Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? 8 years ago
Telegram doesn't use end-to-end encryption by default. It's marketed as a secure messenger, but it's comparable to Facebook Messenger or Google Allo.
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Newsboat is a fork of Newsbeuter. "The only difference is that Newsboat is actively maintained while Newsbeuter isn't." https://newsboat.org/
There's also Elfeed for Emacs https://github.com/skeeto/elfeed
Words for “yes” in Romance languages 8 years ago
Yes. Use Firefox Reader View by clicking the icon in the address bar or press CTRL + ALT + R.
We’ve designed the Signal service to minimize the data we retain about Signal users, so the only information we can produce in response to a request like this is the date and time a user registered with Signal and the last date of a user’s connectivity to the Signal service.
Notably, things we don’t have stored include anything about a user’s contacts (such as the contacts themselves, a hash of the contacts, any other derivative contact information), anything about a user’s groups (such as how many groups a user is in, which groups a user is in, the membership lists of a user’s groups), or any records of who a user has been communicating with.
All message contents are end to end encrypted, so we don’t have that information either.
Here you go, reproducible builds. https://whispersystems.org/blog/reproducible-android/
Removing encrypted sms messages wasn't inexplicably dropped. It was explained and one of the reasons was terrible security https://whispersystems.org/blog/goodbye-encrypted-sms/
You don't need anything Google on your phone to use Signal. https://signal.org/android/apk/
More enthusiastic about privacy and free software. I often see worse apps recommended for privacy reasons, so why not bring up the flaws in those and what's better about this. If something better comes along I'll switch to that and recommend that instead.
Ask HN: Why are SIM cards still a thing? 10 years ago
Location tracking is possible without GPS module https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking
What's your threat model? https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/introduction-threat-modeling
For most people mass surveillance is a more realistic threat than the NSA hacking their camera.
Ask HN: Why are SIM cards still a thing? 10 years ago
I'd argue that if someone wants to get a flip phone for privacy reasons they should be able to not download shady apps and give them permissions without thinking.
You can see if your message was sent to the server and if the message was sent to your friends phone. I haven't really had any problems delivering messages apart from one time when they had servers problems.
No need to use Chrome if you don't want to, Chromium also works.
No affiliation, and never talked to Moxie or any other dev as far as I know.
Ask HN: Why are SIM cards still a thing? 10 years ago
Apps on your smartphone only get access to your messages if you give them permission.
Ask HN: Why are SIM cards still a thing? 10 years ago
People with security, budget and privacy concern go for flip phones.
No. That ensures you can't send encrypted messages or do encrypted calls.
Also see one of the reasons Signal moved to sending encrypted messages as data and stopped supporting encrypted messages sent as sms.
SMS and MMS are a security disaster. They leak all possible metadata 100% of the time to thousands of cellular carriers worldwide. It's common to think of SMS/MMS as being "offline" or "peer to peer," but the truth is that SMS/MMS messages are still processed by servers--the servers are just controlled by the telcos. We don't want the state-run telcos in Saudi, Iran, Bahrain, Belarus, China, Egypt, Cuba, USA, etc... to have direct access to the metadata of TextSecure users in those countries or anywhere else.
Signal has that too https://whispersystems.org/blog/disappearing-messages/ And using GCM is only a problem for people running a custom Android ROM without Google Play Services. They can use MicroG instead. For the vast majority of people who do have Google Play on their phone this is completely irrelevant. Using GCM doesn't make Signal less private.
Google doesn't see any data via gcm, it's just a tickle. If you want push messages, you gotta use a push network.
https://twitter.com/whispersystems/status/695399112833761283
Those who want to use Signal without GCM can help out with code https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/43 or money to anyone who does the work https://www.bountysource.com/issues/35722527-create-proper-p...
I've also seen first hand how difficult 3rd party clients can be on large networks with actual client logic, and unfortunately we simply don't have the resources to deal with that.
I hope that everyone here who prioritizes federation above all else moves to federated products that support their goals, and I hope that those projects can demonstrate that I'm wrong about the inability to build competitive user experiences over the long term.
