11 ms·

Unfortunately, even if they DID specifically list out all the security measures that they used, someone would still complain because it isn't completely open so

Unfortunately, even if they DID specifically list out all the security measures that they used, someone would still complain because it isn't completely open source. The previous company I worked for not only had legitimate encryption for anything private we received from the user (e.g.: email passwords) so that nobody at the company could ever read them, but also had some (if I remember correctly) good documentation on the site listing out exactly what we were doing. The founder of the company even commented with the specific technical details when our product was linked to on HN, and people still weren't happy. While I sympathize with what you're saying, nothing is going to make people who actually care happy with whatever security a company puts in place. Unless that company releases their source code for everyone to see. Which I would hope most people would be reasonable enough to realize why that's usually impractical. (see the previous HN post about the guy who shut down his business and was debating open sourcing his entire codebase, and all the problems he would have had to tackle to do so)

oddvar 12y ago
There is another option - matrix.org is a new open standard for real-time communication (with encryption) in an open, federated ecosystem. That means you can run your own server and encrypt your own data, and the encrypted data can still be sent to other servers in the federation. To your point about open source, if something like this can take off it needs to be fully open and transparent, without fees or central data ownership - which is why matrix.org is a non-profit organisation and the standard open source. (disclaimer: I'm involved with matrix.org)
- derf_ 12y ago
  From the homepage: > Send and receive extensible messages with optional end-to-end encryption Why would encryption ever be "optional"?
  - moheeb 12y ago
    Back in the day it was often optional due to the additional processing that it required.
    - derf_ 12y ago
      That was indeed a thing in the days before AES-NI or simply having 1.4 billion transistors on a chip. But in my day we've been spending years fighting this sort of short-sightedness: https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg02747.html https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg0274...
  - ara4n 12y ago
    Because we don't want client implementers to be forced to have to jump through end-to-end crypto hoops if they don't want to. The simplest way to send a message in matrix is: curl -XPOST -d '{"msgtype":"m.text", "body":"hello world"}' "https://matrix.wherever.com/_matrix/client/api/v1/rooms/$roomid/send/m.room.message?access_token=$token" https://matrix.wherever.com/_matrix/client/api/v1/rooms/$roo... ...and we'd like to keep it that way. But you can always insist on only ever communicating with folks who are on E2E crypto clients if you so desire.
    - derf_ 12y ago
      Is that the same way I can always insist on only ever receiving PGP-encrypted e-mail?
      - Arathorn 12y ago
        Not quite - as PGP is a pita to use, and not a formal part of the SMTP spec. So refusing to read non-PGP would be suicide. But if it was considered table stakes to implement the crypto option of the spec, and all the decent Matrix clients out there did so and sent end-to-end encrypted by default, then it'd naturally become the default. In other words, if you gracefully upgrade chats between capable clients to be end-to-end by default, everybody wins.
        derf_ 12y ago
        If you really believe that, then I feel sorry for your users. Privacy is a public health issue: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/21/privacy-public-health-surveillance https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/21/privacy-p... In the absence of some forcing function, the trend is for it to get worse, not better.
Ridley 12y ago
There are already FOSS replacements for Skype, such as Tox. The fact is that if every line of code can't be inspected then the software can't be considered secure, and we're forced to put blind faith in a faceless corporation, which is understandably not acceptable for many people. I don't really care if you think this is "practical" or not. That's simply the reality of the situation. Proprietary == insecure. If a company is unable to profit off of making FOSS software then they can go ahead and keep it closed source, but they should not be claiming that their software is secure when their claims cannot be verified. That's simply dishonest, and only proves the critics right about their trustworthiness.
- wmeredith 12y ago
  I don't think it's as black and white as all that. This reads like the equivalent claim the NSA makes along the lines of, "if you have nothing to hide, why can't we record every facet of every communication and store it forever?" Business relationships run on trust. Claiming your software is secure when it is to the best of your knowledge is not dishonest.
  - humanrebar 12y ago
    That's a false dichotomy. Not wanting personal conversations recorded is called discretion, a form of wisdom. Not wanting technical details of a product published is primarily a way to gain a competitive advantage, either against other businesses or against potential threats.
  - Ridley 12y ago
    You're making the baseless (and some might say naive) assumption that it is secure to the best of their knowledge. If they really wanted to build trust then they would prove it and leave no doubt in people's minds.
    - wmeredith 12y ago
      "Dear citizen, you're asking us to make the baseless assumption that you're innocent until proven guilty, if you really want to build trust you'll let us monitor you 24/7 and leave no doubt in our mind." You're making an assumption of guilt. The fact that something isn't open source doesn't inherently make it insecure.
anirudhan 12y ago
>> the previous HN post about the guy who shut down his business and was debating open sourcing his entire codebase, and all the problems he would have had to tackle to do so link please?
- thisisandyok 12y ago
  I think the poster may be referencing this submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8641867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8641867 Specifically, the replies of the submitter in the comments
  - FreezerburnV 12y ago
    That's the one, thanks! Sorry, should have linked that in the first place.
bad_user 12y ago
No, much larger than the issue of open-source is that we already have dozens of major communication protocols that are not based on open standards or that do federation (one implies the another). XMPP does OTR for example. And you know, the cool thing about an open standard is that it can have many clients. Throw federation in the mix and then many people will actually find it desirable. Otherwise it's just a matter of being new and shiny. Because other than that, I don't understand how this new messenger competes with Hangouts, Skype, FB's Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, iMessages, FaceTime, Snapchat, Y! Messenger, Lync, HipChat, Slack, IRC in general, or plain old calls and SMS messages, which are pretty cheap lately in Europe (at least in my country). Note that I enumerated about a dozen of popular alternatives. I expect new entries to brag about something more than UI. Because my phone has the best UI ever - I just call somebody and that somebody responds because everybody has a phone number. I want to see open standards, federation and encryption, because otherwise new entries are useless for me. So another proprietary walled garden that promises to keep my conversations secure, cross their hearts? No thanks.
- mahyarm 12y ago
  XMPP and OTR are not workable for mobile devices. The protocol structure assumes a consistent background connection that doesn't get killed, something that is relatively cheap to do on the laptops and desktops it was designed for, but is expensive battery wise for mobile devices. Go download an OTR client for iOS, like cryptocat and notice how it pings you after 10 minutes that you have to re-open the app to keep on receiving messages! It's because iOS does not allow you to keep an app running in the background indefinately for battery reasons. This is required for the XMPP / OTR model to work. You need a protocol of some sort that would work properly with mobile, and I think textsecure is it.
  - binarnosp 12y ago
    You can develop an xmpp client for IOS that does not ping you every 10 minutes (or ever). You have to register the socket used for XMPP for VOIP purposes and IOS will happily comply with that. Been there, done that

