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
Signal has a backdoor - like many other apps. It’s private in most situations but not for all… The backdoor is there, and as such, it will never be as secure and private as it could, or should, be…
What are you referring to? I’ve read many security breakdowns of signal and nobody who knows what they’re talking about has ever mentioned a back door
Can you point it out so we can close it asap?
https://github.com/signalapp
(Iirc it’s up to date?)Thx!
(I’m critical of Signal, but “in this economy” is the best I can hope to switch my friends to.)
I don’t understand this & need some explanations (I’ve heard about the dev, it’s just USA stuff, much like Telegram mentioned Russian). Where exactly are the backdoors/the encryption compromised?
Sorry mate. I really don’t want to spend time writing exactly what I linked, and then explaining it in another way. English is not my main language, and I don’t want to spend a lot of time on it. I will recommend that you read this link a couple of times, and maybe the other link posted also - they explain it very well.
No worries, it’s not my main (or second) language either, it’s just that no backdoor is explained in that link.
I was just curious.
Oh, you think that they show you the actual door? They don’t - ever. But read the article again. Do you think that any agency will post millions into an app, where they don’t have a backdoor? The article clearly describes how the privacy part has been weakened.
Isn’t it open source?
Oh, you think that they show you the actual door? They don’t - ever.
In open source projects they indeed do show the backdoor. That’s is one of the key points of open source (along with free-ish terms of use). Closed source projects just say “there aren’t any” without showing anything.
I’ve said many times I’m critical of Signal & ready to switch, but backdoor seems unconfirmed. Even if probable on some level.
The biggest security issue in Signal is the requirement for phone numbers and SIM cards. This basically forces all Signal users to identify themselves, and makes Signal highly vulnerable to government spying.
Can I get the ETA for fixing this?
Requiring a Sim is not a backdoor and does not enable “spying”. I does allow knowing who is on the platform, who talks to who, when, and probably some more metadata issues. But its not a backdoor
It’s a huge security vulnerability that Signal devs refuse to fix.
Not more than using username and password. Phone number is a security risk be cause you can get Sim swapped. If you have the registration password it’s safe, but a government can request a bypass. However, if you had no phone number and used username and password, governments could still request a bypass
No, phone number is a risk because a phone number uniquely identifies a person. You need a government ID to get a phone number.
Then it’s a privacy issue. Not security
Afaik you don’t need a phone number for Signal (a “username” can substitute it, a few years back they added it).
(Also the phone number & IP was the security risk, not the messages, afaik.)
This however was a debate about a supposed backdoor (I otherwise agree about Signal & its USA basedness, I just remain glad it exists despite it
manyfew blemishes).try to get a Signal account without a phone number. let me know if it works (hint: it won’t work).
You need a number to register, but not to comunicate
I tried to make a new account for my child recently. You need a number. It wouldn’t even work as a first signup on a wifi only tablet.
I tried to uninstall on my phone, set him up a new acct with a VoIP number then move the account to his tablet. It constantly failed when I uninstalled and put my account back on my phone.
You can only use one cellphone. Of you switch between two, it has to deactivate on the other.
Then you can have 4 or 5 other devices but that acct is tied to an activated cell phone and it gets screwy if you change that phone.
Molly (fork of Signal) allows you to use multiple phones https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android
So those posts they implemented this were lies?
Sad :(.
They implemented usernames to identify people so we could stop using numbers to find each other.
They still use numbers (cell and possibly device/network ids) they say to identify and secure (or so they say).
The idea is without access to your cell phone, nobody’s going to get access to decrypt your data.
Yeah, no, I get & like that, I just somehow specifically (obviously mis-)remember that they did away with phone number as a prerequisite for creating an account (everything still the same, just that the account can’t be reset).
:(
Does it really? Iirc, you can determine: when the account was made, and when the last message was sent. This doesn’t sound ‘highly vulnerable’ to me… Doesn’t permit inspection of metadata e.g. contacts, so as vulnerabilities go it’s pretty weak sauce
A phone number uniquely identifies a person because in most of the world you need a government ID to get a phone number or a SIM card.