If the only thing that the remaining people here want out of LibreSignal is a websocket-only solution and gmscore isn't an option for whatever reason, I would consider a clean, well written, and well tested PR for websocket-only support in Signal. I expect it to have high battery consumption and an unreliable user experience, but would be fine with it if it comes with a warning and only runs in the absence of play services. However, I also realize that still won't help people that are trying to build a Google-free experience on Google's platform, since we still don't have the things we need to be comfortable distributing software outside of Play.
https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...
Here's a great comment about Wire https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/57s7qw/wire_messen...
The thing is, Wire is developed by a for-profit company that has yet to discover a sustainable business model. They seem to be in a hurry to gain users, boasting about their own app's security and privacy before it has ever been independently audited.
In December 2014, when they launched Wire, they claimed they could not read their users' messages. They were forced to retract their statement when a journalist asked about it https://motherboard.vice.com/read/wire-built-by-ex-skype-emp... , and didn't add end-to-end encryption until March 2016 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dataprotection-messaging-w... . Contrary to popular belief, the protocol they now use is also not the Signal Protocol, but a custom protocol that Signal's developers have said they don't recommend https://twitter.com/whispersystems/status/774482849609031680 .
Wire's privacy policy states that they log metadata: https://wire.com/legal/#privacy
Using the Service to communicate by chat, our servers store your encrypted messages and other encrypted content and log other information such as the time and date of your conversations, and the other user or users with whom you are communicating. When using the Service to make or receive calls, our servers log and collect time and date of your calls, and the other user or users with whom you are communicating.
Meanwhile, Signal's developers have said that "there are no "safe" jurisdictions anymore, only safe services" https://twitter.com/whispersystems/status/783318001349070849 . Concerning metadata, Signal's privacy policy states: https://whispersystems.org/signal/privacy/
Certain information (e.g. a recipient's identifier, an encrypted message body, etc.) is transmitted to us solely for the purpose of placing calls or transmitting messages. Unless otherwise stated below, this information is only kept as long as necessary to place each call or transmit each message, and is not used for any other purpose.
This was put to the test in the "first half of 2016", when Signal's developers received their first subpoena. According to the documents that were published by the ACLU and OWS https://whispersystems.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand... , the Signal servers only store the number you register with (which can be anonymous https://yawnbox.com/index.php/2015/03/14/create-an-anonymous... ), the time you registered and the last time you connected to the Signal server (the precision of which is reduced to the day).
Here's a great comment about Wire https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/57s7qw/wire_messen...
The thing is, Wire is developed by a for-profit company that has yet to discover a sustainable business model. They seem to be in a hurry to gain users, boasting about their own app's security and privacy before it has ever been independently audited.
In December 2014, when they launched Wire, they claimed they could not read their users' messages. They were forced to retract their statement when a journalist asked about it https://motherboard.vice.com/read/wire-built-by-ex-skype-emp... , and didn't add end-to-end encryption until March 2016 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dataprotection-messaging-w... . Contrary to popular belief, the protocol they now use is also not the Signal Protocol, but a custom protocol that Signal's developers have said they don't recommend https://twitter.com/whispersystems/status/774482849609031680 .
Wire's privacy policy states that they log metadata: https://wire.com/legal/#privacy
Using the Service to communicate by chat, our servers store your encrypted messages and other encrypted content and log other information such as the time and date of your conversations, and the other user or users with whom you are communicating. When using the Service to make or receive calls, our servers log and collect time and date of your calls, and the other user or users with whom you are communicating.
Meanwhile, Signal's developers have said that "there are no "safe" jurisdictions anymore, only safe services" https://twitter.com/whispersystems/status/783318001349070849 . Concerning metadata, Signal's privacy policy states: https://whispersystems.org/signal/privacy/
Certain information (e.g. a recipient's identifier, an encrypted message body, etc.) is transmitted to us solely for the purpose of placing calls or transmitting messages. Unless otherwise stated below, this information is only kept as long as necessary to place each call or transmit each message, and is not used for any other purpose.
This was put to the test in the "first half of 2016", when Signal's developers received their first subpoena. According to the documents that were published by the ACLU and OWS https://whispersystems.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand... , the Signal servers only store the number you register with (which can be anonymous https://yawnbox.com/index.php/2015/03/14/create-an-anonymous... ), the time you registered and the last time you connected to the Signal server (the precision of which is reduced to the day).
