Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email

Re:Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email by josephg on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @01:40AM (#37232239)

Not directly. They would have to roll out an update with the backdoor to the App Store. But as a user I’d be none the wiser.

I wish there was some way on iOS to prove that some particular version of an app was built from a certain git hash. That way these sort of attacks would be easier to detect.

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Re:Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email by progbits on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @05:58AM (#37233776)

That would be ideal. F-Droid on android can do this: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Reproducible_Builds/

However there is still one advantage of even appstor: They have to push the backdoored version to everyone (or large set of users). So that drastically increases risk of being caught. Website under their control can backdoor one specific user or even just one session, making detection harder.

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Re:Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email by josephg on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @07:24AM (#37234242)

> So that drastically increases risk of being caught.

Only if someone out there is extracting, decompiling and auditing each version of the Signal iOS app in the app store. But I doubt anyone is doing this. If a backdoor is ever snuck into the signal ios app for a few users for a few weeks, I highly doubt anybody would notice.

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Re:Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email by actionfromafar on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @07:36AM (#37234341)

xkcd://386

Of course someone is doing this. I’m not sure they are the kind to tell it to the world, though.

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Re:Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email by progbits on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @07:46AM (#37234408)

Not just someONE, whole bunch of researchers and automated scans.

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Re:Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email by rvnx on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @08:49AM (#37235014)

You can change remote configuration flags post-release (e.g. to enable diagnostics).

Even “secure” softwares like Google Chrome can capture your whole browsing history if they suddenly decide to enable a flag on your IP address. No need for conspiracy or update, though Chrome is considered perfectly secure.

In Android you can also distribute updates to specific e-mail addresses, which is very convenient.

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Re:Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email by progbits on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @01:09PM (#37239068)

> In Android you can also distribute updates to specific e-mail addresses, which is very convenient.

Yes but this requires the user to opt-in, you can't do it silently:

> After clicking the opt-in link, your testers will get an explanation of what it means to be a tester and a link to opt in. Each tester needs to opt in using the link.

Source: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

As for the Chrome thing, I'm a Firefox user but I would be surprised if it shipped with the option to remotely upload whole history without user's knowledge or consent, do you have a source to back that up?

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Re:Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email by layer8 on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @07:10AM (#37234150)

You can disable updates. As long as the servers (and the OS) don’t break compatibility, you can continue to use the same old likely-non-backdoored version.

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Re:Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email by hiatus on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @09:29AM (#37235554)

Not for Signal. I was periodically prompted to update with the warning that I would lose access to signal if I didn't. Then I upgraded and they robbed me of SMS features. I would have been happy to remain on a previous version.

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Re:Skiff – Privacy-first end-to-end encrypted email by kbknapp on Wednesday August 23, 2023 @10:02AM (#37236046)

At least when downloading from the Play store, Google requires the application be updated every 90 days or so. I've run into this multiple times where the application ceases to function after the 90 day window until I go update.

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