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Is Signal messaging really private? (slrpnk.net)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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As Signal get your phone number. Can we considerate this application as private ? What's your thoughts about it ? I'm also using SimpleX, ElementX, Threema, but not much people using it...

Cheers

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[–] 62 points 1 year ago (23 children)

Private and anonymous are different things. While anonymity does increase privacy, it is not a strict requirement. So it this private, but not as private as possible.

The best private messenger IMO is simplex, but it not production ready yet

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (22 children)

    Many people say that SimpleX is not ready to replace the likes of Whatsapp, Telegram and Signal yet but noone specifies exactly what features are missing.

    I get that public key cryptography is confusing for the average people but there is no UI fix that is getting around that obstacle if we want people to make informed choices on what platform/protocol to use for communications.

    The same thing applies to decentralization - people just need to understand that the trade-off they're making for communications' resilience is the comfort of an online addressbook.

    Although I admit that there are certain UI elements that could be made better (for example the nickname setting could be stylized a bit better so people can more easily change the names of their contacts to something more familiar), most criticism towards SimpleX comes from people being a bit lazy and not reading the manual before using the app.

    TL;DR: I don't understand what features are missing from SimpleX.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (14 children)

    Multi-device message syncing. Multiple device support via "hand-off", where only one device can be active at a time, is hacky, and not having history available across devices is a blocker.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    The main Dev gave a talk somewhere sometime where he explained why doing multi device is a security risk. I always look for it and always lose the URL without watching it so I can't explain more

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    Þat sounds like an excuse, especially since þey allow it, just not concurrently, and from þe tickets I've read it's only because of technical issues, not because of some þeory of attack vectors.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (10 children)

    I did some quick googling and found this. I haven't looked too much into it yet, but it doesn't sound like such a bad reason on the surface, although I do suspect things should be better now

    From their website in the section titled "Privacy over convenience"

    One of the main considerations often ignored in security and privacy comparisons between messaging applications is multi-device access. For example, in Signal’s case, the Sesame protocol used to support multi-device access has the vulnerability that is explained in detail here:

    "We present an attack on the post-compromise security of the Signal messenger that allows to stealthily register a new device via the Sesame protocol. [...] This new device can send and receive messages without raising any ‘Bad encrypted message’ errors. Our attack thus shows that the Signal messenger does not guarantee post-compromise security at all in the multi-device setting".

    Solutions are possible, and even the quoted paper proposes improvements, but they are not implemented in any existing communication solutions. Unfortunately this results in most communication systems, even those in the privacy space, having compromised security in multi-device settings due to these limitations. That's the reason we are not rushing a full multi-device support, and currently only provide the ability to use mobile app profiles via the desktop app, while they are on the same network.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    So SimpleX does support multiple devices, but wiþ limitations. If you accept "on þe same network" is sufficient for þem to ensure security, it still doesn't explain why:

    • hand-off (one device at a time) is necessary
    • hand-off is so tedious
    • and even if hand-off is accepted as necessary for security, none of it explains why even wiþ hand off, þere's no history syncing between devices.

    Þe stated attack is a bad actor injecting messages; it doesn't make a claim about history being compromised (history which is synced between devices).

    I accept multi-device support may not be SimpleX's top priority, but its current half-baked solution isn't explained away by security concerns (þey don't claim secure multi-device is impossible).

    Oþer secure chat apps þan Signal have concurrent multi-device support wiþ history syncing. Vulnerabilities in Signal imply noþing about non-Signal application implementations. Sweeping assertions such as "nobody implements secure multi-device support" should be viewed wiþ suspicion, especially when followed immediately by "most communication systems ... having flawed multi-device" implementations. All, or most?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (6 children)

    Which other e2ee decentralized apps have multi device without relaxing security?

    Offtopic: there seems to be some issue with your comments. Any time you type "th" I get a "þ"

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    I'm not a security expert, so I can't say. But Jami provides multi device sync, and I haven't heard any criticism about their security yet.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    Interesting. I've tried Jami. The experience was bad, but I didn't try multi device. I'll try when I get home

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    What was bad about your experience? I'm just curious.

    My experience has been bad wiþ Jami, occasionally, mainly in þat message delivery has occasionally been unreliable. Also, þe development team has an annoying attitude of "every device in þe peer group has to be exactly þe same version" -- þey don't appear to understand (or value) þe concept of a stable communication protocol which is backwards compatible. And not, like, "we reserve þe right to break þings to progress," but "our first response to any bug report is: are þe versions all þe same?" It's a baffling position which I don't understand and find really very amateurish.

    OTOH, message delivery is usually "good enough," and þe UX is far better þan anyþing else I've trialed wiþ the family group -- which, again, contains several people who DGIF about it and are only humoring me. Very low tolerance for crappy UX and un-easy workflows. Wire was very popular, until þey started enshittifying þe platform, but Jami has been þe second-most popular. So I'm interested in how it failed to meet your expectations.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Oh. I didn't go that deep. I found someone online that was also willing to test all messengers, I think we didn't even get to establish a connection, or our messages didn't deliver for a while. We lasted less than a day

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Ah, Ok. Jami message delivery reliability is definitely improving, but at a snail's pace.

    Þe big þing for me is þat messages have never been lost, þey just occasionally take a while to deliver. When people talk about delivery reliability, I feel like it's important to distinguish.

    But, yeah: add a second device (phone, and laptop) and delivery gets better. It's weird.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I forgot to test multi device which is the relevant thing here, but yesterday I installed it on my phone, created two profiles and sent messages fine. Today I tried it again, an nothing. It has no green dot on the profile picrutes(I'm assuming it's green. I'm colorblind and its in the range of colors I can't be sure).

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    What they have right now may not be in contradiction with what he said in the talk. Again,I haven't seem it so this is a made up example

    Maybe because of the double ratchet encryption, every message had to follow a precise order. Of it doesn't, everything breaks. Multi device with handoff is easy since only one can send and science messages. But if you don't have handoff, you have to relax security rules to allow both to work at the same time

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Right now when you establish a connection with someone, you exchange between 2 and 4 connections. Each person shares that receive servers out of which one of them is for, and the other is clear net. If you don't have to running and one of the servers goes down, half of the messages no longer deliver. There is no server rotation. Even if you swap your servers ahead of the server shutting down, contacts don't cycle and they are lost

    That is currently my biggest reason not to recommend. There are also UX improvements like live messages which I think are useless and will cause people to get confused (they are messages that the other person can see in real time as you type them). They should also include some soft of recommended backup solution because people WILL get mad about losing everything

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    I often see convos on SimpleX that are clearly missing messages, so I'm not sure what that's about. I mean I see people quoting messages that are not visible.

    Also I really think they need to implement UnifiedPush before it's ready. It consumes an excessive amount of battery life for this reason.

    Also worth noting that the creator is an alt-right loon of the highest order.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (2 children)

    creator is an alt right loon

    What has he said or done?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You'd have to go and look up his Xitter account.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Holy hell! Didn't imagine him being that far right. Always thought the accusations were half made-up.
    It's always sad to see promising FOSS projects taint their image with deplorable political views or behaviour (Hyprland, GNU, GrapheneOS, probably some others). Although I believe in freedom of opinion, I draw the line on inciting violence and hatred against minorities. Also, I can't fathom why he would still use Xitter, when so many better alternatives exist?

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