Some are quick to promote apps as being safe for your use just because they are encrypted. I will talk about how many of the popular apps that are commonly t...
I think you are not the target of this video. The target of this video are people who do not think about threat modeling at all and just assume it is safe to use because e2ee and Signal marketing BS and continue using these services the exact same way as they used gmail or Facebook messenger before. And he is right to point out that that immediately invalidates most of the privacy benefits due to metadata leakage.
And he is right to point out that that immediately invalidates most of the privacy benefits due to metadata leakage.
That’s just not true?
Switching from Messenger to Signal will always be a huge step up regarding privacy and security, no matter what your threat model is. Some metadata potentially (we don’t have any evidence that Signal has ever leaked anything) leaking is much better than knowing your metadata (and data) is being used to track you constantly…
I think you are not the target of this video. The target of this video are people who do not think about threat modeling at all and just assume it is safe to use because e2ee and Signal marketing BS and continue using these services the exact same way as they used gmail or Facebook messenger before
What? If someone doesn’t think about threat modeling I either explain it to them or build a reasonable model for them. I don’t tell them to go live in the woods because otherwise there is one bit of information about them that might leak…
I think an important difference is that we are comparing companies that definitely sell your metadata to companies that could sell your meta data but where there is no known case (to me) that they actually do, e.g Signal. So it comes down to trust.
Not really. One of the main points he makes in the video is that phone-number use in an inherent metadata leak and even without Signals involvement it can be used to reverse track a social graph without you being able to do anything about it.
And this is not a theoretical threat either, something like that was done to identify democratic activists during the recent Hong-Kong protests and put them in jail.
You (as aggressor) scan all your known mobile numbers agains let’s say Signal and discover that some numbers use Signal. That I understand. But now what? Unless you are the company Signal you would not have access to further data, or ?
Sure you can easily get further data by for example asking the phone companies for cell-tower log-in location and times. This you can then narrow down against your list of Signal using suspects and either remotely infect their phones with a trojan or simply snatch up the hardware at a “random” police check and access the already decrypted messages with identifiable phone-numbers of all the group-members.
Compare that to a messenger that does not use phone numbers at all and even does not transmit network IDs to other group-chat members. Then the police has no idea who to target and no reasonable indication that could be used with a judge to get a search warrant either.
And this is not a theoretical threat either, something like that was done to identify democratic activists during the recent Hong-Kong protests and put them in jail.
I think you are not the target of this video. The target of this video are people who do not think about threat modeling at all and just assume it is safe to use because e2ee and Signal marketing BS and continue using these services the exact same way as they used gmail or Facebook messenger before. And he is right to point out that that immediately invalidates most of the privacy benefits due to metadata leakage.
The technologies used in Signal protect a lot against metadata leakage. Group information is encrypted, your contact list isn’t stored on their servers (it is sent but obscured and uses a lot of tricks to make it harder for them to access it). They also have sealed sender which enables them to reduce the metadata they collect.
That’s just not true? Switching from Messenger to Signal will always be a huge step up regarding privacy and security, no matter what your threat model is. Some metadata potentially (we don’t have any evidence that Signal has ever leaked anything) leaking is much better than knowing your metadata (and data) is being used to track you constantly…
What? If someone doesn’t think about threat modeling I either explain it to them or build a reasonable model for them. I don’t tell them to go live in the woods because otherwise there is one bit of information about them that might leak…
I think an important difference is that we are comparing companies that definitely sell your metadata to companies that could sell your meta data but where there is no known case (to me) that they actually do, e.g Signal. So it comes down to trust.
Not really. One of the main points he makes in the video is that phone-number use in an inherent metadata leak and even without Signals involvement it can be used to reverse track a social graph without you being able to do anything about it.
And this is not a theoretical threat either, something like that was done to identify democratic activists during the recent Hong-Kong protests and put them in jail.
Ok, out of interest, how does this work?
You (as aggressor) scan all your known mobile numbers agains let’s say Signal and discover that some numbers use Signal. That I understand. But now what? Unless you are the company Signal you would not have access to further data, or ?
Sure you can easily get further data by for example asking the phone companies for cell-tower log-in location and times. This you can then narrow down against your list of Signal using suspects and either remotely infect their phones with a trojan or simply snatch up the hardware at a “random” police check and access the already decrypted messages with identifiable phone-numbers of all the group-members.
Compare that to a messenger that does not use phone numbers at all and even does not transmit network IDs to other group-chat members. Then the police has no idea who to target and no reasonable indication that could be used with a judge to get a search warrant either.
Source?
https://www.zdnet.com/article/hong-kong-protesters-warn-of-telegram-feature-that-can-disclose-their-identities/
Note that while this is about Telegram, this problem of reverse phone-number lookup also exists AFAIK with Signal.