And two comments from Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12149642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11726188
Telegram isn't secure. Use Signal if you want a proper secure messenger.
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/06/why-you-should-stop-using-...
"Encryption works best if it's ubiquitous and automatic. The two forms of encryption you use most often -- https URLs on your browser, and the handset-to-tower link for your cell phone calls -- work so well because you don't even know they're there. > Encryption should be enabled for everything by default, not a feature you turn on only if you're doing something you consider worth protecting. > This is important. If we only use encryption when we're working with important data, then encryption signals that data's importance. If only dissidents use encryption in a country, that country's authorities have an easy way of identifying them. But if everyone uses it all of the time, encryption ceases to be a signal. No one can distinguish simple chatting from deeply private conversation. The government can't tell the dissidents from the rest of the population. Every time you use encryption, you're protecting someone who needs to use it to stay alive."
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/06/why_we_encryp...
Pavel himself admits security isn't a priority here https://twitter.com/durov/status/678305311921410048 in response to this:
Thomas H. Ptacek https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/678274362609426432 By default Telegram stores the PLAINTEXT of EVERY MESSAGE every user has ever sent or received on THEIR SERVER.
Edward Snowden https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/678274362609426432 I respect @durov, but Ptacek is right: @telegram's defaults are dangerous. Without a major update, it's unsafe.
https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/678274362609426432 To be clear, what matters is that the plaintext of messages is accessible to the server (or service provider), not whether it's "stored."
Moxie Marlinspike https://twitter.com/moxie/status/678219238394298372 It's just how Telegram works and is self-documented to work: Only their marketing copy suggests otherwise.
https://twitter.com/moxie/status/678277776391077888 If you're on an iPhone, they also send a plaintext copy of every msg you receive to Apple's servers. So not even in transit.
https://twitter.com/moxie/status/678309008789258240 For iOS push notification previews. They didn't do the work to make them privacy preserving.
It's the least of Telegrams problems but let's not forget their home made crypto even though there are better alternatives. See the take-home message here:
"We stress that this is a theoretical attack on the definition of security and we do not see any way of turning the attack into a full plaintext-recovery attack. At the same time, we see no reason why one should use a less secure encryption scheme when more secure (and at least as efficient) solutions exist. > The take-home message (once again) is that well-studied, provably secure encryption schemes that achieve strong definitions of security (e.g., authenticated-encryption) are to be preferred to home-brewed encryption schemes."
https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177
And the conclusion here:
"Abstract: The number one rule for cryptography is never create your own crypto. Instant messaging application Telegram has disregarded this rule and decided to create an original message encryption protocol. In this work we have done a thorough crypt analysis of the encryption protocol and it's implementation. We look at the underlying cryptographic primitives and how they are combined to construct the protocol, and what vulnerabilities this has. We have found that Telegram does not check integrity of the padding applied prior to encryption, which lead us to come up with two novel attacks on Telegram. The first of these exploits the unchecked length of the padding, and the second exploits the unchecked padding contents. Both of these attacks break the basic notions of security, and are confirmed to work in practice. Lastly, a brief analysis of the similar application TextSecure is done, showing that by using well known primitives and a proper construction provable security is obtained. We conclude that Telegram should have opted for a more standard approach. > Conclusion: TextSecure is based on strong primitives that have withstood crypt analysis from the crypto community for years, and these are combined in a way that proven provides authenticated encryption. Telegram on the other hand has crafted its own encryption scheme and deployed it in an unproven state, and prior to any scrutiny from other cryptographers. We have seen this done time and time again, and rarely with good results. Take for example the smart grid meters that were shown to use terrible crypto back in April this year. Furthermore, the DH Ratchet is a very nice way of providing forward secrecy on a per-message basis with little overhead, which is an improvement over Telegram's one key per 100 messages approach.
1) Again I'm not talking about verification of whoever is on the other side of the conversation, its about hijacking the account (whether by breaking into the Tel-Co system or having access to it using a court order).
What do you imagine happens when someone hijacks "the account"? They don't get access to your past conversations, they don't get access to your contacts. All that happens is that they can impersonate you, which your friends will notice when they are notified that the key changed.
If you are using this app, you are forced to give up a copy of all you contacts and also the app is scanning for new contacts several times every hour!
