
Dear Cryptocat Users - sdevlin
https://crypto.cat/
======
sbierwagen
Some context, if you don't know what cryptocat is, or why the lead dev is
shutting it down:

Cryptocat Considered Harmful (2013)
[https://datavibe.net/~sneak/20130717/cryptocat-considered-
ha...](https://datavibe.net/~sneak/20130717/cryptocat-considered-harmful/)

    
    
      Except: Today, Cryptocat is not for everyone.
    
      Cryptocat is under active development, and is suitable only for 
      debugging and software experimentation. It is not suitable for 
      those who desire communications privacy. (This may change 2-5 
      years in the future, following sufficient peer review.)
    
      Cryptocat has had myriad errors in implementation, spanning the 
      entire time it has been under active development. Note well that 
      this is not a criticism: cryptosystems are notoriously difficult 
      to get right, and it takes a very long time, significant 
      experience, much peer review (on top of that significant 
      experience), and lots of sweat and iteration to build systems 
      that are safe to use.
    

(HN thread on that post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6990602](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6990602)
)

Schneier post on the adoring media coverage of cryptocat (2012)
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/08/cryptocat.htm...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/08/cryptocat.html)

------
tptacek
This is a good thing, though I think it should have happened more than 19
months earlier. Cryptocat wasn't just unmaintained†, but also gravely flawed
and insecure.

† _Despite looking like this
yesterday:[https://web.archive.org/web/20160205030908/http://crypto.cat...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160205030908/http://crypto.cat/)
_

~~~
conorgil145
Links to resources, papers, or articles which discuss the flaws in CryptoCat?

~~~
sdevlin
[https://tobtu.com/decryptocat.php](https://tobtu.com/decryptocat.php)

~~~
tptacek
(among other things)

------
sarciszewski
Cryptocat was a good concept (i.e. it was USABLE!), but the execution was
flawed. It grew a lot of criticism and Nadim made mistakes in handling some of
his critics, creating a schism between him and the cryptographers who might
have been able to help him. (Not all of this was his fault, of course.)

I hope that not only will this new product of his be developed with "A pure
vision of democratized, pleasant secure messaging", but also that he has
matured significantly. I hope that Cryptocat v3 will come out after it has
been thoroughly audited by several reputable third parties.

Most importantly, I hope their crypto is boring.

[https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/6095/xkcd-936-s...](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/6095/xkcd-936-short-
complex-password-or-long-dictionary-passphrase/6116#6116)

[http://cr.yp.to/talks/2015.10.05/slides-
djb-20151005-a4.pdf](http://cr.yp.to/talks/2015.10.05/slides-
djb-20151005-a4.pdf)

~~~
tptacek
What does it matter if a secure messenger is USABLE if it's not secure?
Cryptocat wasn't.

~~~
nfd
A usable, secure messenger is a pretty important niche to fill. Cryptocat is a
good concept (usability is important), but its implementation is flawed enough
that it's worse than useless. With some TLC, better ground-up design, and
through auditing? Pretty sweet. There isn't one messenger that fills every
niche reasonably well (eg. Tox is fragmented and hasn't been audited as far as
I'm aware, Jitsi is clunky and relies heavily on outside services, Retroshare
requires an intricate knowledge of GPG, several other messengers sit over Tor
which requires education, and libpurple is garbage, etc.).

~~~
tptacek
I completely agree that a usable, secure messenger is important!

~~~
middleclick
And a one that runs on mobile as well.

------
chuckgreenman
"There is a design decision that is not open for negotiation: it will be
desktop-only. This is due to the my belief that the mobile space has been
elegantly solved by other well-written open source software, while the
desktop/laptop space could still use an alternative for usable, fun and secure
messaging software, developed in the spirit of general purpose computing."

By this logic, why even compete in the web/desktop space? Telegram has mobile,
desktop and web clients.

