I just noticed that this video is also available on Odysee.
https://odysee.com/@RobBraxmanTech:6/signal-unsafe:7
I don’t know this platform, but can’t be as bad as YouTube, no ?
It is based on LBRY.
Hmm, the style of the video is maybe a bit pushy and I am not sure if it is useful to make a case with the Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram connection and then turn around and say because this lot is bad all other alternatives like Signal etc. are equally bad, but I have to admit that it makes you think.
I have read several times that meta data leaking can be as bad as access to the actual message and I think he explains well why that might be.
I am less clear what to do about this. It is unlikely to set up a network of people and only communications with them in this network and at the same time to ensure that no one in this network communicates with anyone else. So they communicate with you, but only you ?
My view is that I am less concerned about state access to my (meta) data. They have a lot anyway, with certificates, passport, medical record etc… My concern is that this data is used and misused for a small fee by private companies and here it seems to comes down to trust. Do I really think that Signal or Tutanota sell my data in the same way as Facebook does ? Other than that I don’t see how people who want to be able to communicate in the digital world with other less tech savvy people can do so.
Are there projects out there who next to encryption focus on minimising or avoiding meta data?
Self-hosting is a good way to keep most of the metadata under your control.
I have a Nextcloud for my own, works mostly well, but it requires some effort here and there and I oft wondered what my dear users would say (if there were any) if it takes me several days again to fix some small issues or renew the certificate. Plus I know nothing about security and can only hope everything is all right. Once you set email, messenger etc. up for larger groups I could see the efforts to keep this stable and secure to be quite high. It’s probably a good solution for the privacy problem but I am not so sure that it is a solution that is manageable or even available for many and therefore a good solution overall.
It only scales horizontally but not vertically indeed.
I don’t know…
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He is saying that encryption makes you a target: Well, WhatsApp is encrypted. So with approximately 2 billion people that all are getting targeted, being targeted isn’t bad anymore, because there are so many targets.
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Signal can track metadata: Where is the proof, where is the reference, where is anything of that? Moxie Marlinspike showed all his metadate in a talk of his. The only metadata there is to read is “lastSeen” and “accountCreated” which says basically nothing. No groups, no contacts, no everything. Bold assertion to say otherwise without any kind of proof.
The video was mainly about how a lot of these platforms tie your real identity to you user, then use contact lists to leak what users you’re connected to.
He gives the example of a fed wanting to find a suspects for a hacking case. He has a potential list of names, and subpoenas the phone company’s for their phone numbers. He then installs signal, whatsapp, telegram ( all of those services that use real person identifiers ) and adds those phone numbers to his contact list. Boom, now he can narrow down suspects because all of those services, including signal, will tell you if that person uses signal.
The key link was phone number identifiers, which are easily traced to your real identity, and which is the backbone of signal’s id system.
He gives the example of a fed wanting to find a suspects for a hacking case. He has a potential list of names, and subpoenas the phone company’s for their phone numbers. He then installs signal, whatsapp, telegram ( all of those services that use real person identifiers ) and adds those phone numbers to his contact list. Boom, now he can narrow down suspects because all of those services, including signal, will tell you if that person uses signal.
The only thing the fed is doing here is checking if number x has signal installed. How is ‘having signal installed’ connected to ‘being a hacker/criminal’?
Hackers are more likely to use encrypted messengers, and signal will gladly tell the world, even people you don’t know that you use it via contact lists. Anyone in law enforcement is going to consider someone who uses encrypted messengers a more likely suspect than someone who doesn’t.
Meta-data analysis is all about collecting many different data-points that together form a clear picture but individually don’t mean much.
Having Signal installed, or rather having your phone-number registered with the Signal service, which in turn leaks this fact to anyone asking via their app, is a vital data-point in such a meta-data analysis.
Signal can track metadata: Where is the proof, where is the reference, where is anything of that? Moxie Marlinspike showed all his metadate in a talk of his. The only metadata there is to read is “lastSeen” and “accountCreated” which says basically nothing. No groups, no contacts, no everything. Bold assertion to say otherwise without any kind of proof.
You made me watch the video again and he does not make such a claim anywhere as far as I can tell.
