risks. What you have here is homeopathy.
phaus 13y ago
The problem is, people who know better told them they were in over their heads and gave them some constructive criticism. Sure moxie can sound condescending, but he was right about telegram. Telegram's response was basically, "LOL. We know better cuz' we got binders full of mathematicians and I'm not listening unless you win our rigged contest designed purposefully to instill a false sense of security in our customers." Cryptographic software isn't developed the same way as ordinary software. A normal program is launched with tons of bugs and gets fixed over the course of years. Custom crypto solutions should not be delivered to customers in a similar state without explicitly telling them that it hasn't been proven secure.
thom 13y ago
I don't think the response to catastrophic hubris should be back-slapping, crotch-grabbing praise.
rimantas 13y ago
No, the exact problem is that Telegram guys did not try really hard, and did not listen to crypto experts. There are no "stupid crypto guys": there are smart Telegram guys who are not crypto guys and there are smart crypto guys who told why Telegram's solution if lame. Alas, smart guys from Telegram probably considered themselves too smart to listen. That's why they should fall: security is not the field where each lame effort should be cheered and encouraged just for the sake of it.

by pvnick 13y ago

daeken 13y ago

The problem is that if the authors had actually consulted crypto guys, none of this would have happened. Their lack of security shouldn't be excused.

GigabyteCoin 13y ago
The author of the hack himself declares at the very bottom of the article: "An expert in cryptography [I] am not, please correct [me] if I'm wrong." How embarassing for telegram if what he says is true. This excerpt was taken from the google translate version of the article.
jalada 13y ago
Yeah you're right, the 'crypto guys' would've probably just said "Don't even try it because you'll kill people and even we wouldn't want to try and do it". Crypto is hard to get right, that doesn't mean anyone shouldn't even bother trying.
- jbri 13y ago
  If you want to build new crypto, people would be absolutely happy for you to design and present a new cryptographic scheme - hopefully with some advantages over existing ones. People will analyze it, tell you where the weaknesses are, and if they're not critical flaws you can fix them and come out stronger - and if they are critical flaws, you know your scheme is broken before it's been used for anything important. Likewise, building a hot new secure messaging app with existing well-analyzed, battle-tested cryptographic schemes is generally going to be welcomed. If you try to do both at once, you're building your application on shaky, untested cryptographical foundations. Cryptographers would similarly probably warn you not to base your application on a new cipher someone else announced at a cryptography conference last week - give it a bit of time for others to analyze it and spot any flaws it might have before you entrust anything sensitive to it.
- Morgawr 13y ago
  You're welcome "try" crypto, like everybody else is. Just don't go market your product as "the most secure" encryption ever when you don't even bother to put it to the test beforehand and get it reviewed by actual experts. I could go and try to play around with real time systems for flying planes, it still wouldn't make sense for me to sell you the "safest" plane in the world without going through the proper steps to get such system certified beforehand.

XorNot 13y ago

No one cares that you tried really hard before failing, doubly so with security products.

gohrt 13y ago
This comment seems to harshly dismiss failures, but that's not the heart of the issue. Failure is celebrated -- if you make an effort, and try, and you fail, and you learn, and you share what you learned, people care. But when you (Telegram, not you, XorNot) have a bad idea, and people smarter than you patiently explain why its broken, and you try to buffalo and bluster and bullshit past them, and your product's entire purpose is to provide a security, then your product is worse than a buggy tool; it's worse than not using the product at all. It's the modern-day equivalent of patent-medicine snake oil, and it hurts people.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- skinnycow 13y ago
  Really?! So, as a teacher, if you gave me feedback and I repeated "No" smugly, over and over and over, and insisted that I was right and you were wrong... you're not going to at least have a twinge of "told you so"? We got Gandi over here posting on HN.

gohrt 13y ago

> stupid crypto guys. Because it is dangerous to everyone when non-crypto guys call themselves crypto guys.

ics 13y ago

The reason for these comments is because you're exactly right– they are gambling. Putting $200k on the line in the hopes of winning mindshare, reputation, etc. Of course if you lose, you'll lose all of that and your money. I'm really happy that more people are getting into crypto and not browbeating themselves out of creating new stuff because it's necessary for any field to grow. These negative responses are also necessary so that those people stop trying to raise their own victory flags prematurely, making it even harder for outsiders to be appreciated for their work. Note: This is not so much in response to thom's comment, but rather the criticism of jimmytucson's comment (which actually has some substance).

chmike 13y ago
I'm not sure they were gambling. My feeling is ghat they were victim of the bias of self judgment regarding the security of the protocol they designed. They overlooked some security weakness and didn't see it. They didn't do it on purpose like the NSA. In their eyes, the protocol was perfectly secure and most of it is of course. The only way to avoid this self judgment bias is to use review by other people.
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  > In their eyes, the protocol was perfectly secure and most of it is of course. That there is exactly the problem. There is no reason to believe the protocol is secure, and when looking at crypto you start from the assumption that it's "maybe broken", not "perfectly secure". Assuming that some new crypto is secure is hubris.
- makomk 13y ago
  Actually, this security hole is almost exactly what you'd expect well-done deliberate sabotage of the protocol to look like - it's a small, easy to miss and just about plausibly deniable modification of a standard crypto primitive that totally destroys its security. (Though it's a bit weak in the area of plausible deniablity - why use xor rather than some more sensible key derivation function?)
- danabramov 13y ago

saraid216 13y ago

jimmytucson's point is valid in the case of business risks. What you have here is homeopathy.

phaus 13y ago

The problem is, people who know better told them they were in over their heads and gave them some constructive criticism. Sure moxie can sound condescending, but he was right about telegram. Telegram's response was basically, "LOL. We know better cuz' we got binders full of mathematicians and I'm not listening unless you win our rigged contest designed purposefully to instill a false sense of security in our customers." Cryptographic software isn't developed the same way as ordinary software. A normal program is launched with tons of bugs and gets fixed over the course of years. Custom crypto solutions should not be delivered to customers in a similar state without explicitly telling them that it hasn't been proven secure.

thom 13y ago

I don't think the response to catastrophic hubris should be back-slapping, crotch-grabbing praise.

rimantas 13y ago

No, the exact problem is that Telegram guys did not try really hard, and did not listen to crypto experts. There are no "stupid crypto guys": there are smart Telegram guys who are not crypto guys and there are smart crypto guys who told why Telegram's solution if lame. Alas, smart guys from Telegram probably considered themselves too smart to listen. That's why they should fall: security is not the field where each lame effort should be cheered and encouraged just for the sake of it.