[liberationtech] Signal ignores proxy censorship vulnerability, bans researchers

[Adam Fisk]

Irrespective of the article, the claims are just obvious to anyone with a
reasonable enough knowledge of how censors detect proxies to have an
opinion.

The article is largely irrelevant, and its removal doesn't obviate the fact
that the claims of the investigators, such as Sergey, that the Signal
proxies are vulnerable to active probes is, again, just there in plain
sight.

This is, of course, not surprising, as the Signal team has almost no
experience with building effective anti-censorship tech. The idea that they
could realistically deploy a new proxy in a matter of days that would be
effective in those environments is frankly naive. That's all fine and good.
I don't have the experience they do with designing secure messaging
algorithms. It's cool, but we should have illusions about the reality of
the situation.

-Adam


On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 4:57 AM Charles M. Ess <charles.ess at media.uio.no>
wrote:

> the most recent version of the article indicates that the original
> claims have been disputed and removed by BleepingComputer.
>
> Truth is difficult ...
> best,
> -charles
>
> On 24/02/2021 06:59, Myles Horton wrote:
> > Just for the record, the people who posted the vulnerability are hardly
> > trollers. First, the vulnerability is obvious and doesn't really need
> > any formal proof. Second, one of the researchers is Sergey Frolov, one
> > of the top people in the field.
> >
> > -Adam
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 8, 2021 at 6:02 PM bo0od <bo0od at riseup.net
> > <mailto:bo0od at riseup.net>> wrote:
> >
> >     Nothing is concerned just trollers want to damage the image of signal
> >
> >     Yosem Companys:
> >      > The claims in this article are concerning if true. That said, I
> >     will note
> >      > that I remain supportive of Signal's efforts, both because its
> >     founders and
> >      > key developers have not only been longtime members of our
> >     community but
> >      > also proven themselves time and again indispensable at helping
> >     high-risk
> >      > activists in need, most notably during the Arab Spring.
> >      >
> >      > ****
> >      >
> >      > Signal, an end-to-end encrypted messaging platform was recently
> >     blocked by
> >      > the Iranian government.
> >      >
> >      > To help its users bypass censorship in Iran, the company
> >     suggested a TLS
> >      > proxy workaround.
> >      >
> >      > However, multiple researchers have now discovered flaws in the
> >     workaround
> >      > that can let a censor or government authority probe into Signal
> TLS
> >      > proxies, rendering these protections moot and potentially bringing
> >      > repercussions for Signal users located in repressive regimes.
> >      >
> >      > The researchers who reported these flaws via Signal's GitHub
> >     repository
> >      > have been banned by the company with their reported issues
> removed.
> >      >
> >      >
> >
> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/signal-ignores-proxy-censorship-vulnerability-bans-researchers/
> >     <
> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/signal-ignores-proxy-censorship-vulnerability-bans-researchers/
> >
> >      >
> >      >
> >
> >     --
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> --
> Professor Emeritus
> University of Oslo
> <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html>
>
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> <http://ifiptc9.org/9-8/>
>
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> Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany
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