<html><head></head><body><div><div><div style="display:none;border:0px;width:0px;height:0px;overflow:hidden"><img src="https://r.superhuman.com/qkBS-P5B5VCvXhH1Yj8bjnSMQ9cdQ96BkrXj6y0biwL1ykKJaRQHRk5A3VcH6bayxurvAWRb6ZCayQORQ_KkQv8U0j5Xdc3r6OTLwIEZH1sFdCtzlTuGTlY2PoArzxZUgp_MsI10VLvYaBzxdUc0Dh4.gif" alt=" " width="1" height="0" style="display: none; border: 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px; overflow: hidden; visibility: hidden;"></div><div><div><div class="">Well, let's not mix up human designed cryptography with natural laws like physics. <br></div><div class=""><br></div><div class="">No cryptographic system has ever been proven impossible to break. We make assumptions like "ECDLP is hard" because lots of smart people (how many? who?) have tried to break it (how hard did they try?) and failed (are we sure all of them did?). At the root of all cryptographic schemes there are social assumptions, like the assumption that if someone had found a solution, they'd definitely have published a paper on it and not e.g. sold it to the NSA.<br></div><div class=""><br></div><div class="">For some problems we think those social assumptions are true because the Snowden leaks seemed to suggest even the NSA can't solve them, if we ignore cases where actually they could, like Logjam. And we assume the NSA is filled with really smart people (is it?) who spend lots of time cryptanalysing common algorithms (do they?) … and on we go.<br></div><div class=""><br></div><div class="">Physics doesn't rely on assumptions like that. Anyone can do an experiment to prove its laws are true.</div><div class=""><br></div><div class="">Now, I'm not arguing cryptography is useless or doesn't work. Clearly in the real world it does work. It solves lots of real problems, all the time. But "work" sometimes has a rather technical definition that doesn't match what regular people understand by the term. Do people differentiate between "cryptography" and "encrypted messaging" for example? To the layman cryptography <i class="">is</i> encrypting messages, that's what it's all about. But on this list we know that encrypted messengers rely for security on a lot of things being true, only a small number of which are cryptographic assumptions. To reason about security we have to analyse the whole system end to end. We can't just say, well, nobody knows how to break this particular algorithm right here, so the system is secure.<br></div><div class=""><br></div><div class="">Occasionally I worry that one day the credibility of end-to-end encryption will be harmed, because it will turn out that one of the big players has built in back doors or is changing public keys for targeted intercept. And then we (the 'experts') will say, ah ha! In fact, we never claimed these systems were secure against such attacks. And all the general public will hear is, "you said tech firms couldn't read our messages and you were wrong".<br></div><div class=""><br></div><div class="">The restrictions WhatsApp put on forwarding messages might be an early sign of what's to come.<br></div><div class=""><br></div><div class=""><a href="https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/whatsapp-message-forwarding-disinformation-coronavirus.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/whatsapp-message-forwarding-disinformation-coronavirus.html</a><br></div><div class=""><br></div><div class="">Cryptographically, the double ratchet/AES/Noise/etc are all designed to stop a MITM detecting if the same message is being sent twice. This is a core algorithmic property that cryptographers stress over. In the real world, when Facebook decided they had a moral obligation to fight "rumours" they just modified the software to stop people forwarding messages. When the MITM controls the endpoints it's unclear what meaning cryptography actually has, beyond time limited legal arguments.<br></div><div class=""><br></div><div class=""><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_signature"></div></div><br><div><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 17:30:54, Mikalai Birukou <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mb@3nsoft.com" target="_blank">mb@3nsoft.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote sh-color-black sh-color" style="null" id="null"><blockquote cite="mid:CANEZrP2Ttg6ymFK58Kj83uD-V5=VFXhJnqUuSqMVQA=ZDVkBOw@mail.gmail.com" type="cite" class="sh-color-black sh-color"><div class="sh-color-black sh-color"><div class="sh-color-black sh-color">
<div class="sh-color-black sh-color">
<blockquote class="sh-color-black sh-color">
<div class="sh-color-black sh-color">It won't surprise me if at some point
EncroPhone gets silently taken over by the Dutch police
and used in a sting operation<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="sh-color-black sh-color"><br>
</div>
<div class="sh-color-black sh-color">Well, that didn't take long:<br>
</div>
<div class="sh-color-black sh-color"><br>
</div>
<div class="sh-color-black sh-color"><a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2020/06/20/news/wave-of-arrests-after-breach-of-encrypted-communication-network-1980136/" target="_blank">https:/<wbr>/<wbr>www.<wbr>irishnews.<wbr>com/<wbr>news/<wbr>northernirelandnews/<wbr>2020/<wbr>06/<wbr>20/<wbr>news/<wbr>wave-of-arrests-after-breach-of-encrypted-communication-network-1980136/<wbr></a><br>
</div>
<div class="sh-color-black sh-color"><br>
</div>
<div class="sh-color-black sh-color">In the end, cryptography still boils down to
trusting people (the implementors).<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p class="sh-color-black sh-color">Since we have Mike from the guardian, a wordsmith, if I may,
let's carefully note use of words and say that " *security of a
thing* still boils down to trusting people (the implementors)".</p>
Wordsmiths, please, don't perpetuate a nihilism-leaning memes by
loose use of words that somehow hint that cryptography is not
reliable. If there were problems with cryptography, police would not
need, quote, "sophisticated attack and the malware code". And when
was the last time you've heard a phrase "physics still boils down to
trusting GM car breaks"?</div></div></blockquote></div></div><br></div></div></body></html>