oddvar 12y ago

There is another option - matrix.org is a new open standard for real-time communication (with encryption) in an open, federated ecosystem. That means you can run your own server and encrypt your own data, and the encrypted data can still be sent to other servers in the federation. To your point about open source, if something like this can take off it needs to be fully open and transparent, without fees or central data ownership - which is why matrix.org is a non-profit organisation and the standard open source. (disclaimer: I'm involved with matrix.org)

derf_ 12y ago
From the homepage: > Send and receive extensible messages with optional end-to-end encryption Why would encryption ever be "optional"?
- moheeb 12y ago
  Back in the day it was often optional due to the additional processing that it required.
  - derf_ 12y ago
    That was indeed a thing in the days before AES-NI or simply having 1.4 billion transistors on a chip. But in my day we've been spending years fighting this sort of short-sightedness: https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg02747.html https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg0274...
- ara4n 12y ago
  Because we don't want client implementers to be forced to have to jump through end-to-end crypto hoops if they don't want to. The simplest way to send a message in matrix is: curl -XPOST -d '{"msgtype":"m.text", "body":"hello world"}' "https://matrix.wherever.com/_matrix/client/api/v1/rooms/$roomid/send/m.room.message?access_token=$token" https://matrix.wherever.com/_matrix/client/api/v1/rooms/$roo... ...and we'd like to keep it that way. But you can always insist on only ever communicating with folks who are on E2E crypto clients if you so desire.
  - derf_ 12y ago
    Is that the same way I can always insist on only ever receiving PGP-encrypted e-mail?
    - Arathorn 12y ago
      Not quite - as PGP is a pita to use, and not a formal part of the SMTP spec. So refusing to read non-PGP would be suicide. But if it was considered table stakes to implement the crypto option of the spec, and all the decent Matrix clients out there did so and sent end-to-end encrypted by default, then it'd naturally become the default. In other words, if you gracefully upgrade chats between capable clients to be end-to-end by default, everybody wins.
      - derf_ 12y ago
        If you really believe that, then I feel sorry for your users. Privacy is a public health issue: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/21/privacy-public-health-surveillance https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/21/privacy-p... In the absence of some forcing function, the trend is for it to get worse, not better.

