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I find it hilarious you're still fixated on the idea of the trust chain and haven't addressed any of my actual points about the crypto, besides making a lot of

I find it hilarious you're still fixated on the idea of the trust chain and haven't addressed any of my actual points about the crypto, besides making a lot of hand-waving and saying "well it's not secure, BUT NOTHING'S SECURE SO THAT MEANS IT'S GOOD ENOUGH". This is not end-to-end, the OTR is broken and doesn't verify keys, end of discussion. The JS can be MiTMed, end of discussion. >And questioning the security of TLS? No, I'm questioning the TLS PKI which is what this is dependant on, please learn the difference. Currently any CA or anyone who hacks a CA will be able to make a fake cert, which has happened many many times. Everyone from Bruche Schneier and Moxie Marlinspike condemn the CA PKI, in fact according to Schneier it will cost only ~$700,000 by 2015 to make a SHA-1 collision and produce a fake certificate without any hacking at all. This is why real security solutions use pinned certificates. Blindly putting your faith in SSL/TLS to accomplish all your goals is really, really dumb. There have been several MAJOR (CRIME, BREACH, POODLE, Heartbleed, CCS) attacks against it in the last 3 years alone. >You're going to need to do more than just call something "laughably terrible" There's a reason no one else does this, because it's insecure and unsustainable. Someone could just detect your monitoring servers requests and serve it a 'good' version. Or better yet, only serve a 'bad' version to the people it wants to target. Or just DDoS your monitoring server. If they have the capabilities to intercept the TLS requests to Cyph then what's stopping them from intercepting the requests to your extrnal server? I think what you fail to understand is the interception would probably be client-side, not server-side. Not to mention every time your code actually changes you have to go manually verify that it's correct and not an attack. You're essentially hand-rolling your own signature scheme based on extremely shaky ground. You're going to need to do more than just conjuring up your own amateur solutions and dismissing all security concerns out of hand because "doesn't have to be perfect". >There is a spectrum between "totally secure" and "usable by normal people". Your refusal to acknowledge this spectrum is asinine and attacking me for mentioning it is uncalled for. Where did I do that exactly? You're also implying something can either be secure or useable. I acknowledged there is a spectrum of security, like I said earlier this is marginally better than talking over Facebook. In fact Facebook might be a little more secure because it has a dedicated security team that monitors intrusions. Ignoring the JS problems and the hosting problems, the end-to-end crypto doesn't verify keys, which makes it useless. It's like using a self-signed cert for your message encryption. If that's your line in the sand for "secure enough" than go right ahead and use this, but marketing it as private is irresponsible and deceptive. >With all of the security holes in Windows, TLS, OpenSSL, SSH and in practically every other day-to-day usage of crypto... yet somehow people can still safely and securely do all sorts of things Yes, because they were lucky or oblivious to the fact they got owned. This is like saying "I leave my car doors unlocked all the time and it hasn't been stolen yet" >Maybe you're the NSA. Maybe you want to come across as an all-knowing crypto guru and charge obscene hourly rates to companies who you've scared shitless. Maybe you're just a troll armed with the same tired old arguments I've been hearing for years. Who knows. Again, you're using a brand new account. No one knows who you are or what your agenda is. Ad hominem mixed with a little tinfoil, I like it. Maybe you and Cyph are the NSA and are in collaboration to promote broken crypto to the masses? Or does the fact that you self-aggrandize by using your real name on HN make you legitimate? Maybe you're a design-centric know-nothing who thinks that WebCrypto means "insta presto! the cloud is secure now! web 4.0 everything because 'it just works'" ?

