Delete WhatsApp, use Signal Private Messenger instead

[rsjsouza]

I don't know what news andy is referring to, but here in germany, any news regarding telegram is essentially bad news.
Noone talks about it's features or security, but every news piece talks about telegram being used by right wings, neonazis or conspiracy nutters.

Sure, if news organizations in Germany are anything like in the US, it only takes a single Twitter post decrying one or two posts on the platform for a few shady "journalists" to quickly generalize to everybody and use the maximum hyperboles possible. It gets tiring, really.

I don't even want to suggest using Telegram anymore, since associations like this tend to stick and generally do not end well.

And that is how they achieve their goal to shutdown anyone, really. Just start spreading the same types of news about any other platform discussed here and the damage is done. That just happened with the Twitter competitor Parler and the racket of the Alphabet/Apple/Amazon triunvirat.

[voltsandjolts]

...telegram being used by right wings, neonazis or conspiracy nutters.
I don't even want to suggest using Telegram anymore, since associations like this tend to stick and generally do not end well.

Encyption is just a tool that can be used for good or evil, at the users choice.
It's not just Telegram, where did all the bad guys go after EncroPhone got broke? Signal, maybe?
If you don't want to be associated, better not use encyption.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/07/dutch-police-arrest-six-men-after-discovery-of-torture-chamber

[SVFeingold]

Just to get the facts clear; here you are talking about desktop computing. Everywhere else (mobile, datacentre, supercomputing, web servers, nas boxes, routers, embedded os) linux rules the roost.

True. My comment was specifically about the persistent maligning of the common laptop user for not switching to Linux.

Blind faith is belief in the abscence of any evidence. If you choose to live that way you can, but in general life can be better if you make smarter, more informed choices. Of course, I don't mean analyse your water and all source code you use. But you can take advice from others (this forum included), evidence from several independent sources and make a more informed choice. The probablility of maker better choices is much higher that way. Of course it takes a little effort, so blind faith suits some people better.

I don't disagree. But in that case, someone using VSee because it's been deemed secure by several government organizations is hardly "blind." My point is that "I trust that this government agency made an informed decision about which encryption to use" is every bit as valid as "I trust that the city keeps the water clean." Except perhaps to those who make it a hobby to follow crypto developments, or those who test public utilities. Taking advice also requires mostly-blind faith. Unless you are a domain expert/enthusiast, you aren't really qualified to choose who to take advice from. And in that case you fall back on your other human intuitions based on your life experience. To wit: that a government agency uses X service means a lot more to the average person than some random dude on a small electronics forum saying "No X is bad use Y."

The solution - as always and ever - is to make the tools you want people to use enticing, so that people want to use them. Not to malign the ignorance of those who "take it on faith" that a popular end-to-end encrypted app is actually secure. This is what the aforementioned Linux fanboys fail to grasp. I hope the same doesn't happen with secure communication since it's far more important than which OS people use.

I don't really care that much about this...I'm happy using iMessage. Just wanted to make the point that getting preachy and elitist about encryption is not the way to get the public to start caring about it. And to be clear I'm not talking about you, I don't think you come off that way. But so many in this field do and it's to their detriment.

[voltsandjolts]

... using VSee because it's been deemed secure by several government organizations is hardly "blind."

Yes, but those 'several' organisations likely went to one organisation to get one opinion, i.e. NSA, perhaps in 2009 (lets ignore conspiracy theories about encryption and NSA).

Signal source code is in the open to be analysed by anyone at anytime. There are more eyes on it.
Like these folks:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55412230
Which all helps to feedback into making it better software.
Every secure app has issues to deal with. I feel more comfortable with it when its done in the open.
Enforced honesty, if you like.

[RenThraysk]

These are all nice thoughts. In reality the overwhelmingly vast majority of people don't care to this extent, and certainly aren't going to spend time debating the finer points of precisely which encrypted messenger service is technically superior based on the peer-review of their open-source code on Github, or which government agencies say what about them.