Ridley 12y ago

There are already FOSS replacements for Skype, such as Tox. The fact is that if every line of code can't be inspected then the software can't be considered secure, and we're forced to put blind faith in a faceless corporation, which is understandably not acceptable for many people. I don't really care if you think this is "practical" or not. That's simply the reality of the situation. Proprietary == insecure. If a company is unable to profit off of making FOSS software then they can go ahead and keep it closed source, but they should not be claiming that their software is secure when their claims cannot be verified. That's simply dishonest, and only proves the critics right about their trustworthiness.

wmeredith 12y ago
I don't think it's as black and white as all that. This reads like the equivalent claim the NSA makes along the lines of, "if you have nothing to hide, why can't we record every facet of every communication and store it forever?" Business relationships run on trust. Claiming your software is secure when it is to the best of your knowledge is not dishonest.
- humanrebar 12y ago
  That's a false dichotomy. Not wanting personal conversations recorded is called discretion, a form of wisdom. Not wanting technical details of a product published is primarily a way to gain a competitive advantage, either against other businesses or against potential threats.
- Ridley 12y ago
  You're making the baseless (and some might say naive) assumption that it is secure to the best of their knowledge. If they really wanted to build trust then they would prove it and leave no doubt in people's minds.
  - wmeredith 12y ago
    "Dear citizen, you're asking us to make the baseless assumption that you're innocent until proven guilty, if you really want to build trust you'll let us monitor you 24/7 and leave no doubt in our mind." You're making an assumption of guilt. The fact that something isn't open source doesn't inherently make it insecure.

anirudhan 12y ago

>> the previous HN post about the guy who shut down his business and was debating open sourcing his entire codebase, and all the problems he would have had to tackle to do so link please?

thisisandyok 12y ago
I think the poster may be referencing this submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8641867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8641867 Specifically, the replies of the submitter in the comments
- FreezerburnV 12y ago
  That's the one, thanks! Sorry, should have linked that in the first place.

bad_user 12y ago

No, much larger than the issue of open-source is that we already have dozens of major communication protocols that are not based on open standards or that do federation (one implies the another). XMPP does OTR for example. And you know, the cool thing about an open standard is that it can have many clients. Throw federation in the mix and then many people will actually find it desirable. Otherwise it's just a matter of being new and shiny. Because other than that, I don't understand how this new messenger competes with Hangouts, Skype, FB's Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, iMessages, FaceTime, Snapchat, Y! Messenger, Lync, HipChat, Slack, IRC in general, or plain old calls and SMS messages, which are pretty cheap lately in Europe (at least in my country). Note that I enumerated about a dozen of popular alternatives. I expect new entries to brag about something more than UI. Because my phone has the best UI ever - I just call somebody and that somebody responds because everybody has a phone number. I want to see open standards, federation and encryption, because otherwise new entries are useless for me. So another proprietary walled garden that promises to keep my conversations secure, cross their hearts? No thanks.

mahyarm 12y ago
XMPP and OTR are not workable for mobile devices. The protocol structure assumes a consistent background connection that doesn't get killed, something that is relatively cheap to do on the laptops and desktops it was designed for, but is expensive battery wise for mobile devices. Go download an OTR client for iOS, like cryptocat and notice how it pings you after 10 minutes that you have to re-open the app to keep on receiving messages! It's because iOS does not allow you to keep an app running in the background indefinately for battery reasons. This is required for the XMPP / OTR model to work. You need a protocol of some sort that would work properly with mobile, and I think textsecure is it.
- binarnosp 12y ago
  You can develop an xmpp client for IOS that does not ping you every 10 minutes (or ever). You have to register the socket used for XMPP for VOIP purposes and IOS will happily comply with that. Been there, done that