Don't Use Session (Signal Fork)

https://soatok.blog/2025/01/14/dont-use-session-signal-fork/

by xena • 2 years ago

68 9 2 years ago

jetbalsa• 2 years ago

Cryptography nerds should NOT be finding the software that activists trust with their privacy hilarious.

This is very much true. Why in the world would session do the things they listed unless it really was just a state actor trying to get something in place to snoop on people.

keejef4• 2 years ago

Various reasons, using 128 Bits of entropy in Session Account IDs allows Session to use 13 word mnemonic seeds, instead of 25 word seeds, which makes the UX of writing down and saving mnemonic seeds easier, the claimed reduction in security by the researcher is incorrect. The other 2 security issues are misinterpretations of the code.

Full response is provided here https://getsession.org/blog/a-response-to-recent-claims-abou...

Llamamoe• 2 years ago

I'm not familiar with cryptography enough to know whether these arguments make sense, but if they do, this is really damning. That's a series of intentional, unnecessary changes that each massively weaken the protocol's security...

keejef4• 2 years ago

We've put together a response here which responds to the claims re: cryptography https://getsession.org/blog/a-response-to-recent-claims-abou...

nexus_six• 2 years ago

The site is returning just a JSON response of the blog post for me. Can't view the content directly.

some_furry• 2 years ago

Should be fixed now.

https://furry.engineer/@soatok/113833767490388329

extraduder_ire• 2 years ago

Glad to see someone looking into the actual security of this application finally. I couldn't find any information like this when I first heard of it.

The primary (maybe only) appeal of this app seems to be the lack of a phone number requirement. Consequently, you can run a desktop version without also having a phone.

keejef4• 2 years ago

Agree, its good when people review Session's code for vulnerabilities, its just in this case many of the claims the researcher makes are incorrect or misleading. https://getsession.org/blog/a-response-to-recent-claims-abou...

keejef4• 2 years ago

Have written up a full response here, every claim by the researcher is covered https://getsession.org/blog/a-response-to-recent-claims-abou...

Don't Use Session (Signal Fork)

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