It _seems_ you (someone from the Signal project?) are actively diverting from the point, with what is ultimately a security theater request. Keybase's app - which IS open source - doesn't trust the server at all. We could be running anything server-side, regardless of what we do or don't publish. Meanwhile, Signal's story is "you MUST trust our server, over and over again," as the blog post explains. Unfortunately there's no way to know what's happening on the server. So being like Signal and publishing your server source is strictly worse than being like Keybase and not (yet?) publishing server-side source. At any time, Signal could be throwing in these fake key upgrades, either due to running other source code on purpose, or being forced to, or just plain getting hacked. The most malicious Keybase server could not.
This comment may be of interest (we could release server code at some point, and I will take this as a vote), but I hope people reading this aren't distracted by Signal's flaw here.
> But to be clear, you're actively diverting from the point.
...
I get why you showed up here, but you're really not addressing the point of the post at all, and in fact you're trying to distract with the suggestion that Signal's publication of that code protects people from this flaw. It doesn't. At all.
Wow, that's a pretty hostile (and accusatory) response to a fair ask. This is one (small) step removed from accusing someone of shilling/astroturfing.
Let your product stand on its own merits. If you have a good reason why you won't open source Keybase's server implementation, own it. Don't undermine requests to open source the code by publicly accusing people of supporting a competing product.
The person you're replying to didn't make an argument in favor of Signal - or any other competing product, for that matter. In my opinion, your response is actively distracting from their request.
Even if they publish their server code there is no way for anyone to verify that it's the code they are actually running and it would be just a PR move. If the client implementation is good there should be no way that the server can compromise any message.
It's a step toward people running their own servers, either federated with Keybase proper, or just as a personal instance. That would be valuable for quite a number of enthusiasts. Federation (like email/XMPP) is a very reasonable feature for any forward-looking communication platform.
Keybase's target is to become a central identity point. Other features (like team chat and git repos) are made to showcase what you could do with that.
Okay, and that's exactly the kind of reasoned response that's appropriate. What's not appropriate is implying the request is simply unfounded because of its source. It's not charitable.
Well, equally, GP could've disclosed their conflict of interests instead of just using a hit&run one-line red herring. OP makes a post advocating not having to trust a server, and most upvoted comment is someone asking them to open their server so they can trust it? Doesn't make much sense..
Agreed, they could disclose a conflict of interest. But I don't think it matters here, because their request could reasonably have been brought up by someone unaffiliated with Signal.
In other words - you don't need to be affiliated with Signal to be in favor of open sourcing the server-side code. It's a fairly common complaint on HN, and I can see why it was the top comment for a while even if I don't ultimately agree with the need to open source the code. Likewise, if you look at the link to the GitHub issue you can see many other people likewise asking for - or reacting to responses to - open source the server code.
Do all those people have conflicts of interest? Is it possible that the affiliation with Signal doesn't matter here? Then be charitable, and let your actual reason for not fulfilling the request stand on its own.
I think it's a pretty reasonable way to combat FUD.
It's tough to compete on security because users struggly to know what's actually better (on top of needing convincing security is a worthwhile differentiator in the first place). A client that doesn't trust a server is a great improvement and "show us the server" is a terrible response.
Then the reasonable thing to do is to explain why it's a terrible response. What's unreasonable is to imply that the request is a sideshow in favor of a competing product because of the identity of the person who brought it up.
If you have a good reason not to fulfill the request, charitably responding to the request with that reasoning is an educational opportunity for the audience. There's just no need to bring identities into the mix like this, and I think a dispassionate response outlining why the server need not even be trusted would stand on its own.
Fair enough - I don't want to dilute my point by coming across as too hostile, even though my point is that it seems like a well-crafted diversion. Let me edit it down and your quote of the original can stand.
Whoa... I don't work for and have never worked for Signal. Feel free to ask Moxie if I have ever worked for Signal and the answer will be an abject "no".
I think it's worth meditating on the tradeoffs of your system design. Nothing is perfect.
Signal is trying to do the best that it can, and I really think that the starting line in writing secure software is open sourcing the whole thing from top to bottom. Anything less isn't auditable.
Note: I edited this post to make the language more addressable. I love the work Keybase is doing, but I want them to open source their server.
How does open sourcing the server help you audit what their servers are running? There's no way to know if what's open source matches their running code, and if the security of the system depends on the server being open, it's not secure.
