Hello. I am looking for an alternative to Telegram and I prefer an application that uses decentralised servers. My question is: why is the xmpp+omemo protocol not recommended on websites when it is open source and decentralised? The privacyguides.org website does not list xmpp+omemo as a recommended messaging service. Nor does this website include it in its comparison of private messaging services.

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/assets/img/cover/real-time-communication.webp

Why do you think xmpp and its messaging clients such as Conversations, Movim, Gajim, etc. do not appear in these guides?

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[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

sealed sender isn’t theater, in my view. It is a best effort attempt to mitigate one potential threat

But, what is the potential threat which is mitigated by sealed sender? Can you describe a specific attack scenario (eg, what are the attacker's goals, and what capabilities do you assume the attacker has) which would be possible if Signal didn't have sealed sender but which is no longer possible because sealed sender exists?

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure. If a state serves a subpoena to gather logs for metadata analysis, sealed sender will prevent associating senders to receivers, making this task very difficult.

On the other hand, what it doesn’t address is if the host itself is compromised where sealed sender can be disabled allowing such analysis (not posthoc though). This is also probably sensitive to strong actors with sufficient resources via a timing attack.

But still, as long as the server is accepting sealed sender messages the mitigation is useful.

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Sure. If a state serves a subpoena to gather logs for metadata analysis, sealed sender will prevent associating senders to receivers, making this task very difficult.

Pre sealed-sender they already claimed not to keep metadata logs, so, complying with such a subpoena^[it would more likely be an NSL or some other legal instrument rather than a subpoena] should already have required them to change the behavior of their server software.

If a state wanted to order them to add metadata logging in a non-sealed-sender world, wouldn't they also probably ask them to log IPs for all client-server interactions (which would enable breaking sealed-sender through a trivial correlation)?

Note that defeating sealed sender doesn't require any kind of high-resolution timing or costly analysis; with an adversary-controlled server (eg, one where a state adversary has compelled the operator to alter the server's behavior via a National Security Letter or something) it is easy to simply record the IP which sent each "sealed" message and also record which account(s) are checked from which IPs at all times.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Yes, subpoena was poorly worded. NSL is more likely. But still it is a time-forward threat, which means there is value while the server is or was accepting sealed sender.

And I wasn’t suggesting timing attack is required to defeat sealed sender. I was, on the contrary, pointing out that was a threat even with sealed sender. Though that is non-trivial, especially with CGNAT.

So in summary. You’re right. Sealed sender is not a great solution. But it is a mitigation for the period where those messages are being accepted. A better solution is probably out there. I hope somebody implements it. In the meantime, for somebody who needs that level of metadata privacy, Signal isn’t the solution; maybe cwtch or briar.

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

So in summary. You’re right. Sealed sender is not a great solution. But

Thanks :)

But, I still maintain it is entirely useless - its only actual use is to give users the false impression that the server is unable to learn the social graph. It is 100% snake oil.

it is a mitigation for the period where those messages are being accepted.

It sounds like you're assuming that, prior to sealed sender, they were actually storing the server-visible sender information rather than immediately discarding it after using it to authenticate the sender? They've always said that they weren't doing that, but, if they were, they could have simply stopped storing that information rather than inventing their "sealed sender" cryptographic construction.

To recap: Sealed sender ostensibly exists specifically to allow the server to verify the sender's permission to send without needing to know the sender identity. It isn't about what is being stored (as they could simply not store the sender information), it is about what is being sent. As far as I can tell it only makes any sense if one imagines that a malicious server somehow would not simply infer the senders' identities from their (obviously already identified) receiver connections from the same IPs.