Kik Messenger Insecure

https://secure.grepular.com/Kik_Messenger_Insecure

by mike-cardwell • 16 years ago

22 31 16 years ago

secure.grepular.com

zbanks• 16 years ago

I love how Chrome tells me that this link is insecure (something wrong with SSL). Oh coincidences...

Besides that, I don't quite understand what separates this from any other IM platform..?

xtacy• 16 years ago

In IM clients like Pidgin, you can enable TLS for connecting to a Jabber chat server (provided the server supports it). Chat should be encrypted; I wonder why it wasn't the case with Kik.

pluies• 16 years ago

Well... secure.grepular.com uses an unsigned certificate, that makes most browser squeak.

It is important to understand that albeit it's not proper https, this is still an encrypted connection that will make eavesdropping impossible. Being signed by an actual authority is only necessary to ensure the website we're talking to is actually secure.grepular.com, and not a man-in-the-middle that would intercept our queries and forge answers. "Unfortunately", both ideas of security and authentication are part of https, and having one without the other is going to pop big scary messages.

This sort of https is still more secure than plain http.

His point about transmitting the password in plain sight is a very good one. Firesheep showed how bad it is to transmit your cookies in plaintext, but sending your login/pass is even worse.

MichaelGG2• 16 years ago

Making browsers squeak is a fundamental part of the SSL security model.

Invalidly signed HTTPS is only slightly more secure than HTTP. Let's look at the open WiFi scenario. If you login to ServiceX over HTTPS but ignore certificate warnings, I can just mount a man-in-the-middle attack and relay all your traffic to ServiceX. It's more involved than just sniffing your cookies, but its still quite practical.

The only place where ignoring certificates is OK is if you know that an attacker can _read_ your network, but cannot write anything to it.

chrisbolt• 16 years ago

It is important to understand that albeit it's not proper https, this is still an encrypted connection that will make eavesdropping impossible.

If it's a self signed certificate, how can you tell between a certificate self signed by the website owner and a certificate self signed by the eavesdropper?

toolate2• 16 years ago

To view this page in Firefox I have to add an exception for the certificate. Firefox now displays a hint that this is a secure connection (http://imgur.com/d9kEd). It's up to me to remember that this specific site uses a self generated certificate and that I shouldn't place the same level of trust in this certificate as I do with others.

If this guy wants to use SSL he should do it properly.

mike-cardwell4• 16 years ago

The certificate isn't unsigned. It is signed by cacert.org. I finally decided to stop paying CA's for something which should be free a few weeks ago. Hopefully they'll get their root cert in the major browsers in the not too distant future, but I'm willing to put up with people seeing the browser warnings until then. My website is primarily read by geeks anyway, who should know what it means.

If you want to install cacert.org's root certificate in your browser, visit here: https://www.cacert.org/index.php?id=3

Kik.com has over a million users transmitting login credentials and private conversations. secure.grepular.com doesn't.

mike-cardwell4• 16 years ago

"I love how Chrome tells me that this link is insecure (something wrong with SSL). Oh coincidences..."

See https://cacert.org/ and install their root if you think the CA model is broken and should be free.

"Besides that, I don't quite understand what separates this from any other IM platform..?"

GTalk, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, ICQ and Skype all encrypt your login details. Kik doesn't

GTalk, ICQ and Skype all encrypt your actual conversations. Kik doesn't.

All of the above mentioned IM services have publicly stated that they don't log IM conversations. Kik hasn't.

some1else• 16 years ago

Encryption didn't make it into the MVP? :-)

sp4rki4• 16 years ago

I find Kik could easily be the Blackberry killer app we've all been hoping for. The only real reason most Blackberry users don't switch to iOS or Android is Blackberry messenger. I hope they can get their security up to par.

jrockway3• 16 years ago

What's Blackberry messenger? It isn't enabled on my Blackberry. (Nor is the camera, or text messages, or pairing with non-approved Bluetooth headsets, or the "app world", or ...)

