[liberationtech] My CPJ blog: Lessons from the Cryptocat debate

Tue Sep 11 10:14:24 PDT 2012

I can't even-

Frank sent me this article about 15 minutes ago and I answered with the
notion that Cryptocat has been a browser-plugin only app for more than a
month, and that his article is just incredibly ignorant and frustrating
as a result of it ignoring that.

Relevant links:
https://blog.crypto.cat/2012/08/moving-to-a-browser-app-model/
https://blog.crypto.cat/2012/09/cryptocat-2-demo-video-posted/

Excuse me while I now go waterboard myself,
NK

On 9/11/2012 1:07 PM, frank at journalistsecurity.net wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> 
> Below is my CPJ blog on the Cryptocat debate. It makes some of the same
> points that I already made here a few weeks ago. And please know that my
> intent is to help work toward a solution in terms of bridging invention
> and usability. I know there are different views, and I have already
> heard some. Please feel free to respond. (If you wish you may wish to
> copy me at frank at journalistsecurity.net
> <mailto:frank at journalistsecurity.net> to avoid me missing your note
> among others.)
> 
> Thank you! Best, Frank
> 
> http://www.cpj.org/security/2012/09/in-cryptocat-lessons-for-technologists-and-journal.php 
> 
> 
>   *In Cryptocat, lessons for technologists and journalists*
> 
> By Frank Smyth/Senior Adviser for Journalist Security
> <http://www.cpj.org/blog/author/frank-smyth>
> /Alhamdulillah! /Finally, a technologist designed a security tool that
> everyone could use. A Lebanese-born, Montreal-based computer scientist,
> college student, and activist named Nadim Kobeissi had developed a
> cryptography tool, Cryptocat <https://crypto.cat/>, for the Internet
> that seemed as easy to use as Facebook Chat but was presumably far more
> secure.
> Encrypted communications are hardly a new idea. Technologists wary of
> government surveillance have been designing free encryption software
> since the early 1990s <http://www.pgpi.org/doc/overview/>. Of course, no
> tool is completely safe, and much depends on the capabilities of the
> eavesdropper. But for decades digital safety tools have been so hard to
> use that few human rights defenders and even fewer journalists (my best
> guess is one in a 100) employ them.
> Activist technologists often complain that journalists and human rights
> defenders are either too lazy or foolish to not consistently use digital
> safety tools when they are operating in hostile environments.
> Journalists and many human rights activists, for their part, complain
> that digital safety tools are too difficult or time-consuming to
> operate, and, even if one tried to learn them, they often don't work as
> expected.
> Cryptocat promised
> <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/crypto-cat-encryption-for-all/all>
> to finally bridge these two distinct cultures. Kobeissi was profiled
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/nyregion/nadim-kobeissi-creator-of-a-secure-chat-program-has-freedom-in-mind.html>
> in /The New York Times/; /Forbes/
> <http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/07/19/5-essential-privacy-tools-for-the-next-crypto-war/>
> and especially /Wired/
> <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/crypto-cat-encryption-for-all/all>
> each praised the tool. But Cryptocat's sheen faded fast. Within three
> months of winning a prize associated with /The Wall Street Journal/
> <http://datatransparency.wsj.com/>, Cryptocat ended up like a cat caught
> in storm--wet, dirty, and a little worse for wear. Analyst Christopher
> Soghoian--who wrote a /Times/ op-ed last fall
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/opinion/without-computer-security-sources-secrets-arent-safe-with-journalists.html>
> saying that journalists must learn digital safety skills to protect
> sources--blogged that Cryptocat had far too many structural flaws
> <http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2012/07/tech-journalists-stop-hyping-unproven.html?utm_source=Contextly&utm_medium=RelatedLinks&utm_campaign=AroundWeb>
> for safe use in a repressive environment.
> An expert writing in /Wired/ agreed. Responding to another /Wired/ piece
> just weeks before, Patrick Ball said the prior author's admiration of
> Cryptocat was "inaccurate, misleading andpotentially dangerous
> <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/wired_opinion_patrick_ball/2/>."
> Ball is one of the Silicon Valley-based nonprofit Benetech
> <http://www.benetech.org/> developers ofMartus
> <http://www.benetech.org/human_rights/martus.shtml>, an encrypted
> database used by groups to secure information like witness testimony of
> human rights abuses.
> But unlike Martus, which uses its own software, Cryptocat is a
> "host-based security" application that relies on servers to log in to
> its software. And this kind of application makes Cryptocat potentially
> vulnerable
> <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/wired_opinion_patrick_ball/all/>