I'm pretty sure it asks you and you have to give it permission. And again, most people WANT to find their contacts. What's the point of having a messenger and no one to send your messages to?
If this was an opt in option
It is opt-in, no one is forcing you to use WhatsApp. It's not like people don't know that they will be able to contact their friends through WhatsApp and are shocked and dismayed when they find out that's the case. You do realize not every app in existence has to follow your requirements right? You're free to use something that does, but the reason the majority use WhatsApp is that it doesn't. That's not a bug, it's a design choice that you happen to disagree with.
On the first point: Account authentication (when you setup your account or when you add a new device) is done via a non encrypted text message delivered to you by the tel-co service. This method is extremely insecure as it has been used by state and non-state sponsored hackers to hijack the account.
Again, the problem here is that "if your contact changes keys, this fact is hidden away by default." If WhatsApp did that by default, like Signal, then you would know that the key had changed.
IMHO the only reason a messaging service uses and relies on phone number to identify (and of course authenticate accounts) is to steal (that's how I see it) their contacts and force them to use the service in order to grow their user base. Such unethical and disturbing practice can not be endorsed by an organization like EFF.
The phone number is used for contact discovery. You're not forced to do anything. For most people when they download a messenger they want to use it to talk to other people and they don't find it disturbing or unethical when that's possible.
https://whispersystems.org/blog/contact-discovery/
If you are looking to avoid mass surveillance, of course the ability to be anonymous is critical.
Luckily it's possible to use more than one app. I'm ok with my friends knowing who I am. This app makes it easy to find your friends. If you want to talk to people you don't know without them knowing who you are, there are other apps. That's not the purpose of this one. It doesn't make it bad, it doesn't make it insecure, it just means it's not for you.
What I can not comprehend is how respectable people and experts like Snowden and others from EFF can get behind a messenger that its authentication is based on cell phone numbers!
Authentication isn't based on cell phone numbers, that's just the identifier. See "verify security code" here: https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/28030015 The problem, which EFF does mention is that "if your contact changes keys, this fact is hidden away by default."
When an application sends all your contacts to its servers (whether they are hashed or not) and more importantly when your whole access depends on a none encrypted code sent via SMS
Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems as if you think that someone who hijacks your number will get access to some account where all your contacts are. That's not the case. The problem here is the same as above.
and worst of all, your identifier can be tied to your real identity extremely easy, how can they call it secure at all? It is not all about E2E or how the crypto is designed or implemented, its also about your anonymity, your social graph and other pieces of information which are arguably more important not to give away!
That doesn't make it insecure, it's just not anonymous. No one claims that it is and it's not a goal https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/20971813
A bit disappointing that you left them out of your comment as well.
Disappearing messages for Signal 10 years ago
My ideal goal would be a universal, federated protocol, but even having libraries for each protocol with a unified API would make things already easier.
And Moxie is fighting for the opposite.
Yet here you are, pissed off that your goals don't align with someone elses. Use your open source IRC app to talk to your mom and I'll use Signal to talk with mine. No one is forcing you to do anything. Considering your goals and ideas are superior surely whatever you're suggesting will become the one service everyone uses, problem solved.
Disappearing messages for Signal 10 years ago
If they can’t fork it while still using your servers, and you refuse to allow federation, how the FUCK is it open in any way?
What makes you think you have a right to demand federation? Run your own server if you don't like how they're doing it. You have access to the source under a Free Software license https://github.com/WhisperSystems but of course you don't want to actually do any work, you want to complain about what other people do because they don't do it in the exact way you want it done for free.
How are users supposed to be able to verify the software running on their own systems when you only allow binaries compiled by yourself to communicate with your users, abusing the lock-in effect?
https://whispersystems.org/blog/reproducible-android/
You only distribute through the Play Store, which doesn’t fully work with microG at the moment, requiring users to install spyware on their devices.
Disappearing messages for Signal 10 years ago
Edward Snowden, Bruce Schneier, Matt Green and a few more. I think it's secure because it's been audited, because I trust the experts who say that it is secure, because of http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/21247776... and because of https://whispersystems.org/bigbrother/
Disappearing messages for Signal 10 years ago
They have explained what the permission is needed for http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/21253585...
