
Sunsetting Tor Messenger - nimbs
https://blog.torproject.org/sunsetting-tor-messenger
======
VikingCoder
I think about trying to hide the metadata of who is communicating...

I wonder about a public stream of end-to-end encrypted messages.

Anyone can add a message to the stream.

Everyone reads all of the messages, and tries to decrypt all of them.

There are lots of variants to this, lots of ways to optimize it, probably lots
of ways to implement it. But that's the core idea.

One variant is that what everyone downloads is just enough of a message
metadata identifier to see if they're the intended recipient (something about
Bloom Filters or PGP Signatures or something, I dunno). Then, if you are the
intended recipient, you request the message contents itself. To obscure which
messages were for you, you also download some very large number of other
messages.

Something about microtransaction fees to pay for all of it. Maybe something
about distributed ledger. Mumble, mumble. Maybe messages only live for X days
or something.

Thoughts?

~~~
derefr
I believe there is a Usenet newsgroup, somewhere under alt.binaries, that's
effectively a numbers station: it's just GPG-encrypted (but not signed) blobs
with no titles. Anyone can post, anyone can listen, everyone has to download
everything to figure out which things they can personally decrypt.

Sadly, googling related keywords doesn't seem to pull up the name of the
newsgroup. I believe I read about it during a discussion on a Tor onion-site
forum, on "why people keep getting caught doing illegal things on Tor, and
what _real_ OPSEC looks like."

~~~
kstrauser
I think you're thinking of Mixmaster:
[http://mixmaster.sourceforge.net/faq.shtml](http://mixmaster.sourceforge.net/faq.shtml)

~~~
schoen
More likely alt.anonymous.messages, as a Usenet newsgroup.

------
tribby
ricochet[1] is my preferred option for situations that would require something
like tor messenger (which is very few situations, but I digress). I like that
the UX has a built-in threat model (e.g. "do you really want to click on
this?")

TAILS users can't use it because tor-over-tor is weird (ricochet uses its own
tor process). but it looks like it's getting close.[2]

1\. [https://ricochet.im/](https://ricochet.im/)

2\.
[https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/8173](https://labs.riseup.net/code/issues/8173)

~~~
Boulth
I wish the page had screenshots. That's usually a good measure of how the
software is maintained. Currently the page mentions that it's "experimental".

As far as I can see currently the only widely used, secure protocols are
Matrix and XMPP with OMEMO.

~~~
jerheinze
> I wish the page had screenshots.

The Github page has one: [https://github.com/ricochet-
im/ricochet/](https://github.com/ricochet-im/ricochet/)

> As far as I can see currently the only widely used, secure protocols are
> Matrix and XMPP with OMEMO.

secure != metadata free

~~~
hnarn
Well, that placeholder conversation in the screenshot sure made me cringe.
That being said, I look forward to it being integrated and working with Tails.

~~~
Ajedi32
Yeah. I haven't watched that show in a while, but isn't Phineas usually
supposed to be totally oblivious to Isabella's advances?

------
buovjaga
Retroshare now provides a Tor version:
[https://retroshareteam.wordpress.com/2018/03/13/release-
note...](https://retroshareteam.wordpress.com/2018/03/13/release-notes-
for-v0-6-4/)

> Running Retroshare over Tor has a number of definite advantages: it does not
> require firewall management (Tor does it for you); you do not need a DHT to
> find your friends (Tor does it for you), and whatever code is tied to
> ensuring security of your IP information is not needed anymore.

~~~
e12e
How does tor "find your friends" (stand in for dht)?

Is this some new feature of the protocol/network?

~~~
e12e
I guess the idea is rather than a user@host identifier, that looks up via
first dns, then at protocol level on the host (eg look up mx record for
<host>; attempt rcpt to <user> via smtp) - or a dht protocol - one could
simply use a tor node identifier as user identifier. Which might make rotating
keys hard - but at least that makes sense; onion "addresses" are unique and
"secure".

------
sandworm101
Would like to read, but it looks like my work is blocking access to
torproject.org. I had not realized that this sort of blocking was in place.
Gauntlet thrown. My project for today is now to gain access to Torproject on
my work machine. Bonus points for installing and running Tor without elevated
privileges.

~~~
jerheinze
Here are some links you may try,

[https://via.hypothes.is/https://blog.torproject.org/sunsetti...](https://via.hypothes.is/https://blog.torproject.org/sunsetting-
tor-messenger)

[https://web.archive.org/web/https://blog.torproject.org/suns...](https://web.archive.org/web/https://blog.torproject.org/sunsetting-
tor-messenger)

[https://archive.fo/U8jHR](https://archive.fo/U8jHR)

[https://archive.is/U8jHR](https://archive.is/U8jHR)

[https://archive.today/U8jHR](https://archive.today/U8jHR)

> Bonus points for installing and running Tor without elevated privileges.

