10 ms·

Show HN: ZuccNet – Encrypted Facebook Messaging

76 points by tomquirk 6y ago

Gys 6y ago
Interesting idea. The problem that I see is once me and my friend(s) decide together to use some special tool we could just as well decide to use another platform. Might be easier to use as well (even my father knows how to use, for example, Signal). Surely Zuck will not be reading other platform messages if preventing that is your goal ;-)
gigel82 6y ago
I bet Facebook gets a lot more value out of tracking you across services and locations than from the actual contents of your messages. This doesn't address it; if you're willing to go to these lengths, just switch to another platform that encrypts E2E.
- netsharc 6y ago
  True, if you can get your friend to care enough to install this exotic app, you can also get them to install the WhatsApp alternative of the day...
foolinaround 6y ago
great as an academic exercise, but not useful in reality.
sweis 6y ago
Facebook Messenger already has Secret Conversations, which is end-to-end encrypted mode based on the Signal protocol. Here's the technical whitepaper: https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/messenger-secret-conversations-technical-whitepaper.pdf https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/messenger-se... Here's some of the academic work on messaging franking that it has driven: https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/664.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/664.pdf Here's the instructions how to use it: https://www.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/1084673321594605 https://www.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/1084673321594605 Of course, you need to trust that the client from the app store and no, the implementation is not open source.
- sweis 6y ago
  Also, ZuccNet is using RSA-2048-OAEP to encrypt each message: https://github.com/tomquirk/zuccnet/blob/master/src/util/crypto.js#L57 https://github.com/tomquirk/zuccnet/blob/master/src/util/cry... This is not forward secure. It will also only work for messages under 256 bytes. I don't know what happens in this code if you exceed that message length. You want to use ephemeral session keys here. Read the Secret Conversations whitepaper as an example.
- stiray 6y ago
  If you are trusting facebook in any matter, you are misunderstanding something. Whatever they say, they have the keys to decrypt it. It is like trusting the thief to guard your house. I dislike this "ZuccNet" as the real goal should be abandoning facebook ecosystem but I still think that anything for naive people is better than nothing, so thumbs up.
  - sweis 6y ago
    Your assertion is false. Please read the whitepaper. Facebook does not have the key to decrypt messages sent with Secret Conversations. It is generated on-device. You can confirm that using simple reverse engineering tools on, say, the Android APK. Yes, Facebook could subvert the binary by pushing an update. That is the risk you are accepting.
    - stiray 6y ago
      This is whitepaper, it is not implementation of closed source application. Let me explain how this works in PR world. You publish (with all the bells and whistles) that you have end to end encryption and explain protocol that uses asymmetric cryptography (just for the sake of simplicity I will simplify - you have public and private key, you send public key to all chatters with you, they will encrypt randomly generated symmetric key with it (asymmetric crypto is slow, you don't want to use it directly) and send it back (where you decrypt it) and vice versa. Then