Because if you don't trust it you can run the server yourself and see if the behavior is correct AND over time as we move to a world where servers become better able to verify the code they're running, we can improve the trust model.
Given the choice between having the server code open sourced or not, the choice that is higher trust has to be open source.
That's just false. You can get all of the trust information necessary from the client. It's exactly the same amount of trust.
edit: To be clear, even if they open sourced the server right now, I would not even look at the code to determine if running the client was safe. The only time I would care to look at the server code is if the client's correct operation depends on the server running specific code. If it doesn't do that, then the server code doesn't matter. And if it does do that, I wouldn't trust the system, anyway.
So audit the client assuming that all of the traffic it sends is in the clear (i.e. not over https to keybase's servers). If that's not sufficient, then don't use keybase.
Regardless, until you have a way to ensure the server is running the code you expect it to be running (can this even exist? what about hardware level attacks on the servers keybase is running?) the server code is useless from a security perspective.
Releasing the server code allows concerned users to run their own servers, and this way they can ensure that they are using a server that runs the code that they expect.
There is no need to run the code that you expect if the client is designed properly, and you are only sure you're running the code you expect until your server is hacked, which also becomes a non-issue if the client is designed properly. There are other reasons to want to self host: to be in control of your (encrypted) data so that it isn't lost if keybase goes under, for example. But security is not one of the reasons.
Why assume that the server will eventually get hacked? Why shouldn't the server be designed properly, just like the client?
I still think it makes sense in terms of security. If I run a piece of client software X that connects to a server Y, it will always be better in terms of security if I'm in control of what runs on Y. This is independent on how X has been audited. So yeah I would argue that security is also a reason.
Assuming the server will eventually get hacked is how you design secure systems. You assume the worst, and ensure you are still secure. The server code being designed well had nothing to do with the hardware running the system being hacked. For instance, no amount of good design in my server stops a remote 0-day against linux, for example.
This is a subtle point, but that thinking is misguided. You, as a client, have no control over what server you’re actually talking to. The only way to be sure you are secure is to be secure independently of if the server has been hacked, or is malicious, or whatever. Thus, you design your system such that the client only discloses information that is allowed to be public to the server (public keys, encrypted messages where the server can’t decrypt it, etc). In that way, you don’t care what code the server is running, and auditing the server makes no difference to security.
The whole purpose of cryptography is to reduce the set of things you need to trust. Including the server in the trusted base is not only a worse design but a false sense of security if your trust ends up misplaced (hacked).
So, this is different than how a bank would work, for example. In the case of a bank, you have to trust that their servers are secure, and their software being open would help with auditing that. In this case, keybase is not the endpoint you’re talking to: another keybase client is. The keybase server is just an intermediary, just like any router on the internet.
You can construct a client such that the server IS outside of the scope. You can determine if a client has such a property from the client alone. I would only want to use a client such that the server is outside of the scope. It's strictly better if the client has this property even if the server is open and magically trusted to be running the code you expect. The keybase client is such a client. If it isn't please inform someone with details on why.
edit: Do you audit all of the software running on all of the routers between you and keybase's servers? Why or why not? If not, why does this reasoning not extend to the servers? Why would the routers not part of the whole system, top to bottom?
It would be great to audit all of the software running on all of the routers I use. I hope that we someday move to a model where all routers run open-source attestable software.
Let me phrase this another way: if there's nothing to hide on the server, why isn't it open source?
We can go back and forth on this forever. My position is simple: strictly speaking, it's more rational to trust open source software. Trusting closed source software ultimately boils down to "trust me". I would love to reduce the degrees to which we have to blindly trust the systems we use.
And yet, all of the routers are not audited, and I presume you believe in the security of some applications that use them. In other words, the trusted base of the system does not depend on all of the components in the system (you start with the assumption that any closed components are hostile). The keybase servers are exactly the same.
The answer is that they do have things to hide: anti-spam/anti-scam systems, for example. The question is if they are hiding something that matters for security. You can determine this by auditing only the client.
Sure, open source software is great, and has many uses. In this case, it has no use in ensuring that keybase is secure. Somehow, you don't have to trust a great many components in the secure software you use on a daily basis, and yet you have to trust keybase's servers because.. reasons? And somehow this trust is important even though you'd still be blindly trusting that they're running what you hope.
I won't argue that some people would benefit from the server being open source, but to argue that open sourcing it has anything to do with security is just inane and FUD.
The question boils down to "what can an attacker learn by owning the server" and right now you don't know. You can pretend that doesn't matter, but it's not inane or FUD.