This is vaguely reminiscent of the Linux fanboys being certain it's the "year of Linux" and they're finally gonna take down MS and Apple. Then as soon as they say "BUT IT'S SO EASY, all you need to do is open a command-line and apt-get..." they lose 99.9% of the public. As they've done the last 20+ years. And will continue to do for the next 20.

The truth is people care to the extent it's easy to obtain and use them. The less investment required the better. Signal does well in this regard (especially with the recent endorsement from Elon). Facebook messenger is probably fine for most people. If you are transmitting truly sensitive data, as in actual state secrets, actually classified documents, etc. then you've probably already been briefed on exactly which services are acceptable and how much jailtime you'll get if you use any others.

No state actor cares about your cat pics. Or your nudes. Or how wasted Michelle got last weekend. It's like that XKCD. Nobody is gonna build a supercomputer to crack the 4096-bit encryption to your bank account. They're just going to hit you with a wrench until you tell them the password.

Which isn't to say nobody should care. They should. But all you folks sending a deluge of requests to your friends to "use this totally secure, totally obscure open source messenger, and it's so easy! Here's a step-by-step on how to sideload the APK onto your phone" are probably just going to end up with fewer friends. If there's an existing, widely used, widely supported messenger that it perfectly fine for everything but transmitting classified info or nuclear launch codes, it's probably good enough. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. It may be a fun hobby for you, it's not for the majority of people who actually need to use it in order to start making a majority of our comms secure.

This argument is based on your privilege of living in a relatively free country.

In a country where say being gay, or atheist, or an activist will get the attention of the government and get yourself jailed or worse executed, choosing the right messenger is critical.

So no need of nonsense about state secrets or nuclear launch codes.

[voltsandjolts]

Or just being a Uyghur

[Zucca]

Telegram is a child's toy compared to the likes of Signal (and far less popular in my experience).

It's hard to stop children to play with toys.

In my contacts only 10% have Signal and it is not moving since months, about 40% Telegram and going up quickly.
100% has bloody Whatsapp.

[RenThraysk]

Or just being a Uyghur

Yeah, Signal actually got initial funding from Radio Free Asia, which also provides the only Uygur language radio station outside of China. And was fundamental in exposing the re-education camps.

[SVFeingold]

This argument is based on your privilege of living in a relatively free country.

In a country where say being gay, or atheist, or an activist will get the attention of the government and get yourself jailed or worse executed, choosing the right messenger is critical.

So no need of nonsense about state secrets or nuclear launch codes.

Very true. And I'm sure that most of the people bugging their friends about using this cool new open-source encrypted messenger that they discovered are in that boat. It should be clear enough from this thread that the context of most of these discussions is that of a privileged free country.

For those who aren't privileged in this way the issue nowadays won't so much be the strength of encryption but the government-mandated backdoors in the services that silently agree to put them in. And whether VSee has updated their blog in a few years or not has little relevance to that problem. Open-source does not automatically mean "secure." 

And anyway, my post was pointing that most people don't have strong enough reasons to care about encryption to learn how to verify checksums and sideload apps. Which they don't. If an easy-to-use and popular app comes along that can already do the things they want it to, AND it happens to have some good encryption, then people might eventually use it. Those who DO have strong reasons - like those you mentioned - will be much more inclined to learn those things and take those steps. They're already sold on the idea.

[BravoV]

Or just being a Uyghur

Yeah, Signal actually got initial funding from Radio Free Asia, which also provides the only Uygur language radio station outside of China. And was fundamental in exposing the re-education camps.

How about the Southern Yemen people that have been butchered that even UN raised the concern of devastating human right violation there ? Or the Catalan movement in Spain that get suppressed for independence, you guys are interested too or sympathizers ? 

Or how about the latest incident last week at Capitol, Washington, where so called Democracy Warrior was gunned down to death, cold bloodedly by the Capitol police, just because she just tried to push a door.

C'mon, please, stop drifting into politic.

[RenThraysk]

Or just being a Uyghur

Yeah, Signal actually got initial funding from Radio Free Asia, which also provides the only Uygur language radio station outside of China. And was fundamental in exposing the re-education camps.