> to manipulation through theft of login information--as everyone,
> including Kobeissi, now seems to agree.
> So we are back to where we started, to a degree. Other, older digital
> safety tools are "a little harder to use, but their security is real,"
> Ball added in /Wired/. Yet, in the real world, fromMexico
> <http://www.cpj.org/blog/2011/09/mexican-murder-may-mark-grim-watershed-for-social.php>
> to Ethiopia
> <http://www.cpj.org/2012/07/ethiopia-sentences-eskinder-six-others-on-terror-c.php>,
> from Syria
> <http://www.cpj.org/security/2012/05/dont-get-your-sources-in-syria-killed.php>
> to Bahrain
> <http://www.cpj.org/2012/09/bahrain-should-scrap-life-sentence-of-blogger-alsi.php>,
> how many human rights activists, journalists, and others actually use
> them? "The tools are just too hard to learn. They take too long to
> learn. And no one's going to learn them," a journalist for a major U.S.
> news organization recently told me.
> Who will help bridge the gap? Information-freedom technologists clearly
> don't build free, open-source tools to get rich. They're motivated by
> the recognition one gets from building an exciting, important new tool.
> (Kind of like journalists breaking a story.) Training people in the use
> of security tools or making those tools easier to use doesn't bring the
> same sort of credit.
> Or financial support. Donors--in good part, U.S. government agencies
> <http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41120.pdf>--tend to back the
> development of new tools rather than ongoing usability training and
> development. But in doing so, technologists and donors are avoiding a
> crucial question: Why aren't more people using security tools? These
> days--20 years into what we now know as the Internet--usability testing
> is key to every successful commercial online venture. Yet it is rarely
> practiced in the Internet freedom community.
> That may be changing. The anti-censorship circumvention tool Tor has
> grown progressively easier to use, and donors and technologists are now
> working to make it easier and faster still. Other tools, like Pretty
> Good Privacy <http://www.pgpi.org/> or its slightly improved German
> alternative <http://www.gnupg.org/>, still seem needlessly difficult to
> operate. Partly because the emphasis is on open technology built by
> volunteers, users are rarely if ever redirected how to get back on track
> if they make a mistake or reach a dead end. This would be nearly
> inconceivable today with any commercial application designed to help
> users purchase a service or product.
> Which brings us back to Cryptocat, the ever-so-easy tool that was not as
> secure as it was once thought to be. For a time, the online debate among
> technologists degenerated into thekind of vitriol
> <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/security-researchers/all/> one
> might expect to hear among, say, U.S. presidential campaigns. But wounds
> have since healed and some critics are now working with Kobeissi to help
> clean up and secure Cryptocat.
> Life and death, prison and torture remain real outcomes
> <http://www.cpj.org/reports/2011/12/journalist-imprisonments-jump-worldwide-and-iran-i.php>
> for many users, and, as Ball noted in/Wired/, there are no security
> shortcuts in hostile environments. But if tools remain too difficult for
> people to use in real-life circumstances in which they are under duress,
> then that is a security problem in itself.
> The lesson of Cryptocat is that more learning and collaboration are
> needed. Donors, journalists, and technologists can work together more
> closely to bridge the gap between invention and use.
> Frank Smyth is CPJ's senior adviser for journalist security. He has
> reported on armed conflicts, organized crime, and human rights from
> nations including El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Cuba, Rwanda,
> Uganda, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Jordan, and Iraq. Follow him on
> Twitter @JournoSecurity <https://twitter.com/#!/JournoSecurity>.
> 
> 
>         *Tags:*
> 
>   * Cryptocat <http://www.cpj.org/tags/cryptocat>,
>   * Hacked <http://www.cpj.org/tags/hacked>,
>   * Internet <http://www.cpj.org/tags/internet>,
>   * Martus <http://www.cpj.org/tags/martus>,
>   * Nadim Kobeissi <http://www.cpj.org/tags/nadim-kobeissi>,
>   * Patrick Ball <http://www.cpj.org/tags/patrick-ball>,
>   * Pretty Good Privacy <http://www.cpj.org/tags/pretty-good-privacy>,
>   * Tor <http://www.cpj.org/tags/tor>
> 
> September 11, 2012 12:12 PM ET
> 
> Frank Smyth
> Executive Director
> Global Journalist Security
> frank at journalistsecurity.net <mailto:frank at journalistsecurity.net>
> Tel.  + 1 202 244 0717
> Cell  + 1 202 352 1736
> Twitter:  @JournoSecurity
> Website: www.journalistsecurity.net <http://www.journalistsecurity.net>
> PGP Public Key <http://www.journalistsecurity.net/franks-pgp-public-key>
> 
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