4 ms·

I can never remember, is this the one that tptacek likes, or is that the other one?

by lclarkmichalek 13y ago

tricolon 13y ago
You're thinking of TextSecure by Open WhisperSystems.
- tptacek 13y ago
  I like what Whisper is doing, and deeply respect the crypto talent that went into building it. Personally, I think the soundness of the cryptography is the most important attribute of a cryptographically secure chat application. Other people think other things.
  - sillysaurus3 13y ago
    Thinking correct things is more valuable than thinking popular things. They'll come around to your point of view in time.
    - czr80 13y ago
      "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent"
      - cpach 13y ago
        How is that relevant in this discussion?
        czr80 13y ago
        Quoting the post I was replying to: > They'll come around to your point of view in time. The quote from Keynes was merely a slightly whimsical way to make the point that people can hold false beliefs for a very long time, and that it's probably better not to personally invest in the idea that they will come around by themselves in any specific timeframe.
MichaelGG 13y ago
No, this is the one written by a guy that just wanted to make "secure chat" accessible. And went on to have plenty of flaws. (And no, Telegram is another one, where they came up with their own scheme and brushed off all criticism by saying they had some math PhDs so that's that.) IIRC the web version does JS crypto and tries to sell that as more secure. Cryptocat and Telegram seem to be very popular though, proving again that technical superiority isn't really a good indicator of product success. (WhatsApp had terrible security too, at least for a while, but they never went on about how secure they were.)
- fossuser 13y ago
  I think that's unfair - both text secure and cryptocat are interested in making secure chat more accessible. Making security applications accessible is an important problem to try and solve. Security is difficult and I think they were fairly up front with the potential issues with what they were building. They've also been doing it for a few years now, the code is open source, they've had professional security audits - what more could they possibly be doing?
  - phaer 13y ago
    Your parent was talking about Telegram, not TextSecure. The quality of the formers crypto is much more controversial than the latter.
  - MichaelGG 13y ago
    TextSecure is solid as far as I know. What I meant with my comment is that Cryptocat/Telegram put marketing and accessibility over security. They rather sell a veneer of security in a cute package instead of actual security, along with the difficult problems it brings. Both products ignored (and actually told off) expert advice, which is quite telling. IIRC, TextSecure was created by crypto expert[s].

I can never remember, is this the one that tptacek likes, or is that the other one?

tricolon 13y ago

You're thinking of TextSecure by Open WhisperSystems.

tptacek 13y ago
I like what Whisper is doing, and deeply respect the crypto talent that went into building it. Personally, I think the soundness of the cryptography is the most important attribute of a cryptographically secure chat application. Other people think other things.
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  Thinking correct things is more valuable than thinking popular things. They'll come around to your point of view in time.
  - czr80 13y ago
    "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent"
    - cpach 13y ago
      How is that relevant in this discussion?
      - czr80 13y ago
        Quoting the post I was replying to: > They'll come around to your point of view in time. The quote from Keynes was merely a slightly whimsical way to make the point that people can hold false beliefs for a very long time, and that it's probably better not to personally invest in the idea that they will come around by themselves in any specific timeframe.

MichaelGG 13y ago

No, this is the one written by a guy that just wanted to make "secure chat" accessible. And went on to have plenty of flaws. (And no, Telegram is another one, where they came up with their own scheme and brushed off all criticism by saying they had some math PhDs so that's that.) IIRC the web version does JS crypto and tries to sell that as more secure. Cryptocat and Telegram seem to be very popular though, proving again that technical superiority isn't really a good indicator of product success. (WhatsApp had terrible security too, at least for a while, but they never went on about how secure they were.)

fossuser 13y ago
I think that's unfair - both text secure and cryptocat are interested in making secure chat more accessible. Making security applications accessible is an important problem to try and solve. Security is difficult and I think they were fairly up front with the potential issues with what they were building. They've also been doing it for a few years now, the code is open source, they've had professional security audits - what more could they possibly be doing?
- phaer 13y ago
  Your parent was talking about Telegram, not TextSecure. The quality of the formers crypto is much more controversial than the latter.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  TextSecure is solid as far as I know. What I meant with my comment is that Cryptocat/Telegram put marketing and accessibility over security. They rather sell a veneer of security in a cute package instead of actual security, along with the difficult problems it brings. Both products ignored (and actually told off) expert advice, which is quite telling. IIRC, TextSecure was created by crypto expert[s].