you use symmetric key that you have safely exchanged for use in block cypher, lets say Rijndael 265635238 bits (as big numbers mean more safety(tm) /s). You publish white papers of protocol, get all the cryptographers on your side. Fanboys are screaming, public is applauding, girls wants to sleep with you and president is thankful. What you don't tell is that you also encrypt symmetric key with YOUR public key that is embedded into application and send it along as a "status_check" field. And everyone is happy forever after. /s > Your speculation is not interesting to me. This works in both directions. But bottom line, whitepaper is not the application (and even if it would be, have fun reading http://www.underhanded-c.org/ http://www.underhanded-c.org/ or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG and who has more motive as the corporation that profits from spying on everyone and everything). It is just as the name says. Whitepaper. "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" or maybe you will like this one more: "Trust is built in drops and lost in buckets" And you dont trust someone as Facebook or Google any more. They have lost trust in ship containers not buckets.
benbristow 6y ago
Can't seem to login if I'm using 2FA, even with an 'app password'.
e12e 6y ago
Reminds that Facebook messenger started out as (non federated) XMPP and worked with OTR until they re-factored everything. For a little while it was possible to just use pidgin, and have OTR work with Google talk (also boycotting fédération), Facebook and general XMPP. But now the silo walls have been reinforced.
xanax 6y ago
I would still stay away from Facebook even with this. That platform is a data miner. Nothing more, nothing less.
- RandallBrown 6y ago
  And all these years I've been using it as a photo sharing site, trip planning site, event planning site, news aggregator, messenger, and about a dozen other things. Data mining is the price you pay to have those things for free. I'll leave it up to individuals to decide whether or not it's worth the cost.
some_furry 6y ago
This isn't safe to use: https://github.com/tomquirk/zuccnet/blob/42e351e36b3b5dbaef06256ed11313fab77adb25/src/util/crypto.js#L57-L84 https://github.com/tomquirk/zuccnet/blob/42e351e36b3b5dbaef0... 1. Try encrypting a message larger than 256 characters. Even if you somehow succeed, it will fail to decrypt. (My understanding of JS crypto is that it will throw an error if you try.) 2. It lacks forward secrecy. A much better design would be to encrypt with an ephemeral (one-time) 256-bit AES key (using CBC+HMAC), then encrypt the key with RSA. (AES-GCM is probably easier, but if you're worried about message commitment, that's not recommended.) (On sweis's comment about Secret Conversations: I don't trust closed source implementations--and neither do a lot of us on HN, so that's a non-starter. Tell the Facebook team to open source it, with reproducible builds, if you want it to be trusted.) Recommended reading for the author: https://soatok.blog/2020/11/14/going-bark-a-furrys-guide-to-end-to-end-encryption/ https://soatok.blog/2020/11/14/going-bark-a-furrys-guide-to-...
armoredkitten 6y ago
The Venn diagram of "people who would be willing to use a tool like this" and "people who are already using Signal" is a circle. Still, it's a fun proof of concept tool.
faitswulff 6y ago
Will this result in getting locked out of your account for “suspicious spam messages?”
xuhu 6y ago
A browser extension that does exactly this would be useful.
modeitsch 6y ago
Just create a Facebook without Facebook knowing your activity

