this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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I don't trust Signal one bit. Never have. The original creator Moxie Marlinspike has been neck-deep in Silicon Valley culture for decades. During his tenure in charge of Signal's technical development he made a lot of strange decisions. Forcing his "Mobilecoin" cryptocoin scam in the standard Signal app. Denigrating the concept of warrant canaries. Refusing to allow non-Signal-owned servers to communicate with Signal apps. Requiring that only Signal apps distributed on Google and Apple's app stores be allowed to communicate with Signal-owned servers, etc. Requiring phone numbers for account creation. I don't buy for a moment that he or his colleagues are pro-privacy activists.
It's dumb, but it's also not really marketed and is easy to forget that it exists even when using the app daily.
He consulted with lawyers and they said that removing/not updating a warrant canary would likely have the same legal consequences as violating the court order by simply announcing the subpoena. Also, a warrant canary is nearly useless even in the ideal case because it just says that they got a secret warrant, not what the subpoena was for or any other details. You wouldn't know the exact date, what was requested, or even what country made the request. And it becomes even less useful after receiving the first secret warrant.
Also, not all subpoenas are secret. Signal posts all government requests, including the full documents of all communication between Signal and the government, at https://signal.org/bigbrother
And, since Signal is E2EE, they don't have any useful data to share when they receive a warrant anyway.
Signal isn't federated and it's not intended to be. If you're using a private server, you'd only be able to talk to people also on your servers. If that's a feature you want, you can simply choose a different messaging solution. It's a design decision, not a security flaw.
Here's an official apk download: https://signal.org/android/apk
Yeah, it's kinda weird. They started as an SMS app which obviously requires a phone number and just haven't got rid of the requirement. They added usernames and hide your phone number by default, so you can at least message others without sharing your phone number.
In the end, phone numbers streamline signup and account management and Signal is meant as a texting replacement, not a social media/texting hybrid like Telegram or Discord, so phone numbers help the less tech-literate to use the app. As long as the encryption is sound, phone numbers don't really add that much security risk and the point is to bring high-grade encrypted messaging to everyone, not to be an ultra-anonymous hardened messaging platform to avoid state-level targeted attacks.
Yeah, warrant canaries are kind of a joke. They only work if people actually check them and you think the feds are too stupid to notice (or you think the courts actually care about precedent around not compelling actions but they obviously don't). Or I guess if the creator gets merc'ed or arrested but servers aren't seized, but that's not really what they're supposed to be for.
But this is basically how it's presented to people in a lot of online spaces when the topic comes up, including here. As the gold standard, best you can get, currently unbreakable.
it's kinda both. Not a flaw per-se, but that design decision precludes any verification that the code they are running is what they publish, and at that point what's the point of open source? Being actively hostile to any 3rd party apps, servers, etc. is pretty suspect. In open source security transparency is paramount, IMO.
I'm glad they finally added usernames and stuff but I don't think we should necessarily trust it either. I use it for day to day chatting. it's at least not getting read by advertisers which is a feature on its own. I would not use it for serious organizing
edit: one final thing
Metadata is absolutely useful info, and while signal does protect metadata more than the average bear, I don't think I'd confidently claim they have nothing to hand over if the NSA comes knocking.
All good points!
I think Signal likely could be used to avoid state-level hacks and to be ultra-anonymous, but in that case you'd want to take extra precautions like using a burner and, to your point about metadata, there are other ways to identify who you are than your phone number, especially if you're an organization comprised of many people. Realistically, anyone that has a real need to protect themselves against state-level threats either has the resources available to do so properly with their own tech, or is so hopelessly outmatched that it doesn't matter regardless.
Imo encryption is more about being a roadblock than an impenetrable shield. Even for organizations with infinite money and technological expertise, there are easier ways to identify you and get your data than breaking even moderately good security implementations. News stories of feds getting access to Signal convos are all about getting access to a phone and simply reading the messages, not breaking encryption or setting up honeypots on Signal servers.
The beauty of E2EE is that you don't need to trust the servers at all, once you verify that you're actually connected to the person you intend to be. Doesn't matter if the server is trying to con you, keys are generated locally and everything is signed and encrypted locally before being sent off-device. As long as you can verify that the app you're running matches the published source code, and that the source code isn't duping you, you should be good to go. I haven't reviewed the Signal protocol in a few years, but I don't believe there are any servers that require trust, like say SSL has.
As for hostility towards 3rd party apps, it's pretty common for orgs to want everyone to only use first-party software when interacting with their service. It's nearly ubiquitous today. I think probably all of us on Lemmy prefer platforms that allow for 3rd party apps, but there are legitimate reasons not to and I wouldn't say it's a security flaw.
I think this ties back to the encryption vs wrench scenario. If you're organizing a protest, you're screwed no matter what you use because the cops just need to join the group themselves or take someone's phone. Self-destructing messages can prevent this, and hostility towards 3rd party apps help in that case since you can be more certain that nobody is using some shoddy implementation that ignores self-destruction or improperly deletes things.
If you're organizing a military operation, you shouldn't be using civilian messaging apps full stop.
If you're somewhere in between like a cartel or terrorist organization, please stay off any app I use to send memes to friends.
100%, but it's a hell of a lot less useful than Facebook Messenger, my grandma can set it up in 5 minutes without any trouble, I don't have to maintain any servers, and know that it's supported by well funded top-notch engineers that aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Literally same.
Helps you with local cops for sure. But disappearing messages are also just a false sense of security IMO, there's nothing technically stopping someone from using a modified client like that, in fact some do exist and generally work despite the hostility, and so do screenshots...
I mean yeah, but I don't think this is realistic. If you offer people bulletproof un-censor-able security they're going to take you up on it, even if you don't like them. But signal isn't that
Signal like every mainstream service has some amount of control and uses it to crack down on things like spam. They likely will use that control to censor other things too in the long term. To me that's a bad thing. If it were federated, that power and responsibility would be with the instance/homeserver, not with one centralized organization.
This ties back to my point about metadata. There are plenty of reasons to want to trust the server, and with signal, you can't.
I do agree though, feds doing targeted surveillance have easier ways. The issue is more one of bulk collection, and principle.
And frankly the whole argument about open source safety goes out the window when the source and distribution is centralized, development is done behind closed doors (not sure to what extent this is true of signal clients but it was true of the server), and updates are automatically pushed out.
There are big advantages to the linux-distro-with-maintainers model in that regard, as those are well-versed people who track development and act as a filter between users and a malicious update.
Signal's default
visuals on my phone felt like a warning, too.