Try
[https://github.com/TheTorProject/GetTorBrowser](https://github.com/TheTorProject/GetTorBrowser)
then use meek-amazon as a pluggable transport to get it working if your
network censors Tor traffic.

~~~
sandworm101
Reading the material on other pages is cheating. I'm trying to bypass the
blockade altogether, disproving its utility. Similarly, the issue isn't
slipping the tor traffic through the firewall but actually installing the
software on a machine theoretically configured to prevent installation of
software.

~~~
quetzlcoati
Send an email or XMPP message to gettor@torproject.org, or a Twitter DM to
@get_tor, to receive links to download Tor via GitHub, Dropbox and Google
Drive.

The download is a zip file that can be extracted and run anywhere without
installation.

Include the word 'linux' or 'osx' in the body of the message to get a binary
for those platforms.

~~~
jerheinze
Github link is easy to remember without sending an email or twitter DM:
[https://github.com/TheTorProject/GetTorBrowser](https://github.com/TheTorProject/GetTorBrowser)

------
nukeop
Matrix.org/Riot.im has all the encryption you could wish for, a modern, useful
interface, and a federated model in which everyone can run their own server
and talk to everyone else, just like email.

~~~
edhelas
As far as I remember you needed quite big servers if you wanted to "federate"
with others, like join big chatroom because Matrix will try to replicate the
history and keep it in sync. Is it still the case?

~~~
Arathorn
Yes, if you want to participate in rooms with >10K users or >500 servers you
need quite a large box (several GB of RAM) - although over the last few weeks
we had several massive algorithmic performance breakthroughs which should help
this _a lot_. these are currently being tested and implemented in Synapse (the
python impl).

------
datamoshr
I think the world of secure messaging is in an odd-way at the moment. It feels
a bit like competing standards at this point[1]. I'm personally still using
signal as the metadata shared by Wire is way too much imho.

Even more interestingly the EFF has stopped trying to recommend the best one
and instead is encouraging the users to do their own reasearch (even redirects
old urls[2])

1\. [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

2\. [https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-
scorecard](https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard)

~~~
BuildTheRobots
Signal is great; except there's also tonnes of metadata.

If I'm trying to talk to someone anonymously, having to give them my phone
number somewhat defeats that anonymity. Even having it installed is
potentially dangerous; it scans your phone book and suggests other signal
users (thereby outing you as a user in the first place).

~~~
reitanqild
I'll defend Signal here. This is all about your threat model:

My threat model includes:

\- kids in my house

\- Facebook selling my data to insurance companies

\- future employers googling me

\- etc

It does not include:

\- NSA

\- local police (in 2018)

I'll still try to give away as little as possible as while I trust local
authorities now I've no reason to be sure I can trust them in 5, 10 or 20
years (see Turkey).

In my case Signal seems reasonable for _some things_ and _for now_.

Personally I'm also annoying all crypto experts here by using Telegram for
some communication and I might even use postcards for other communication (and
there might even be communication channels I use but never talk about).

------
prabhaav
We are building [https://www.stealthy.im](https://www.stealthy.im),
decentralized, encrypted messaging with WebRTC.

Would love your thoughts & feedback on how we could better meet your needs!

~~~
untog
What is your thought on WebRTC exposing user IP addresses?

[https://www.ovpn.com/en/blog/webrtc-might-expose-your-ip-
add...](https://www.ovpn.com/en/blog/webrtc-might-expose-your-ip-address-
despite-vpn/)

~~~
prabhaav
Great question untog, we have webrtc as a convenience and you can turn it off
in “Snowden Mode”

------
jayess
What ever happened to mixminion and mixmaster?

------
waynenilsen
I find Tox[1] to be a reasonable messenger.

[1] [https://tox.chat/](https://tox.chat/)

~~~
giancarlostoro
There's a lot of shady stuff surrounding Tox though see:

[https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/issues/1379](https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/issues/1379)

Also:

[https://blog.tox.im/2016/04/01/litigation/](https://blog.tox.im/2016/04/01/litigation/)

I rather support KeyBase or Wire (Open Source back-end exists and I think the
clients are open source too!) as an alternative. I'm leaning cleanly toward
Wire, though everyone I've suggested KeyBase to enjoys it. I like the free
storage of KeyBase... sue me.

Edit:

Wire Github: [https://github.com/wireapp](https://github.com/wireapp)

~~~
entropie
keybase is awesome from day one. their android client is just horrible slow
and unresponsive.

i hoping for a fix soon.

