Re:Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data
by georgecmu on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @11:43AM
(#12636366)
Yes, but zeveb makes the following points:
1. "the contacts, or even a hash of the contact" are being not stored by choice rather than by necessity.
2. If OWS chose to start storing these metadata in the future, they could.
3. A protocol where the metadata could not be stored intrinsically would be preferable.
Re:Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data
by problems on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @12:16PM
(#12636598)
> If they don't store the contacts, or even a hash of the contact, how can you figure out who was talking to who?
Think of it like email. The body is encrypted, the subject is encrypted, any attachments are encrypted, but in order for them to route the message to the correct destination every message you send still has a "To:" field - their server still decides who to send the notification to.
They don't need to read the contacts or anything of the sort - they just read the "To:" field.
"Notably, things we don't have stored include anything about a user's contacts (such as the contacts themselves, a hash of the contacts, any other derivative contact information), anything about a user's groups (such as how many groups a user is in, which groups a user is in, the membership lists of a user's groups), or any records of who a user has been communicating with."
If they don't store the contacts, or even a hash of the contact, how can you figure out who was talking to who?