How about the Southern Yemen people that have been butchered that even UN raised the concern of devastating human right violation there ? Or the Catalan movement in Spain that get suppressed for independence, you guys are interested too or sympathizers ? 

Or how about the latest incident last week at Capitol, Washington, where so called Democracy Warrior was gunned down to death, cold bloodedly by the Capitol police, just because she just tried to push a door.

C'mon, please, stop drifting into politic.

I don't understand your post considering your first post in this thread. Pointing out Turkish government attempts to prevent it's people having secure communications.

[RenThraysk]

Another reason why shouldn't use or recommend Telegram.

Here's a post from Filippo Valsorda's newsletter, Cryptography Dispatches, from a few days ago.

https://buttondown.email/cryptography-dispatches/archive/cryptography-dispatches-the-most-backdoor-looking/

* Filippo Valsorda is in charge of cryptography and security on the Go team at Google.

[vad]

Another reason why shouldn't use or recommend Telegram.

You should not trust Telegram your personal data more than you can trust Durov, Russian billionaire and founder and owner of Telegram.

Durov has a strange episode in his life. He was once involved in hit and run accident, while been chased by police. Despite running over police officer, Durov was acquitted of all charges. And that happened in the country where slightest disrespect towards police, such as throwing an empty paper cup in direction of officer, is punishable by long jail terms. There is an open question how Durov could have avoided prosecution, and whether he and his businesses are controlled by KGB (as a trade off for avoiding jail time).

Durov is also the founder of another social media - VKontakte. After he sold VKontakte to pro-government oligarchs, VKontakte’s users were jailed for posts critical of Russian government, and ‘likes’ of such posts.

[vad]

...

[Halcyon]

...telegram being used by right wings, neonazis or conspiracy nutters.
I don't even want to suggest using Telegram anymore, since associations like this tend to stick and generally do not end well.

Encyption is just a tool that can be used for good or evil, at the users choice.
It's not just Telegram, where did all the bad guys go after EncroPhone got broke? Signal, maybe?
If you don't want to be associated, better not use encyption.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/07/dutch-police-arrest-six-men-after-discovery-of-torture-chamber

You can have all the encryption in the world, once you get access to the physical device, all bets are off. Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Snapchat and others are able to be recovered and parsed from handsets in certain circumstances (provided the messages haven't been deleted and removed from the database, write-ahead log etc...), if you can get the device itself and certain other conditions are met.

[RenThraysk]

You can have all the encryption in the world, once you get access to the physical device, all bets are off. Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Snapchat and others are able to be recovered and parsed from handsets in certain circumstances (provided the messages haven't been deleted and removed from the database, write-ahead log etc...), if you can get the device itself and certain other conditions are met.

Yeah, Signal's (et al) security claim is end to end encryption.
If the adversary has the unlocked phone, it's a simple matter of running the messenger app to gain access to messages.

[Gyro]

Well the anti-VSee lobby will be pleased to hear that I have given in and re-installed Signal. It actually seems an ok app as far as a replacement for WhatsApp, but the video quality seems a bit lacking compared to VSee and a bit more sluggish. I think [Edit: @SVFeingold, sorry] has probably put across some of my thoughts with more patience than I could.

To try to bullet point my thoughts:

- All most people want (in the 'free' world anyway) is to guard their domestic affairs from the eyes of data harvesting and marketing companies and the like (even if they are the owners of the platform). The new WhatsApp terms seem to have signed its death warrant in that respect.

- People want something to base their faith on. In the case of Signal, this seems to be its open source, donation funded model. In the case of VSee, it is that the company's key business is in patient confidentiality, it's used by NASA, IBM, Navy Seals (apparently), and their business model is clear - and I doubt if they have any interest in my pets. From some of the previous replies, Telegram seems to be on some very dodgy footings in terms of faith (blind or otherwise).

- All most people want, or need, is the comfort of end to end encryption. The ability to share pictures of their cats, dogs etc. without coming into the sights of pet food and insurance companies!.... and of course their day to day family arrangements and domestic communications.