You have to model the whole system to understand the threat model. Anything less is blind trust.
You can know exactly what the attacker can learn because you can see ALL of the information that your client passes to the server by auditing ONLY the client. Your argument applies equally well to every single router or middle box on the internet, and it's just as wrong there.
You prove that it doesn't matter by assuming that keybase is running the most malicious code possible, auditing your client, and deciding that the system is still secure. This is what auditing the client means.
Additionally, to bring up this fact again because it has only been hand-waved away: Even if the server was open source, there is no guarantee they are running that code. Thus, there is no benefit to security until systems exist (somehow?) to prove the server is running the code you expect.
Double additionally: even IF you can prove that the server is running what you expect, how do you know that some box, after https is peeled off, but before the request makes it to the server, is not sending the same request off to some other, malicious, server?
I am going to say this one more time because I think it's a real point and I think you're dismissing it out of hand is unreasonable: there are things that can be learned from the server.
It's one thing to tell people that you aren't logging anything. It's another thing to show everyone you're not logging anything except the account creation date and last access date by open sourcing the software and then show exactly that in a response to a national security letter: https://www.aclu.org/open-whisper-systems-subpoena-documents.
Did you notice how your proof rests entirely on the NSA letter, and not the source code of the server at all? Isn't a world conceivable where they open sourced the server, with no logging, and then sent an NSA letter that contained information that wasn't logged in the open source code? If this is somehow impossible, please explain how.
Did you notice how you can compare the NSA letter to the source code and realize the effect is that they're the same?
If you didn't have the NSA letter, would you be able to verify the source code? If another project got an NSA letter and responded to it, would it tell you anything about the source code?
This is simple: Having the source code means you get to learn more from the other signals, no pun intended, of how that source code is used.
Again, as we move to a world where servers have more verifiable code running on them, the value of having open source code will increase.
I don't understand your points about the NSA letters, which makes me think that my point was missed. I am saying that the NSA letter claiming that only some information was logged is fully independent of the open source code of the server. Assuming the NSA letter reflects the truth, there could be more information or less information that what appears to be collected from the open source server code because, once again, the server does not have to be running the open source code, and even if it were, that does not preclude other systems from running against the same information the server has access to. Hence, open sourcing the server does not affect the security of the system at all. If the system is insecure without knowledge of how the server works, then the system is insecure. Period.
I think you're trying to argue that open source is good, and I agree with you. Open sourcing the server has many benefits. The only point I have consistently been trying to make is that open sourcing it does not help with determining the security of the system, whatsoever.
edit:
> If you didn't have the NSA letter, would you be able to verify the source code?
No, but even if the code was open sourced, you would not be able to verify the code that is running.
> If another project got an NSA letter and responded to it, would it tell you anything about the source code?
It would tell you something about the code they are running, yes, but nothing about the code they open sourced.
> This is simple: Having the source code means you get to learn more from the other signals, no pun intended, of how that source code is used.
This is equally simple: the source code that is open may have nothing to do with the source code that is running, and you must assume that they are not equal when auditing the security of the system.
Just to be extra clear, the chances of someone lying to the NSA in a letter are really, really low. Given that we can compare the response to the NSA to what is expected and it matches, we can make some inferences that the software running on the servers is as presented.
In contrast, if you received an NSA letter for keybase and they delivered similar information, you couldn't make any suppositions about the server's code.
To be extra, extra clear, to me, the future of the private internet is further verifiability of remote systems. That begins with Open Source. I concede that we aren't there for most parts of the systems we use today, but we are getting better (see attested contact discovery in Signal as one example).
Why would I not be able to make inferences about the software the servers are running if the chances on lying on the letter is low? I haven't read Signal's source code, and yet I believe with just as much confidence that they aren't logging extra information as if keybase had sent the same NSA letter. To me, Signal's source code is effectively closed, and reading it wouldn't increase my belief. (Have you read all of their server's source code? If not, why do you justify your belief?)
The article on attested contact discovery states "Of course, what if that’s not the source code that’s actually running? After all, we could surreptitiously modify the service to log users’ contact discovery requests. Even if we have no motive to do that, someone who hacks the Signal service could potentially modify the code so that it logs user contact discovery requests, or (although unlikely given present law) some government agency could show up and require us to change the service so that it logs contact discovery requests.", which is exactly the point I'm making. They choose to solve it by signing code and ensuring that exactly that code is running (seems like they just move the trust to Intel. Hopefully SGX never has any bugs like https://github.com/lsds/spectre-attack-sgx or issues with the firmware, as noted by the Intel SGX security model document), which is fine, but an equally valid way to do this is to make it so that the secure operation of the system does not depend on what code the server is running.
