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Yes, it is odd that this criticism is only allowed for gpg while worse Signal issues are not publicized here: https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intel
by bgwalter 9mo ago
Yes, it is odd that this criticism is only allowed for gpg while worse Signal issues are not publicized here:
https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/russia-targeting-signal-messenger https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/rus...
Some Ukrainians may regret that the followed the Signal marketing. I have never heard of a real world exploit that has actually been used like that against gpg.
- tptacek 9mo agoWhy would anyone care if you brought phishing attacks on Signal users up?
- bgwalter 9mo agoPeople who do not wish to get killed may care.
- tptacek 9mo agoThose people shouldn't be, and thankfully aren't, using PGP. Nobody is suppressing this report on phishing attacks against Signal users; it's just not as big a deal as what's wrong with PGP.
- bgwalter 9mo agoAccidentally replying in plaintext is a user error, scanning a QR code is a user error. Yet one system is declared secure (Signal), the other is declared insecure. Despite the fact that the QR code issue happened in a war zone, whereas I have not heard of a similar PGP fail in the real world.
- tptacek 9mo agoFirst of all, accidentally replying in plaintext is hardly the only problem with PGP, just the most obvious one. Secondly, it's not user error: modern messaging cryptography is designed not to allow it to happen.
- bgwalter 9mo agoModern cryptography should also not allow users to activate a sketchy linked device feature by scanning a QR code: "Because linking an additional device typically requires scanning a quick-response (QR) code, threat actors have resorted to crafting malicious QR codes that, when scanned, will link a victim's account to an actor-controlled Signal instance." This is a complete failure of the cryptosystem, worse than the issue of responding in plaintext. You can at least design an email client that simply refuses to send plaintext messages because PGP is modular.
- tptacek 8mo agoI'm comfortable with what this thread says about our respective arguments. Thanks!