The reason Blackberry users don't switch to iOS or Android is that their employer mandates Blackberry. I would much rather use my Android phone for work, but RIM's marketing worked, and I can't. (Think about how insecure our company's intellectual property would become if I could join a conference call with a headset that didn't have 128-bit encryption!)

sp4rki4• 16 years ago

Do you work for the government? I have to use a Blackberry because of business, but it's a pretty decent smartphone. I'd prefer it to an Android phone, though if I could I'd just get an iPhone. C'est la vie.

grovulent2• 16 years ago

Can someone explain to what's so awesome about this app? When that other link hit the front page - I couldn't even tell what the hell the app was for. I guessed from the image that it was some kind of messaging app - but couldn't for the life of me find any information on that site that could tell me why I care.

And yet - a million people seem to have done better than I. Dubious...

rottencupcakes• 16 years ago

What part of "Free real-time texting for all" and then a picture of an iPhone, Android, and Blackberry doesn't perfectly explain what this app is?

http://www.kik.com/

toolate2• 16 years ago

Got to love that apparenly iPhone, Android, and Blackberry are "all". Targetting the early adopters makes sense, but making your tagline a blatent lie doesn't.

liuhenry2• 16 years ago

Well, the "asynchronous" and sent-delivered-read notifications are cool, but what I'm really excited about is this:

"Here’s where things get interesting. If it can build its community, Kik has a lot of new territory to cover if it wants to. It can layer on functionality as it sees fit. For example, it can let you take pictures, and show friends what you’re seeing. It can then let you stream the music you’re listening to, directly from your phone over your friend’s phone. The same can be done for video. And it can be done over any device. While none of this is available right now with the app, Livingston demonstrated this advanced streaming technology to me, so it’s clear he can turn it on at pretty much any time.

During the demo of all this, we sat hundreds of miles away from each other, but he was able to remotely take over the Chrome browser (with my permission, of course) on my MacBook. He then played music over it — all while remotely operating this from his phone. All I did was enter a code that he gave me so that my browser knew to pair with the phone and allow the stream. (A QR code can be used, too.)

It’s pretty cool. Basically, Kik’s technology lets you wirelessly “sling” any content on your phone to any device running on any software. This hasn’t been done before, as far as I know. Sure, AppleTV lets you stream iTunes content to the TV, but it’s a closed garden. You can’t run Apple content on other devices. Kik’s technology allows you to stream pretty much any content on any device with a browser, whether it’s a basic PC, or even a PS3, Wii or a Windows Media Center device.

It’s heady to think of the future of this application. I can scan my surroundings with the camera on my Droid, Blackberry or iPhone with merely a cellular connection, and then stream it to my friend’s phone. Or I can go to my friend’s home and stream an HD move from my phone onto his TV."

from : http://venturebeat.com/2010/11/03/kik-messenger-sees-explosi...

It's also promised on their blog: http://www.kik.com/blog/2010/11/zero-to-a-million-in-15-days...

liuhenry2• 16 years ago

Although, it's an strange move on their part not to immediately release at least some of these features. I'd have thought that the initial confusion or lack of clear product differentiation would have turned users away who might not come back when Kik releases more interesting features.

What explains their virality? Maybe the S-D-R thing is good enough for an initial hook?

grovulent2• 16 years ago

Forgive me... I don't really know either way but something feels awfully astroturfy about all this...

kenjackson• 16 years ago

Basically, Kik’s technology lets you wirelessly “sling” any content on your phone to any device running on any software.

That should have been on the home page. This "free real-time texting" thing makes no sense to me. Doesn't virtually everyone with a modern smartphone have free real-time texting?

But being able to stream live TV from my Media Center box to my phone would be cool.

sp4rki4• 16 years ago

It's a Blackberry Messenger clone which also works on iPhones, and Android phones. If this where to become the de facto messenger, you should be able to chat with anyone regardless of what phone, or messaging services they prefer (as they would be forced to use the service to be able to talk to everyone of their peers).

rane• 16 years ago

"You should follow me on twitter" on super bold red. Always lame sounding.

mike-cardwell4• 16 years ago

Yeah, my whole website design is shit. I've learnt a lot about web design recently though, especially from articles posted here on HN, and am currently redesigning it. Here's my current front page under development: http://dev.grepular.com/

mike-cardwell4• 16 years ago

I've explained the SSL situation here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1880051

Kik Messenger Insecure

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