Users of the Signal messaging app got hit by a hacker attack. We analyze what happened and why the attack demonstrates that Signal is reliable.
Users of the Signal messaging app got hit by a hacker attack. We analyze what happened and why the attack demonstrates that Signal is reliable.
One may have all the encryption you want, but if the 2FA SMS whispers entry to the hackers, it’s clear that they’re not coming in through the security door but through the broken window…
To be fair, even though they bypassed the 2FA, they did not get access to previous conversations and contact list. That’s the point of the article, right?
Even if the encryption does not collapse, it is still an app full of identifiers. That makes metadata available. An attacker could figure out who contacted whom.
Whenever someone says “Signal is not good enough”, my answer is “what’s your threat model”? For me it’s a pretty damn good compromise given that all my friends and family are on it (as opposed to e.g. using WhatsApp or Telegram 99% of the time and a perfect alternative with one contact). The day I can realistically think about making my contacts move to a better alternative, I’ll do it. In the meantime, that’s the best I’ve got. And it’s not too bad, to be fair.
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Uh, I forgot to tell you that the “account” is safely saved locally (something) like jones.zip. That’s it!
Are you quite certain? Have you looked hard and concluded that Signal is the best alternative available today?
I can tell you that my messenger doesn’t use identifiers, it doesn’t track me, it doesn’t care who my contacts are, it doesn’t ask for my email, phone number, and importantly it does everything Signal does.
Yes, I have been following Signal and alternatives since… well since TextSecure was only for SMS. And I find that many times people critical about Signal don’t really know much about it except for the fact that it uses the phone number (not the email).
Again, not saying it’s perfect. Just that for my threat model (which arguably is a valid threat model for billions of people), it’s a very good solution.
You cannot know what kind of government we will have in ten years, nor is it said that your good behavior will be enough to keep you out of trouble. Millions of Jews had done nothing wrong, yet they were persecuted. Moreover, the fact that you have nothing to hide does not fully express what you could do if you had instead: sort of like giving up your right to speak because you have nothing to say.
This seems completely off-topic to me. I never said I have nothing to hide. The Signal client app (i.e. the part that you can audit, compile and run, not the server) provides a lot of privacy already: e2e encryption via the excellent Signal protocol, private profile, private groups, sealed sender. So in terms of metadata, the Signal server never knows what you write, who is in which group, and to whom you are writing. Again, from the client code that you can audit yourself before you run it.
On top of that, leveraging the secure enclaves, the Signal server (tries to) guarantee(s) the private contact discovery (based on the hashes of your contact list). Which means that if you trust the SGX enclave, all that the Signal server knows is your phone number. If you don’t trust the enclave, then you can assume that the server got access to your contacts when you did the discovery (i.e. when you installed the app).
That’s very, very, very far from saying I have nothing to hide.
Signal introduced closed-source server side code last November. The founder and CEO stepped down from his position this January… End of story to me about Signal
What’s your messenger then?
It is the sole messenger that doesn’t use identificators. You cannot get wrong.
No identificators at all? Lol sure, who else is using it with you?
At the moment I think more than 3000 people. Young app. Needs it to spread.