Which means that if one account is compromised, then everyone that person talked to is also compromised. You know what they talked with whom. It’s an incredible security risk that Signal devs refuse to acknowledge or fix.
If your threat model is deanonymisation of chat users via phone numbers after one chat is fully compromised, then yeah I guess you need to register the accounts with relatively ‘untracable’ phone numbers (ie unregistered or incorrectly registered burner sims), but that’s not my threat model. I’m more concerned about server-side broad-spectrum government surveillance than I am about targeted device seizures. And of course there are mitigations even with data access on device seizure, provided you’re unwilling to provide device passwords. But, like, if you’re cooperating to the point of providing passwords you’re probably sharing what you know about other users identities anyway, so it’s a very niche case this applies to.
It’s the threat model. E2E encryption is a niche ‘nice to have’. Protecting the anonymity of people who have said nasty things about politicians is the most important thing a chat app needs to do. Signal is security theater until they fix this.
No the most important thing a chat app needs to do is send messages between the intended recipients making them unavailable to anyone else. Signal does this. You’re worried about ppl receiving messages and knowing who they’re from. Generally knowing where a message is from is considered a feature – if you want anonymous broadcast, pick a different technology that’s geared towards that
All the signal fans here should give me your phone number if you think its a secure service. All of them are hosted on AWS btw.
Give me your threat model so I can laugh. You have no idea of what being secure is. Thank you for being yet another troll.
“My hobby is writing James Bond / Freakazoid erotic spy thriller fanfic”-ass threat model
“I drew a dick on Pete Hegseth’s face last time he was passed out drunk before Sunday service”-ass threat model
“I bet the DHS, DOJ, FBI, CIA, and NSA are all competing to see who can recruit me or kill me before I graduate highschool”-ass threat model
Simple: I don’t use any US-based service due to NSLs
I especially don’t use any us-based service that asks for my phone number.
You’re equating giving my Mom my phone number with broadcasting my phone number on the Threadiverse?
Signal is a US-based entity subject to warrantless NSLs, with all the data hosted on AWS. Its not giving your phone number to your mom. Its giving your phone number to amazon and most likely a US surveillance government agency.
For a threat model you should assume the worst and never trust any US-domiciled data service or platform.
The government already has every US citizens number anyways.
So just give up and use signal then?
You’re not going to convince me to use US-domiciled services.
Then just say you don’t like the US, no reason to make up some bullshit about NSLs and AWS and phone numbers.
Its giving your phone number to amazon and most likely a US surveillance government agency
Do you really think they don’t already have my/your phone #?
Since I don’t use comms platforms they have jurisdiction over, I lessen the risk.
So what client would you recommend? I also feel like if it’s offered on Google Play or Apple Store it’s sus, but for lower income USians, it looks like Google Play is soon to become the forced option, especially on phones < $100.
Matrix, simpleX. Both have apps on f-droid, are federated, E2EE, and the servers are self-hostable anywhere in the world. Neither require phone numbers or identifiable info.
I’ll see if my heavily locked down device will let me download/install the files. Thank you so much!
With the phone number, no; and since there’s no Signal usage without a phone number, well…. Also, I think somewhere on their website (or some place) they talked about burner phones as if it’s a universal phenomena.
Signal has felt “out of place” to me. Odd. It doesn’t fit in, doesn’t make sense if I think a bit farther about it.
I hope something decentralised comes out of Signal protocol minus the need for a phone number.
You are talking about session. Session is a signal fork, and you don’t need phone number. But there is some concerns about its security as, in order to properly work, it removed some signal features, I’m not qualified enough to understand if it’s truly a security risk or not. But the option to use it is there.
I used it for a couple years, but came back to signal because I had so many issues with media sharing.
SimpleX uses Signal tech AFAIK but without requiring phone number or email address.
Imo signal protocol is mostly fairly robust, signal service itself is about the best middle ground available to get the general public off bigtech slop.
