Re:Cryptographic Weaknesses in Telegram's MTProto
by Pick-A-Hill2019 on Friday July 16, 2021 @12:07PM
(#27857751)
Arm-Chair Quaterbacker response -
"In particular, Telegram encrypts acknowledgement messages, i.e. messages that encode that a previous message was indeed received, but the way it handles the re-sending of unacknowledged messages leaks whether such an acknowledgement was sent and received. "
That ^ bit is indeed of interest. Having this ability could be useful in two ways that immediately spring to mind if I were a 'james bond villain'
[Edit] Will leave it to those better qualified regarding the math but uhhmm yeah, A good summary is yes, there were somethings that could have been exploited and were patched by the Telegram team and a bug bounty awarded (as noted in the article). The thing I found of interest bit turned out indeed to be in the 'highly theoretical' realm. As in "only on a wet Wednesday when the wind is blowing from the west at a precise angle way"
"In particular, Telegram encrypts acknowledgement messages, i.e. messages that encode that a previous message was indeed received, but the way it handles the re-sending of unacknowledged messages leaks whether such an acknowledgement was sent and received. "
That ^ bit is indeed of interest. Having this ability could be useful in two ways that immediately spring to mind if I were a 'james bond villain'
I am currently taking a skim through the paper which for the curious is available at https://mtpsym.github.io/paper.pdf (52 pages)
[Edit] Will leave it to those better qualified regarding the math but uhhmm yeah, A good summary is yes, there were somethings that could have been exploited and were patched by the Telegram team and a bug bounty awarded (as noted in the article). The thing I found of interest bit turned out indeed to be in the 'highly theoretical' realm. As in "only on a wet Wednesday when the wind is blowing from the west at a precise angle way"