76 points by tomquirk 6y ago

Gys 6y ago

Interesting idea. The problem that I see is once me and my friend(s) decide together to use some special tool we could just as well decide to use another platform. Might be easier to use as well (even my father knows how to use, for example, Signal). Surely Zuck will not be reading other platform messages if preventing that is your goal ;-)

gigel82 6y ago

I bet Facebook gets a lot more value out of tracking you across services and locations than from the actual contents of your messages. This doesn't address it; if you're willing to go to these lengths, just switch to another platform that encrypts E2E.

netsharc 6y ago
True, if you can get your friend to care enough to install this exotic app, you can also get them to install the WhatsApp alternative of the day...

foolinaround 6y ago

great as an academic exercise, but not useful in reality.

sweis 6y ago

Facebook Messenger already has Secret Conversations, which is end-to-end encrypted mode based on the Signal protocol. Here's the technical whitepaper: https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/messenger-secret-conversations-technical-whitepaper.pdf https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/messenger-se... Here's some of the academic work on messaging franking that it has driven: https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/664.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/664.pdf Here's the instructions how to use it: https://www.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/1084673321594605 https://www.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/1084673321594605 Of course, you need to trust that the client from the app store and no, the implementation is not open source.

sweis 6y ago
Also, ZuccNet is using RSA-2048-OAEP to encrypt each message: https://github.com/tomquirk/zuccnet/blob/master/src/util/crypto.js#L57 https://github.com/tomquirk/zuccnet/blob/master/src/util/cry... This is not forward secure. It will also only work for messages under 256 bytes. I don't know what happens in this code if you exceed that message length. You want to use ephemeral session keys here. Read the Secret Conversations whitepaper as an example.
stiray 6y ago
If you are trusting facebook in any matter, you are misunderstanding something. Whatever they say, they have the keys to decrypt it. It is like trusting the thief to guard your house. I dislike this "ZuccNet" as the real goal should be abandoning facebook ecosystem but I still think that anything for naive people is better than nothing, so thumbs up.
- sweis 6y ago
  Your assertion is false. Please read the whitepaper. Facebook does not have the key to decrypt messages sent with Secret Conversations. It is generated on-device. You can confirm that using simple reverse engineering tools on, say, the Android APK. Yes, Facebook could subvert the binary by pushing an update. That is the risk you are accepting.
  - stiray 6y ago
    This is whitepaper, it is not implementation of closed source application. Let me explain how this works in PR world. You publish (with all the bells and whistles) that you have end to end encryption and explain protocol that uses asymmetric cryptography (just for the sake of simplicity I will simplify - you have public and private key, you send public key to all chatters with you, they will encrypt randomly generated symmetric key with it (asymmetric crypto is slow, you don't want to use it directly) and send it back (where you decrypt it) and vice versa. Then you use symmetric key that you have safely exchanged for use in block cypher, lets say Rijndael 265635238 bits (as big numbers mean more safety(tm) /s). You publish white papers of protocol, get all the cryptographers on your side. Fanboys are screaming, public is applauding, girls wants to sleep with you and president is thankful. What you don't tell is that you also encrypt symmetric key with YOUR public key that is embedded into application and send it along as a "status_check" field. And everyone is happy forever after. /s > Your speculation is not interesting to me. This works in both directions. But bottom line, whitepaper is not the application (and even if it would be, have fun reading http://www.underhanded-c.org/ http://www.underhanded-c.org/ or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG and who has more motive as the corporation that profits from spying on everyone and everything). It is just as the name says. Whitepaper. "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" or maybe you will like this one more: "Trust is built in drops and lost in buckets" And you dont trust someone as Facebook or Google any more. They have lost trust in ship containers not buckets.

benbristow 6y ago

Can't seem to login if I'm using 2FA, even with an 'app password'.

e12e 6y ago

Reminds that Facebook messenger started out as (non federated) XMPP and worked with OTR until they re-factored everything. For a little while it was possible to just use pidgin, and have OTR work with Google talk (also boycotting fédération), Facebook and general XMPP. But now the silo walls have been reinforced.

xanax 6y ago

I would still stay away from Facebook even with this. That platform is a data miner. Nothing more, nothing less.

RandallBrown 6y ago
And all these years I've been using it as a photo sharing site, trip planning site, event planning site, news aggregator, messenger, and about a dozen other things. Data mining is the price you pay to have those things for free. I'll leave it up to individuals to decide whether or not it's worth the cost.

some_furry 6y ago

This isn't safe to use: https://github.com/tomquirk/zuccnet/blob/42e351e36b3b5dbaef06256ed11313fab77adb25/src/util/crypto.js#L57-L84 https://github.com/tomquirk/zuccnet/blob/42e351e36b3b5dbaef0... 1. Try encrypting a message larger than 256 characters. Even if you somehow succeed, it will fail to decrypt. (My understanding of JS crypto is that it will throw an error if you try.) 2. It lacks forward secrecy. A much better design would be to encrypt with an ephemeral (one-time) 256-bit AES key (using CBC+HMAC), then encrypt the key with RSA. (AES-GCM is probably easier, but if you're worried about message commitment, that's not recommended.) (On sweis's comment about Secret Conversations: I don't trust closed source implementations--and neither do a lot of us on HN, so that's a non-starter. Tell the Facebook team to open source it, with reproducible builds, if you want it to be trusted.) Recommended reading for the author: https://soatok.blog/2020/11/14/going-bark-a-furrys-guide-to-end-to-end-encryption/ https://soatok.blog/2020/11/14/going-bark-a-furrys-guide-to-...

armoredkitten 6y ago

The Venn diagram of "people who would be willing to use a tool like this" and "people who are already using Signal" is a circle. Still, it's a fun proof of concept tool.

faitswulff 6y ago

Will this result in getting locked out of your account for “suspicious spam messages?”

xuhu 6y ago

A browser extension that does exactly this would be useful.

modeitsch 6y ago

Just create a Facebook without Facebook knowing your activity