williamcotton 12y ago
Again, let me repeat this because you seem to be totally deaf: All I'm doing is defending use cases for the Web Crypto API. I'm not and have never defended this specific app. All I'm doing is pointing out that your wholesale dismissal of browser crypto is unwarranted. You're clearly just trolling me now because you've refused to answer any of my questions specific to the valid use cases of browser crypto and how ANY software that is updated or updates itself is susceptible to issues you've levied at browser crypto. I've been reading infosec arguments on the net since the 90s. I've heard everything there is about the dangers of creating your own crypto systems and every one of your snide remarks. tptacek has made a career off of the same 15 things you've said over and over and over again. I get it. I also completely disagree with tptacek and every other dude who outright dismisses browser crypto. I also thing that there are a lot of important benefits from attempting the very difficult task of creating secure browser crypto environments. Your general approach to the issue is to turn in to a raging asshole and attempt to make anyone who is exploring these issues look like a fool. You engage in an incredible amount of personal attacks and you attempt to justify the means by harping on about the importance of the ends. I fundamentally disagree that the means can and ever will justify the ends for anything. When you do that what we're left with is assholes like you who make the world of crpyto and security an environment that is incredibly toxic to creativity.
- tptacek 12y ago
  No, saying snarky things about crypto is my hobby, not my career. My career is actually breaking these stupid systems.
  - williamcotton 12y ago
    Sorry, I was actually referring to your career as all-time HN karma leader! I have a lot of respect for your ACTUAL career, don't get me wrong. While I have your attention, could you take a look at this: http://substack.net/offline_decentralized_single_sign_on_in_the_browser http://substack.net/offline_decentralized_single_sign_on_in_... BTW, there's enough of us idiots out there that we're not going to stop until we've figured this out! Being able to ship a decentralized version of say Facebook or Twitter that runs in the browser and allows people to manage their own private keys (aka, manage their own digital identity) is incredibly motivating. I don't trust platforms like iOS or Android to not shut down certain kinds of apps and I don't think my mother will ever be running an open-source OS on her tablet. I have to say that I definitely lost my shit in this thread... and I'm sorry. I have a tendency to get emotional about this kind of stuff because the politics are a big part of what motivates me to build these kinds of things. I take these hard-lined stances against browser javascript as an assault on my principles for digital identity but also as a creative individual who strives for a positive and constructive environment. That doesn't justify me calling people names. Especially if I'm going to be talking about the means not justifying the ends... ugh... However, I do think that articles like this are very close to being out of date: http://matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/ http://matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/ The Web Crypto API alleviates a number of these issues and novel uses of application caching manifests seem to solve the issue for good. Check out this article, especially Gotcha #4. http://alistapart.com/article/application-cache-is-a-douchebag http://alistapart.com/article/application-cache-is-a-doucheb... So in this case we've got an authoritative article that says "never ever far-future cache the manifest". And we've got an authoritative article that says "never ever do crypto in the browser". Both articles take a pretty heavy handed approach and don't really set out to explore the deeper possibilities. They both kind of set out to create an environment where readers will also not question these principles for fear of being made look like a fool in front of their peers. But the fundamental hacker ethos is to read articles like this and say "the intent of the APIs and authors be damned, I have other considerations!". Anyways, I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this stuff... all of, including what I and a number of other people perceive as a toxic environment for creativity related to cryptography and infosec.

williamcotton 12y ago

Again, let me repeat this because you seem to be totally deaf: All I'm doing is defending use cases for the Web Crypto API. I'm not and have never defended this specific app. All I'm doing is pointing out that your wholesale dismissal of browser crypto is unwarranted. You're clearly just trolling me now because you've refused to answer any of my questions specific to the valid use cases of browser crypto and how ANY software that is updated or updates itself is susceptible to issues you've levied at browser crypto. I've been reading infosec arguments on the net since the 90s. I've heard everything there is about the dangers of creating your own crypto systems and every one of your snide remarks. tptacek has made a career off of the same 15 things you've said over and over and over again. I get it. I also completely disagree with tptacek and every other dude who outright dismisses browser crypto. I also thing that there are a lot of important benefits from attempting the very difficult task of creating secure browser crypto environments. Your general approach to the issue is to turn in to a raging asshole and attempt to make anyone who is exploring these issues look like a fool. You engage in an incredible amount of personal attacks and you attempt to justify the means by harping on about the importance of the ends. I fundamentally disagree that the means can and ever will justify the ends for anything. When you do that what we're left with is assholes like you who make the world of crpyto and security an environment that is incredibly toxic to creativity.

tptacek 12y ago
No, saying snarky things about crypto is my hobby, not my career. My career is actually breaking these stupid systems.
- williamcotton 12y ago
  Sorry, I was actually referring to your career as all-time HN karma leader! I have a lot of respect for your ACTUAL career, don't get me wrong. While I have your attention, could you take a look at this: http://substack.net/offline_decentralized_single_sign_on_in_the_browser http://substack.net/offline_decentralized_single_sign_on_in_... BTW, there's enough of us idiots out there that we're not going to stop until we've figured this out! Being able to ship a decentralized version of say Facebook or Twitter that runs in the browser and allows people to manage their own private keys (aka, manage their own digital identity) is incredibly motivating. I don't trust platforms like iOS or Android to not shut down certain kinds of apps and I don't think my mother will ever be running an open-source OS on her tablet. I have to say that I definitely lost my shit in this thread... and I'm sorry. I have a tendency to get emotional about this kind of stuff because the politics are a big part of what motivates me to build these kinds of things. I take these hard-lined stances against browser javascript as an assault on my principles for digital identity but also as a creative individual who strives for a positive and constructive environment. That doesn't justify me calling people names. Especially if I'm going to be talking about the means not justifying the ends... ugh... However, I do think that articles like this are very close to being out of date: http://matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/ http://matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/ The Web Crypto API alleviates a number of these issues and novel uses of application caching manifests seem to solve the issue for good. Check out this article, especially Gotcha #4. http://alistapart.com/article/application-cache-is-a-douchebag http://alistapart.com/article/application-cache-is-a-doucheb... So in this case we've got an authoritative article that says "never ever far-future cache the manifest". And we've got an authoritative article that says "never ever do crypto in the browser". Both articles take a pretty heavy handed approach and don't really set out to explore the deeper possibilities. They both kind of set out to create an environment where readers will also not question these principles for fear of being made look like a fool in front of their peers. But the fundamental hacker ethos is to read articles like this and say "the intent of the APIs and authors be damned, I have other considerations!". Anyways, I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this stuff... all of, including what I and a number of other people perceive as a toxic environment for creativity related to cryptography and infosec.