~~~
pigeons
He isn't talking about telegram, which isn't open source except the client.

~~~
skrowl
The protocol and crypto are also open source. The only thing about Telegram
that isn't open source is the server. They've hinted that they might open the
server and allow federating in the future, but they have no timeline for doing
so.

------
bunkydoo
Ahh I remember using cryptocat long ago. Almost 3 years ago. Thanks for
providing the service man! Hope to see more updates in the future

------
uobytx
Any word on the status of minilock? It also hasn't seen public activity on
github for some time.

------
tootie
Is end-to-end encrypted messaging really that hard? Assuming you simply forgo
all the features that require a server and just send messages peer-to-peer
using TLS, isn't this pretty straightforward to do?

~~~
JshWright
Peer discovery is an interesting problem to solve in this case... Encrypting
the message is easy. Delivering it reliably without some sort of server is a
bit more challenging...

~~~
tootie
Is using a server for discovery and key exchange so terrible? The messages
will still never touch it.

------
rosalinekarr
Cryptocat is one of those awesome projects I'd love to support, but I just
don't have the time or expertise to help. I hope Kobeissi finds some good devs
to help him keep the project going.

------
blubb-fish
I simply love the idea of a transparently implemented encrypted communication
through Facebook chat.

------
samstave
This is not the same as the cryptocat scanner from ~2004?

~~~
robbiet480
Were you thinking of CueCat?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat)

~~~
samstave
DOH! - Yes, thats what I was thinking of... Thank you.

------
isolusgraboski
Good day! People on Cryptoca/Cryptodog will probably recognize me, but I would
like to say. I think Cryptocat, no matter how good or bad it is, it is still a
very good tool. Cryptodog is just an extension to that, and a good one, too.
That is all I have to say.

~~~
Thanatos26FF
I agree isolusgraboski, awesome name by the way. Cryptocat was a GREAT tool
and Cryptodog is no different except with fixed flaws and programmer who care
more deeply. I urge everyone to try it!

------
Thanatos26FF
Hey guys, I am an avid user of Cryptocat and have been using it for over a
year. I am sad to see Cryptocat will be down for the foreseeable future, but I
have found an alternative which is even better. Cryptodog is looking to take
off where Cryptocat left off and is constantly being worked on. It's still a
work in progress, but I highly recommend it for everyone who wants to have
private conversations

~~~
tptacek
If you had a reliable Chrome zero day you wanted to burn to pop my dumb laptop
(zero-day crypto challenges!), delivering it via a link to the new "Cryptodog"
on a thread about Cryptocat would be a really funny way to own me up.

~~~
ayyghost
One of the Cryptodog devs here - no Chrome 0days in our possession (yet).

The code's all on Github:
[https://github.com/Cryptodog/cryptodog](https://github.com/Cryptodog/cryptodog).
No signed extensions or apps yet, but you can clone and run locally for
testing purposes, or use the hosted client linked there.

So far, we've been focusing on refactoring, fixing surface bugs, and making
the UI more attractive and intuitive -- none of the underlying cryptography
has been touched. It also performs slightly faster than stock Cryptocat. Since
Nadim took down his XMPP server, we've had to create our own, but the backend
is identical to his setup.

Of course, Cryptodog is by no means the best solution for E2E chat, just as
Cryptocat wasn't. The best we can hope to achieve without a complete codebase
overhaul is a reasonable level of security
([https://leastauthority.com/static/publications/LeastAuthorit...](https://leastauthority.com/static/publications/LeastAuthority-
Cryptocat-audit-report.pdf)). However, it's still a fairly usable app that can
afford casual users protection against basic threats, like corporate data
mining.

Issue postings, pull requests, and other miscellaneous contributions are all
welcome.

~~~
narrowrail
[side note] My guess is that you and the GP share an IP address, so I vouched
for this comment.

I can't figure out why follow the path of fixing cryptocat instead of joining
with a more promising project (take your pick, they're a ton). Anyway, I was
about to tell tptacek that he fell for a troll, and the real new project was
Cryptolion...

~~~
ayyghost
We never intended to "fix" Cryptocat, per se. I agree that would be more
trouble than it's worth, especially when there are things like Signal,
Ricochet, CoyIM, etc.

Cryptodog is very much a casual project, not an all-encompassing fix for
inherent design flaws. I offer it here only as an _alternative_ for former
users of Cryptocat who were content with the app.

P.S. Your guess is inaccurate, I am not the GP. HN staff might be able to
verify this if it concerns you.

