FBXL Social

Improving Signal’s Sealed Sender - NDSS Symposium https://www.ndss-symposium.org/ndss-paper/improving-signals-sealed-sender/

The Signal messaging service recently deployed a emph{sealed sender} feature that provides sender anonymity by cryptographically hiding a message’s sender from the service provider. We demonstrate, both theoretically and empirically, that this one-sided anonymity is broken when two parties send multiple messages back and forth; that is, the promise of sealed sender does not emph{compose} over a conversation of messages. Our attack is in the family of Statistical Disclosure Attacks (SDAs), and is made particularly effective by emph{delivery receipts} that inform the sender that a message has been successfully delivered, which are enabled by default on Signal. We show using theoretical and simulation-based models that Signal could link sealed sender users in as few as 5 messages

@toiletpaper I think I heard you can register using a desktop app called signal-cli

@toiletpaper
>Tmk there's no way around that other than buying a burner phone+sim that you give away immediately afterwards.
There are companies that allow you to rent a number temporarily for SMS verification. Alternatively you could get a virtual number.
I haven't used any of those services as I registered for Signal before cancelling my phone plan and taking out my SIM so they can't location track me.

>Consequently your location data and by virtue of that your real world identity is intrinsically linked to your conversations and social network.
How so? Signal doesn't have access to your location; the phone company does (if you have a SIM). The phone company doesn't have access to your conversations; Signal does (and only the metadata).

@toiletpaper Reticulum is cool. I don't think I would be able to get my grandma on it though. She won't even install Signal.

@toiletpaper BTW, I wasn't promoting the use of Signal. I was just sharing something I found interesting and informative.

@toiletpaper my grandmother is not a libertarian type. No one in my family is apart from maybe me (and even I don't care about economic liberties, just civil ones)

@toiletpaper my grandma uses a windows laptop and an android phone, barely
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@toiletpaper she is very resistant to anything I say about technology

@toiletpaper she is perfectly happy reading her newspaper, watching TV, checking her email, making calls, using WhatsApp to contact people. She doesn't want to change anything.

@toiletpaper I mean network effects are real. There's not much point in using a communications technology if you can't communicate with anyone using it