- Personally I don't want to stand out as giving the impression of possibly having something to hide from the authorities, by being seen to be using some ultra specialist secure specialist application - any more than I would use Tor or the dark web or whatever they're called. There are enough active conspirators out there for the authorities to deal with, without having to work out whether I am one of them.

- Can anything be said to be secure (from Google) if it's running on an Android phone. As far as I can see, Google are pretty much as interested in making money from my data as Facebook (?).

- Why can't I just have a 'good enough' end to end encrypted app that just offers a sensible level of security and is fast, without going the the extent of 'crypto enthusiast / paranoia' or 'state actor' territory. VSee seemed fine for that.

Whether I will manage to persuade my extended family to switch is another matter


P.S. I saw a review comment on the play store that the windows version of Signal wasn't secure. Is it?

[Halcyon]

You can have all the encryption in the world, once you get access to the physical device, all bets are off. Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Snapchat and others are able to be recovered and parsed from handsets in certain circumstances (provided the messages haven't been deleted and removed from the database, write-ahead log etc...), if you can get the device itself and certain other conditions are met.

Yeah, Signal's (et al) security claim is end to end encryption.
If the adversary has the unlocked phone, it's a simple matter of running the messenger app to gain access to messages.

Signal does have the ability to set a password to open the application (after reboot) or if you haven't touched it for 24 hours, it auto-locks. I believe is also encrypts the message database on the device but I have not tested this out (perhaps if I get some time over the next few weeks I'll do some further testing).

P.S. I saw a review comment on the play store that the windows version of Signal wasn't secure. Is it?

That relates to the message database itself. It's not encrypted, however the communications is always encrypted in transit between Signal clients.

[RenThraysk]

You can have all the encryption in the world, once you get access to the physical device, all bets are off. Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Snapchat and others are able to be recovered and parsed from handsets in certain circumstances (provided the messages haven't been deleted and removed from the database, write-ahead log etc...), if you can get the device itself and certain other conditions are met.

Yeah, Signal's (et al) security claim is end to end encryption.
If the adversary has the unlocked phone, it's a simple matter of running the messenger app to gain access to messages.

Signal does have the ability to set a password to open the application (after reboot) or if you haven't touched it for 24 hours, it auto-locks. I believe is also encrypts the message database on the device but I have not tested this out (perhaps if I get some time over the next few weeks I'll do some further testing).

The way adversaries get around phone locks is to make sure you are using your phone when they grab you.
I don't know either for certain. Pretty well versed (written an implementation of) the Signal protocol, but that just covers e2e.
Given Cellebrite's recent embarrassing claim of being able to access the Signal's messages using software, if the phone is unlocked. Suspect might be using whatever secure storage the OS provides.

https://signal.org/blog/cellebrite-and-clickbait/

[Halcyon]

The way adversaries get around phone locks is to make sure you are using your phone when they grab you.
I don't know either for certain. Pretty well versed (written an implementation of) the Signal protocol, but that just covers e2e.
Given Cellebrite's recent embarrassing claim of being able to access the Signal's messages using software, if the phone is unlocked. Suspect might be using whatever secure storage the OS provides.

https://signal.org/blog/cellebrite-and-clickbait/

That's not the only way, it's the easy way, but there are many phones where locks can simply be bypassed or disabled with nothing more than a few clicks of a mouse and some hardware, or you can simply extract the contents of the memory (even if it's encrypted) without ever booting up the phone or knowing the password. Other phones are brute forced (some slowly, some very quickly). That's all the detail I will (and am allowed to) go into.

Cellebrite software and tools can read the Signal database from the phone, but it doesn't extend to every version of Signal (and to my knowledge, not the latest ones). Yes it's true, if you get the PIN/password (either from the user, brute force or via some other method), then you can just view the messages on the screen. As I said, once you have physical access to a device, all bets are off.

That being said, unless you have thousands and thousands of dollars to spend, the average nerd on the street is not going to have access to these tools (and some of them can't be bought with all the money in the world unless you're a law enforcement agency).