It compares favorably against whatsapp while providing comparable UX/onboarding/rendevous, which is pretty essential to get your non-tech friends/family out of meta’s evil clutches.
Just the sheer number of people signal’s helped to protect from eg. meta, you gotta give praise for that.
It is lacking in core features which would bring it to the next level of privacy, anonymity and safety. But it’s not exactly trivial to provide ALL of the above in one package while retaining accessibility to the general public.
Personally, I’d be happier if signal began to offer these additional features as options, maybe behind a consent checkbox like “yes i know what i’m doing (if someone asked you to enable this mode & you’re only doing it because they told you to, STOP NOW -> ok -> NO REALLY, STOP NOW IF YOU ARE BEING ASKED TO ENABLE THIS BY ANYONE -> ok -> alright, here ya go…)”.
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people will still expect you to share phone numbers to talk in signal in my personal experience, I really don’t understand how they get so attached to such an archaic technology and often will refuse to use the alias system completely because remembering a random string of numbers is “simpler” somehow
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Depends on your threat model, as always. If you require absolute anonymity, it’s tricky, because it uses phone number during the onboarding process, so get an anonymous pre-paid number and discard it after registration. After onboarding you don’t need the number.
For the rest, it’s about as “private” as you make it. It supports group messaing, calls and video, so obviously you need to be careful while using it. Everything is e2e encrypted and stays on your local device, the source is available and has been extensively audited. The company itself is non-profit and has sensible privacy policy.
But yeah, your threat model is the key answer to your question
so get an anonymous pre-paid number
That’s not something that exists in many countries. SIM-cards have to be attached to a real world identity by law.
It exists on the internet, so it exists in every country.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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”
Found a better article
https://simplex.chat/faq/#why-cant-i-use-the-same-profile-on-different-devices
If you are curious, here is a link for the roadmap so that you can see the things they are still planing. Some are going to bother normies (like shortening the group URLs will probably mean that they have to update them)
stickers
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.
creator is an alt right loon
What has he said or done?
You’d have to go and look up his Xitter account.
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?
No, and they are supported by US gov (last check), so no good can come of that.
Do you’ve reference about it ?
Quick googling comes up with only people refuting this claim.
Sure, we had signal gate, but the way that was received should make it pretty clear that it’s not supported for official use.
Not supported for official use because it leaves no trace for the formal record. Not because Signal is insecure.
Blog post about Threema that changed my mind against it: https://soatok.blog/2021/11/05/threema-three-strikes-youre-out/
Oh yeah, same. Great writeup, comprehensive and well written, have it bookmarked in case I need to talk to people about Threema.
Love it thank you for sharing. Awesome blog and so much relevant information. it’s now on RSS feed :)
Why is this furry-themed?
It’s a furry blog that happens to write about security a lot, and the author usually has very well-founded takes.
Chill out and enjoy it – you might learn something new. I usually do :D
Why not?
owo
Why not? Its nice to have fun with your website.
Right now, for the wider population, it it a heaven sent option compared to Whatsapp, FB messenger etc. Break those bonds first and keep the wheel turning.
Signal is a stop gap measure on the way to simplex
It did its job of providing privacy of content but meta data a d KYCd phones was a honeypot. Glowies got their relationship heat maps which is really all they wanted.
Once they need content, they will brick your end point with million zero day back doors caked onto everything.
Pegasus cellebrite etc is now used against normal targets.
5 years ago you would have to be a national security concern for such royal treament
I dislike Signal because they are many google play services, and do not try to distribute their app beyond Google Play Store.
https://signal.org/android/apk/
and if you want, you can use molly-foss to remove google notification services
I agree that there are workarounds, but I find it frustrating that Signal devs are ignoring very obvious security and privacy issues like this. It erodes trust and my enthusiasm to use Signal.
Just switched to molly-foss and am using mollysocket and have no issues
Was it just a simple switch or would I have to convince everyone to use Molly instead of Signal all over again? Like can I just get Molly and transfer over my contacts and history and all that?
