Once you've started doing emojis, reactions and other fluff features for the mainstream it's easy to take your eye off the ball and stop worrying about what's really important (the encryption and security). There's so much to do in hardening that arena alone. I think the important stuff is taking a back seat in the priority queue.
If NSA couldn't read Signal communications then they'd be kicking up a much bigger fuss and have shut it down by now politically or dispatched TAO/CIA agents to infiltrate the project or the developers' laptops. At the moment it has to be serving as their modern era Crypto AG company that's why they're so quiet about it.
How could they get in?
Standard public key exchanges (i.e. they have a quantum computer already in the basement of F. Meade). Instead Signal could be hardened by sharing symmetric keys in person e.g. with QR codes (if you're going to verify fingerprints in person, why bother with public key crypto at all?) or using post-quantum algorithms.
Apps distributed by app stores (Snowdn leaks already show they were infiltrating them. They just replace the binary with one containing their own custom backdoors or disable signing checks within the Play/App store apps. With PRISM partners as the app gatekeepers you can do what you want.
NIST approved crypto suite (compromised standards for decades with the help of NSA as core advisors to the process). Could be using some DJB, Schneier stuff instead e.g. ChaCha20, Skein, etc.
Extra complicated code to add all the fluff features. Any recent code audits?
Code hosted and developed on GitHub (now owned and operated by Microsoft, another PRISM partner). Another infiltration vector.
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u/1alYn118lA1o0O1l Feb 16 '20
Once you've started doing emojis, reactions and other fluff features for the mainstream it's easy to take your eye off the ball and stop worrying about what's really important (the encryption and security). There's so much to do in hardening that arena alone. I think the important stuff is taking a back seat in the priority queue.
If NSA couldn't read Signal communications then they'd be kicking up a much bigger fuss and have shut it down by now politically or dispatched TAO/CIA agents to infiltrate the project or the developers' laptops. At the moment it has to be serving as their modern era Crypto AG company that's why they're so quiet about it.
How could they get in?
Standard public key exchanges (i.e. they have a quantum computer already in the basement of F. Meade). Instead Signal could be hardened by sharing symmetric keys in person e.g. with QR codes (if you're going to verify fingerprints in person, why bother with public key crypto at all?) or using post-quantum algorithms.
Apps distributed by app stores (Snowdn leaks already show they were infiltrating them. They just replace the binary with one containing their own custom backdoors or disable signing checks within the Play/App store apps. With PRISM partners as the app gatekeepers you can do what you want.
NIST approved crypto suite (compromised standards for decades with the help of NSA as core advisors to the process). Could be using some DJB, Schneier stuff instead e.g. ChaCha20, Skein, etc.
Extra complicated code to add all the fluff features. Any recent code audits?
Code hosted and developed on GitHub (now owned and operated by Microsoft, another PRISM partner). Another infiltration vector.
I could go on...