About how we could decentralize Signal
About how we could decentralize Signal
Many of us (or at least me) would probably like to see Signal getting decentralized. Here are a few thoughts I had about this recently.
First let me define three persons:
- Peter (using the official signal.org instance)
- Ted (using the example.com instance)
- Andrew (using his own instance under andrew.chat)
Couldn't we use the upcoming username feature to build a decentralized signal network? For example with a modified client or maybe just a modified libsignal library we could parse the instance from the username which would look like an email address (ted.42@example.com or andrew.62@andrew.chat). If the username doesn't have a domain part it just uses the default instance (so Peter just has the username peter.94).
Maybe we have some people here who are already familiar with the Signal codebase and willing to assist?
EDIT: Yes I know Session and Matrix exist but Session is to extreme and technical and Matrix is more focused on communities and groups which aren't even encrypted. Besides that both of them have a much smaller userbase compared to Signal.
I'm pretty sure the original Signal dev wanted to avoid federation to be able to evolve the protocol rapidly.
https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/
That has taken us pretty far, but it’s undeniable that once you federate your protocol, it becomes very difficult to make changes. And right now, at the application level, things that stand still don’t fare very well in a world where the ecosystem is moving.
@mintdaniel42@futurology.today I'm quite happy with my Matrix home server and signal bridge that I've got. My matrix server lets me speak to discord, WhatsApp, SMS and signal users without me needing to worry about which app I need to use to get there. Yes, it took me weeks, if not months, to get working just how I want it, but now that it is, I'm not feeling that same desperation for it to be federated that I otherwise would have done
From the last I recall, the owners of Signal have never wanted it to federate. They have their publicly stated reasons, but I think the real reason is that Signal has always been on an enshittification track. JWZ has spoken out against Signal many times.
I'm gonna be honest. I chose a random article by JWZ and read it. The only thing they are talking about is the contact discovery system. If they don't want contacts to be uploaded (encrypted) then simply don't give signal the permission. And that the author moves to facebook messenger because there
at least the privacy failings are obvious
just shows how the author isn't even interested in secure and private messaging but only in defamig signal
Agreed. And also, it's very old. There are forks of Signal with no proprietary blobs, outside of Google Play (which wouldn't matter anyway since Google can't tamper with the builds distributed). Gotta say the part where you have to use your mobile phone does suck, instead of having a random ID like Jami does.
And about this post, decentralizing Signal wouldn't do much. There are no fully open source implementations, and if you hosted your own instance, you'd have to pay up for AWS and use some proprietary libraries, so you could get unwanted attention.
Has a much smaller userbase and not tech-savy people wouldn't undestand why you want them tp use session.
I think most iOS users have no trouble understanding how user hostile Signal has been after getting a new device or losing all the messages they wanted to save.
As for the user base, that's a problem that fixes itself as more people switch away from Signal.
Figured I'd repost because I see Session being recommended again.
======== Original Post: https://lemmy.ml/comment/1615043
Session's developers dropped Signal's Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) and deniability
[0]security features. Personally I would not trust a product that drops an end-user security feature for the sake of making the developer's life easier[1].Using existing long-term keypairs in place of the Signal protocol massively simplifies 1-1 messaging.
For those unaware, PFS protects your data/messages from future exploits and breaches. With PFS, each message's encryption is isolated, preventing compromise of current and past interactions
[2].A simple example to illustrate why PFS is beneficial. Lets assume any 3 letter agency is collecting all Signal/Session messages - on top of the tons of data they're already capturing. The great thing is that your messages are encrypted, they can't see anything - YAY - but they're storing them basically forever.
Two ways they may be able to compromise your privacy and view ALL your messages:
-
A flaw is discovered that allows them to crack/brute force the encryption in weeks instead of years/decades/eternity. If you were using Session, because you use the same key for every message, they now have access to everything you've ever said. If you were using Signal, they have access to that one message and need to spend considerable resources trying to crack every other message.
-
Your phone is compromised and they take your encryption keys. If you were using Session, this again gives them access to your entire message history. If you were using Signal, because the keys are always rotating (known as ephemeral) they can only use them to unlock the most recent received messages.
It's important to state that both cases above only really matter if you delete your messages after a certain time. Otherwise, yes, all they have to do is take your phone and get access to your entire message history - which is why ephemeral messaging (i.e. auto deleting messages after a certain time) is crucial if you suspect you may be targeted.
[0]https://getsession.org/blog/session-protocol-explained[1]https://getsession.org/blog/session-protocol-technical-informationThat's a fair criticism. I prefer using Session with better multiple device support and without waiting for Signal to finally stop using phone numbers.
When using either, disappearing messages should be enabled.
The part about PFS falls down, for me, when you assume both that keys can be cracked in some shorter than normal time-frame, and that the new key (per message, or less often) won't also be cracked quickly.
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