Molly was easy enough, switching the notifications was a bit more painful. I found that the airgapped solution worked more seamlessly than the web server though
Signal is in F-Droid and works completely degoogled on Graphene with no Google Play. The annoyance is no notifications, but if you’re rolling completely Google Play free, you’re probably used to needing to just check several things a day for lack of notifications on multiple apps, since everyone under the sun is trying to shovel all your notification contents to Google (I assume for bribes of some sort from Google).
It is not on Fdroid https://search.f-droid.org/?q=signal&lang=en
It’s in the Guardian repo ala torbrowser
Many programs are in 3rd party fdroid repos, you can literally create a fdroid repo for Gmail and Gemini, you just upload apks to the server and run an indexer.
Being included in f-droid.org means the app had to meet some basic standards with regard to privacy. Being included in a 3rd party repo means that someone has uploaded it. And it’s a case with the Guardian-distributed Signal, AFAIK it’s the original version.
OP meant Signal not making any effort to be included in the f-droid.org repo, not Guardian not making effort to upload the apk from signal.org
The annoyance is no notifications
Not true. I have GrapheneOS with no Google blobs in a profile where I have Signal from play store (via Aurora) and notifications work perfectly. Signal itself will turn on the no google mode for notifications if not available.
I assume for bribes of some sort from Google
This one is stick, not carrot: apps are generally required to use Google’s notification system to be allowed in the Play Store.
Signal gets notifications without GMS. I think battery use and latency are a little higher. Molly, a fork can use UnifiedPush for better results.
They have your phone number but that’s really all they have.
Some people say Bozos can read your metadata because it’s hosted on AWS servers but I don’t believe that.
The face that Signal needs phone numbers to sign up is very bad.
No one that has told me this has ever been able to offer up any sort of explanation, but please do feel free to give it ago.
The explanation is obvious. The phone numbers are a personally identifiable network of connections that is available to the people operating Signal servers. If this information is shared with the US government, then they can easily correlate this information with all the other data they have. For example, if somebody is identified as a person of interest then anybody they want to have secure communications would also be of interest.
Unlike Whatsapp, Signal doesn’t store your network of contacts. They have your phone number, time of registration, and time of last connect to their servers. They go to great lengths to keep the rest private. In Signal’s case, I don’t see an issue at all, but I do see all the benefit.
They store your phone number, and have to route all the messages you created to the other phone numbers / user IDs in their database. This means anyone with access to signal’s centralized database has social network graphs: who talked to who, and when.
If your threat model is “I just trust them”, then its not a good one.
Privacy advocates have been raising the alarms about signal forever, but like apple, their fanbase just feels the security “in their gut”, and think that because it has a shiny interface, it must be secure.
The only people who know what the server stores are the people running it.
Multiple-accounts and pseudonyms. It’s like the 101 of interacting on the Internet. With a phone number requirement that’s automatically made impossible.
Also SIM-cards/phone numbers are required by law to be attached to your real world identity in many countries.
Multiple-accounts and pseudonyms
What about them?
Also SIM-cards/phone numbers are required by law to be attached to your real world identity in many countries.
Why is that a problem?
Why is that a problem?
Why are you posting as artyom@piefed.social and not <real name>@<home address>?
…because this is not a private message? And because my home address is not a piefed server. Such a weird question…
SS7 hacking can intercept your calls and text messages as well as your location just by knowing your phone number.
Private, not anonymous. No one can see your messages except the recipient. But if the recipient can report you and they would have your phone number.
Signal is the gold standard of secure messengers. If you’re looking for decentralized go with xmpp and/or matrix.
Hosted in the US on amazon servers, subject to national security letters.
If it was hosted outside the US and not on AWS, would you use it then?
US is the gold standard in surveillance and spying. I will not use any cloud services based in the US.
My brother, you clearly haven’t read much about the CCP’s surveillance efforts.
Also remind me which region is actively attempting to end encryption as a whole?
Read on articles written by usa?
Gullible
No because I don’t think centralized services are a good idea for communications platforms.