But for what it is worth… there is a difference between storing metadata (which Signal probably doesn’t do, at least not on regular basis and only on a very limited scale) and being able to access metadata in real-time. The latter Signal can easily do and it can also easily be forced to do so with a gag-order by US authorities.
He is saying that encryption makes you a target
To push back on this as well, encryption only makes you a target where encryption is abnormal/illegal. For example, making an encrypted phone call in UAE via FaceTime would get flagged immediately since it’s illegal. Use of encryption in most countries is incredibly common since it’s used for banking, general websites, etc. It’s not just about messaging. Even if it was, your point stands.
Signal can track metadata
This YouTuber is actually notorious for not posting sources to his claims. Which is just goofy since he considers himself to be a source of non-mainstream information on privacy.
This YouTuber is actually notorious for not posting sources to his claims. Which is just goofy since he considers himself to be a source of non-mainstream information on privacy.
From my (very limited) point of view, he is just talking a lot of bullshit.
Its even counterproductive, because he is putting quite good (even tho maybe not perfect) applications on the same level as Facebook’s application, which are so different that I can’t discribe it.
Yeah definitely. He’s the type of dude to bring up a privacy concern without being realistic. It’s why I prefer Techlore. They at least talk about pros and cons in a realistic manner and understand that a lot of what we want to do with our devices will not be 100% private. It’s more so about finding they least privacy-violating service.
He annoys me so much. It’s awesome that he points out privacy issues and raises awareness. But he always points out things which are possible in theory as facts which are already happening at large. Like after some researchers showed that it might be possible to keep track of location data by using the gyroscope feature, he started to say that all non foss apps are doing that.
Yeah, without a doubt. That classifies him really well.
He is saying that encryption makes you a target
well, that was maybe true back in the days, or if using the tor network or smth, but like you said, nowadays billions of ppl use encrypted messengers
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This kind of shitty fear mongering is the reason why people should learn about threat modeling…
Well this is that this video is about, no? Maybe a bit hyperbole, but it does raise valid questions about metadata issues especially related to phone-number use that the e2ee fan-boys usually try to ignore.
No, this video talks about the tiniest bit of metadata leak as if it’s the end of the world, when it isn’t.
Putting all the apps at the same level is complete bullshit. Telegram doesn’t even really do E2EE (it’s off by default and only available for a fragment of the features provided by Telegram), and ProtonMail and Tutanota are completely different from Signal with regards to what they protect from.
His solution is to self-host emails. That’s out of reach for 99.99% of internet users, and doesn’t prevent any form of tracking. If you self host, you may be able to create infinitely many emails but they will all be identifiable to you because they all share the same domain name… If you use a VPS to host your email, your host can also access your running VM and all its data and there’s nothing you can do about it, or even detect it.
ProtonMail, Tutanota, Signal are not designed to help you detonate a nuclear bomb in new york. They’re designed to prevent the NSA from doing mass surveillance. And if you suddenly become a high value target, government agency might have access to some metadata through them, but that’s true for almost any service you use, and those are going to give them much less metadata and are much more likely to try to fight in court to avoid having to share it.
This video also completely ignores the fact that at some point humans play a role. Even if everything is encrypted and no metadata exists, it is still very easy to just trick your friends and family to give away info about you. Unless you live in the woods with no contact at all, it will be much easier to just go through real people than breaking into theses systems relevant xkcd.
People (including me) do say just use Signal, because I’m not talking to Snowden, I’m talking to random people who don’t know shit about computers and theses services are a very easy way to reclaim a lot of privacy without sacrificing features. Even I don’t bother hosting my own stuff or refrain from communicating with other people just because they’re not using tools that are way too complex for the normal user and lack features that every other service offers…
He does mention that he self-hosts and uses it to talk only to people on his own network, but in 99.999% of people that will mean only talking to themselves…
His solution is to self-host emails.
Which is totally bonkers since surveillance happens primarily in transit. If he’s communicating with someone through PGP via Protonmail, it’s just as secure as if he would do it through his own email. All of his banking details - things like that - are just as exposed on any email service (except maybe Google cause they read your inbox for “user experience”).
The only time he mentions email in the vid is to say that its not secure and you shouldn’t use it. Email was definitely not the focus of the vid.