Doing that has some tradeoffs: there's usually overhead with cryptography, or an algorithm you need may not even be possible (Signal disliked those tradeoffs for this specific algorithm), but for some algorithms, it's entirely possible to do. For example, one can audit OpenSSL's code base, and determine, regardless of what the middle boxes or routers do, that the entire system is secure. Just replace OpenSSL with keybase's client, and middle boxes with keybase's servers, and do the auditing. Hence, open sourcing the server is not necessary for security. Would it be great if more systems could be audited? Absolutely. Is it always necessary for security? Absolutely not.
edit: Another quote from the article: "Since the enclave attests to the software that’s running remotely, and since the remote server and OS have no visibility into the enclave, the service learns nothing about the contents of the client request. It’s almost as if the client is executing the query locally on the client device." Indeed, open sourcing the code running in the secure enclave is effectively open sourcing more code in the client.
Just to be clear, code running on a remote server is not code running in the client. Just because the server attests to the client doesn’t mean the client is running that code. You still have to do all of the threat modeling for the attested code differently from the threat modeling for the client.
I’m not yet prepared to publicly get into all of the nuances of SGX, but I think it’s worth noting that there’s something very interesting happening there. I look forward to being able to discuss my team’s technical findings on the subject in public.
To summarize why this is so interesting: the attack surface is the whole system. Enclaves let us extend parts of our trust model to systems we don’t own. That is a real change and, if it works, it’s going to change how systems are designed at a deep level. The problem is that there aren’t very many working implementations of sgx in the Wild (signal is the only one I know of).
Enclaves are interesting, and I also look forward to all of the new things they allow. But all of that has nothing to do with open sourcing the server being important for security if given the ability to audit the client, and the client is not designed to require a cooperating server.
I'm tired of trying to get you to understand this point and have you respond with red-herrings and FUD. Please be intellectually honest when asking keybase to open source their server in the future, and don't claim that it's relevant to the security of the system.
> And yet, all of the routers are not audited, and I presume you believe in the security of some applications that use them.
Why do you presume that? I certainly don't believe in the security of many applications that I use. I generally try to avoid putting any damaging information into them though.
I didn’t say you believe in the security of every application, I said you believe in the security of some applications. For example, websites secured by https do not require the security of routers to be secure.
This looks even less chill than the previous message, which didn't (iirc) accuse "someone from the Signal project?" of making "security theater requests".
Your comment would be much better without any allusions to this person's affiliation. Just answer the question directly without casting aspersions. You seem confident in your answer, so that shouldn't be hard.
Imagine how much harder it would be for your dastardly competitors to "distract" and "divert", if you or someone else from your project actually addressed the obviously legitimate question of keeping the server closed-source?
I mean other than coquettishly dropping a tantalizing hint by saying 'yet?'. That's nice, but insufficient.
The only named advisor for MobileCoin is the founder of Signal. "Work" is not the only conflict of interest in the world, and you're dodging by consistently talking about it.
We know you don't work for Signal. We also know that you very obviously have a close professional relationship (at the very least) with its founder.
I have 0 control over the Signal project in any way shape or form. The fact that Moxie advises MobileCoin has nothing to do with his work at Signal. I can't force Moxie or anyone at Signal to do anything.
Moxie and I have a close professional relationship but I'm not sure what bearing that has on asking for the code of Keybase's server to be open-sourced. That's not a biased statement, and I would say the same thing in any thread about Telegram, WhatsApp, or FB Messenger's privacy. It's all the same.
If you want trust, you have to be open source. That statement has absolutely nothing to do with Signal.
Yes I use Signal. Yes I'm a fan of the Signal team's work. No, I don't think Signal would be better off with a closed source server. Yes, I do think Keybase should open source their server.
I honestly have no idea why this is even controversial :/.
> Moxie and I have a close professional relationship but I'm not sure what bearing that has on asking for the code of Keybase's server to be open-sourced.
You have a professional relationship with the founder of one of their competitors. It's appropriate in those cases to note that you have a bias. I realize you don't think you have a bias, but that's the whole point.
> If you want trust, you have to be open source.
That's such a confusing statement, and a particularly misleading one coming from someone that works for a crpyto company.