They have a privacy policy https://whispersystems.org/signal/privacy/
They have explained their reasoning https://whispersystems.org/blog/contact-discovery/
You have access to the source https://github.com/WhisperSystems
You have proof that they don't store your contacts and can't provide them even after a subpoena https://whispersystems.org/bigbrother/
Again, what exactly are you nervous about? What is gained by removing contact discovery?
Disappearing messages for Signal 10 years ago
Seems reasonable that an app that's used for messaging my contacts has access to my contacts. What exactly are you nervous about?
Disappearing messages for Signal 10 years ago
Disappearing messages for Signal 10 years ago
Over the past year, we've been progressively rolling out Signal Protocol support for all WhatsApp communication across all WhatsApp clients. This includes chats, group chats, attachments, voice notes, and voice calls across Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, Nokia S40, Nokia S60, Blackberry, and BB10.
Disappearing messages for Signal 10 years ago
No one is forcing you to use proprietary software. See this comment from moxie https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10665520
Using GCM is only a problem for people running a custom Android ROM without Google Play Services. Using GCM doesn't make Signal less private.
Google doesn't see any data via gcm, it's just a tickle. If you want push messages, you gotta use a push network.
https://twitter.com/whispersystems/status/695399112833761283
Feel free to help out with code https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/43 or money https://www.bountysource.com/issues/35722527-create-proper-p... if using Signal without GCM is important to you.
If the only thing that the remaining people here want out of LibreSignal is a websocket-only solution and gmscore isn't an option for whatever reason, I would consider a clean, well written, and well tested PR for websocket-only support in Signal. I expect it to have high battery consumption and an unreliable user experience, but would be fine with it if it comes with a warning and only runs in the absence of play services. However, I also realize that still won't help people that are trying to build a Google-free experience on Google's platform https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/issues/127 , since we still don't have the things we need https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/issues/127#... to be comfortable distributing software outside of Play.
https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...
Considering how a small minority complain about this everytime Signal is mentioned you'd think they'd do something about it, but take a look at that Bountysource link and you'll see 8 backers. Guess complaining is easier.
Disappearing messages for Signal 10 years ago
Yes, if everyone switches to a fork that doesn't have a particular feature, then they won't have that particular feature.
Disappearing messages for Signal 10 years ago
What good is a seatbelt if the person sitting next to you can stab you? The blog post makes a point of this not being secure if the person you're messaging is malicious and that's not what it's for.
I think these two comments make good points:
I just had an interesting conversation with a friend who was recommending that I use Telegram/Wickr, and I told him that Signal was where it's at. Then he asked me if it had self-destructing messages, and I said "Why bother? That can be easily circumvented". His reply was that in some countries phones had been confiscated, and even though one person had enabled local encryption, the user with the confiscated phone had not enabled it; thereby implicating everyone who had communicated with that person (even though the messages were delivered secure over the network). So while self-destructing messages are in many ways a flawed guarantee of privacy, they can perform a very useful function in cases where the users are not malicious, but rather are security ignorant (i.e. most people with a phone).
https://whispersystems.discoursehosting.net/t/automatically-...
I've always been thinking that the critique of such a feature is based on a false underlying premise.
Yes, it's true that the recipient can make a screenshot of the message. But the recipient in the absolute majority of cases is not a "threat" in a classical sense, not someone with bad intentions or someone who is not supposed to know the contents of that message. After all, the sender trusts the recipient, as he is the one sending the message to the recipient in the first place.
The usual scenario is a recipient who is not that security-aware and doesn't think about those things that much if at all. Personally, I'd say most of my contact are that way.
The sender might send this recipient a message containing something especially critical, say, a user name and a corresponding password, and doesn't want to see that information in the wrong hands if e. g. later on, the recipient loses their phone, the phone gets stolen, etc. Also note that this kind of recipient is unlikely to use a general passphrase for Signal as this lessens convenience.
So what's essentially happening here is a security-minded sender taking security measures for or in place of a thrustworthy, albeit forgetful, non-security-minded, etc recipient.
https://whispersystems.discoursehosting.net/t/automatically-...
Disappearing messages for Signal 10 years ago
Last week was due to server issues https://whispersystems.discoursehosting.net/t/intermittent-m...