Yeah fair enough, I’m just nit-picking for discussion’s sake to be honest.
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.
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.
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.
Source?
Note that while this is about Telegram, this problem of reverse phone-number lookup also exists AFAIK with Signal.
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.
When it comes to states spying you then there is no safety. The state can always just send someone over to put a gun on your head (or the legal equivalent) and voila, you yourself give them your data.
And I understand that states are very different in their (perceived) legal integrity, but if I should guess ( no evidence) then all the encryption and safety development benefit criminals most. Also some journalists and dissidents but mostly criminals to do their criminal business and in the whole, if you have the fortune to live in a state that can be mostly trusted I prefer that Police has some lever identity this kind communication. Not in-similar to when Police is allowed to tap your phone (after a judge signed off). Not many people where concerned about that.
So so in the end I feel the bigger threat are private companies who sell all your data for the highest bidder regards of the bidders intention. And provided you trust Signal, ProtonMail and Tutanota then they definitely reduce the risk there (imho).
Even with a gun to your head you can still make the choice to say “no”. This is always the case - you always have the choice to refuse, you just have to be prepared to live with the consequences.
I needed to be police vetted for a job and they wanted to know lots of stuff about me, including who I’d slept with in the last five years (becaue, allegedly, this information could be used to blackmail so… Well so why would I tell the rozzers, exactly…? Anyway, getting off my point). I refused to tell them because the people I’d slept with hadn’t given their consent. I was refused the job *shrug
I refused to tell them because the people I’d slept with hadn’t given their consent. I was refused the job
I wouldn’t give the job to a rapist either. 🙃
To be clear, I meant consent for me to share their love-life with the police!
You’re a naughty person! But you did make me laugh.
I hope he just made a mistake when typing haha
@[email protected] if you use https://redirect.invidious.io/ you can point users to use Invidious without being attached to a specific instance but to a redirector to instances with good health.
Unfortunately that doesn’t look like it pulls thumbnails or anything.
But I think it is better to point people to a Free Software alternative even if it is only an alternative frontend.
Am I the only one who doesn’t like linking to alternative frontends? Instances are often unreliable, sketchy, and they come and go. Additionally it obscures the true source of information (which is very important to me personally). I also have an auto redirect set up for YouTube to my favourite instance, and it obviously doesn’t work when someone links to something else.
Why do you think I put a general redirector link?
The general redirector redirects you to YouTube if there is no other way or to Invidious instances you choose with good health.
Yep there being metadata, and it being abused, are also two subtle differences. We know with WhatsApp there is metadata including IP address, location, phone number, etc, but it also gets actively sent to a company (FB) whose business is to profit from that data and advertising. We know Telegram and Signal have some metadata but neither are in the business of selling data. Yes Wire, Threema, etc don’t have as much metadata and don’t have an actual phone number or e-mail to even tie it too, but how many of our friends are actually using the services… There has to be some dose of actual reality too.
Hosting own e-mail has some issues unless you put it on some server service and the domain is usually tied in some way to you, and yes that e-mail is often accessible in transit because again 99.99% of our friends and businesses that we mail, have not got OpenPGP or similar E2EE on all their e-mails. I have only one family member who exchanges fully E2EE mail with me. Every other one is using GMail standard or a work server etc. The fact of life is that very few people are able to fully setup e-mail servers with all the validations etc required so that the server is not blacklisted. I can just imagine my doctor, plumber, local hardware shop, etc all setting up their own privately hosted and fully encrypted mail servers - I just hope they’re using the same encryption standard I’m using otherwise neither of us will read each other’s mails ;-)
We know Telegram and Signal have some metadata but neither are in the business of selling data.
That’s not really for us to know. In signal’s case, its domiciled in the US, and due to NSL laws, it’d be illegal for them to tell you that they’ve been forced to forward info to the US govt. Not only that, but a lot of their early funding came from the OTF, a US government fund.
Which actuially means we don’t “know” any of that - difference again with Facebook is it has sated in it’s privacy policy that it is sharing the metadata, so we do “know” that. We can’t just speculate about what others do unless we have evidence in some form. We do know that Signal and Telegram (as at now) are not in the advertsiing business, nor that their privacy policies state data is being passed on.