The whole point of end to end crypto is that you don't need to trust the server.
> I honestly have no idea why this is even controversial :/.
That's the core of the problem. You have a professional relationship with the founder of Signal. If you comment on a thread about Signal, or it's competitors, we shouldn't have to click the link to your site to find that out.
I see. I will include that disclaimer in all threads I comment on about Signal in the future. Thanks for explaining this to me.
I've been a fan of Signal since it was RedPhone and TextSecure and my professional relationship with Moxie is quite recent in the scheme of watching the rise of his projects. I apologize if my lack of awareness was offensive, it was unintended.
Edit: Just to be clear, I don't think you need to have the server open-sourced to trust the end to end encryption of the messages, but that's just one part of the overall trust model.
I don't think any kind of disclaimer was necessary. Your point about the Keybase server being closed-source has nothing to do with Signal and is completely valid no matter what competing interests you may have.
You're also diverting from the point to argue that Signal is worse than Keybase for server trust. Releasing server-side code comes from the open-source philosophy that Keybase claims to be a part of on its website. Several people in that Github issue would like to self-host Keybase servers - open source is all about that kind of accessibility. No one's making the claim that publishing the code would make them trust Keybase more, though Signal arguably has benefited from releasing its code for public audit. What would be the cost of publishing your server-side code?
It's a shame that it's not open source from the perspective of people being able to self-host, but if you don't need to trust the server (as Keybase clients don't), then the security of the system is not weakened one bit.
That's a very useful property, because even if the server is open source, that doesn't guarantee that what the Keybase team is actually running in production matches the source they've released.
So I would say a system where the clients don't (and don't need to) trust the server, even if no server source is publicly available, is still strictly better from a security standpoint than a system where the clients do need to trust the server, and source is available. (Assuming, of course, that the design of the system as a whole is sound, and that clients have been audited to ensure that they follow the design of the system correctly.)
I’m saddened this is the top comment, as it appears to be little more than trolling.
It is better to not even have to think about looking at the server-side code.
The best case would be there is no “server” at all, but that’s the Internet we have to work with today to enable the usability and user experience they are going for.
If the client is open and you can see what it sends to the server, why do you care what the server is doing? It shouldn't be able to do anything nefarious and all the crypto happens locally afaik.
Why I like Wire in this regard, they seem to have their front-end and back-end open sourced. I believe their servers AGPL licensed, but it still allows you to run your own instance. Sadly people are highly more likely to use either Signal or KeyBase than Wire, which I think is my favorite since it doesn't tie you to a phone number (tip: register from the desktop first), and you can delete all your account information.
I use all I have listed, I like the UI for KeyBase the most personally especially the way it handles social proofs where you need to verify yourself through a crypto key or another device. I wish Signal would just do this, but it's too married to phone numbers that it's suspicious in that simple regard. I use Signal with my wife, so for us to verify our keys it's very easy and simple.
This can be applied to pretty much any security-focused product, or product claiming to be secure/encrypted. If it relies on an unknown number of proprietary/closed-source components, it can't be trusted. Keybase, WhatsApp, Telegram, and iMessage are all good examples of this. If your code can't stand up to public scrutiny it might not be able to withstand attack. I'm not willing to blindly chuck messages into a black box and hope what comes out the other end is exactly what I put into it. (This complaint is not specifically about Keybase; in fact the linked article and a few comments say their client doesn't trust the server at all, which is really cool. Point still stands.)
Keybase looks really really cool, and I would love to use it, but I can't in good conscience recommend something that is cagey about the half-open nature of their product, especially when the server. It is by definition "man-in-the-middle"-ing all your data, and if you can't inspect it you can't reasonably trust it.
> ...if you can't inspect it you can't reasonably trust it.
That is the point the article is making, and that's what it sounds like the Keybase client is doing--not trusting the server by relying on client-side encryption rather than storing keys on the server.
The fact that you can change keys and see old messages without the other party sending them to you using your new key points to serious problems with these other apps. It seems the Keybase client rightly considers the channel insecure.
To Keybase people here, I'm not sure why you can or won't open/free the software. However, it might be possible that you meet your goal by using shared source that licenses published source for specific uses as educational/academic, security review, and/or build locally from source. Doesn't allow commercial use or forks of that code. There's precedent for that in security software, like Cryptophone doing it (below) for review. I suggest considering an option like that if open/free source doesn't work since it still increases confidence in Keybase.