[rsjsouza]

And anyway, my post was pointing that most people don't have strong enough reasons to care about encryption to learn how to verify checksums and sideload apps. Which they don't. If an easy-to-use and popular app comes along that can already do the things they want it to, AND it happens to have some good encryption, then people might eventually use it. Those who DO have strong reasons - like those you mentioned - will be much more inclined to learn those things and take those steps. They're already sold on the idea.

I agree that most people do not have much to hide and are not particularly worried about this. However, this wave of popularity came with the brash attitude of the main player Whatsapp arbitrarily changing their terms of service to share even more information with their other tainted services - that despite the Cambridge Analytica scandal swayed only a relatively small proportion of Facebook users.

[RenThraysk]

The way adversaries get around phone locks is to make sure you are using your phone when they grab you.
I don't know either for certain. Pretty well versed (written an implementation of) the Signal protocol, but that just covers e2e.
Given Cellebrite's recent embarrassing claim of being able to access the Signal's messages using software, if the phone is unlocked. Suspect might be using whatever secure storage the OS provides.

https://signal.org/blog/cellebrite-and-clickbait/

That's not the only way, it's the easy way, but there are many phones where locks can simply be bypassed or disabled with nothing more than a few clicks of a mouse and some hardware, or you can simply extract the contents of the memory (even if it's encrypted) without ever booting up the phone or knowing the password. Other phones are brute forced (some slowly, some very quickly). That's all the detail I will (and am allowed to) go into.

Cellebrite software and tools can read the Signal database from the phone, but it doesn't extend to every version of Signal (and to my knowledge, not the latest ones). Yes it's true, if you get the PIN/password (either from the user, brute force or via some other method), then you can just view the messages on the screen. As I said, once you have physical access to a device, all bets are off.

That being said, unless you have thousands and thousands of dollars to spend, the average nerd on the street is not going to have access to these tools (and some of them can't be bought with all the money in the world unless you're a law enforcement agency).

Yeah, am kind of familiar. Companies like Grayshift and their $15,000? GrayKey hardware, though Apple supposedly patched the exploit for that.

[Halcyon]

though Apple supposedly patched the exploit for that.

Suuuuure.... Apple "patched" it. 

[SVFeingold]

And again...same mentality.

Apple is a $2T company. They make most of their money selling hardware. One thing Apple does better than most is taking user privacy and security seriously. It's a big part of their marketing, and a big part of their appeal to a wide swath of users.

You really think they're just going to keep known exploits in their products...just in case...what, exactly? So they can steal your mac and cheese recipe? They can blackmail you for your nudes? For your sexual orientation? For what? What reason would they have to the risk their reputation? What is it that's so darn irresistible about some random person's data? Crypto enthusiasts can have some serious narcissism. Everyone thinks they're James Bond; the world's best hackers and most powerful corporations are just desperate to get at the mundane details of their lives. I just don't see it. Unless the answer is the nebulous big brother government. There's plenty of evidence of that at other companies. Not quite so much at Apple AFAIK.

There's evidence-based reasoning and then there's paranoia and conspiracy theories. I guess it's also possible my sarcasm detector is broken. 

[Halcyon]

I can tell you for a fact that the likes of Cellebrite and Grayshift are still very much in business when it comes to modern smartphone manufactuers (including Apple) running the latest versions of their respective operating systems. I'll let you read between the lines. There is a lot of money in that industry and a lot of very smart people working there, including former engineers for big companies.

All that aisde however, don't forget these tools are designed to be purchased by government agencies, law enforcement and national security agencies in order to conduct their business. Yes, if you have enough money, you too can buy a Cellebrite licence as a private customer, however as I said earlier, even the most nerdiest nerd on the street more than likely won't have one, due to sheer cost alone. As for other products, those companies won't even deal with you unless you are a specific type of government agency, it doesn't matter how much money you have.

All I can tell you (within certain bounaries) is what I know to be true and what is already available out there in the public domain. Some of this might seem rather "CSI-esq", but believe me when I say, there is a lot of cool tech out there that most people will never lay eyes on.