> So could Wickr be used by an activist in Syria who is worried about > enemy spies and Assad's regime? Sell has no doubts — she answers that > question with an unflickering "yes."
Not good. NK On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 1:16 PM, Yosem Companys <[email protected]>wrote: > http://mashable.com/2013/03/04/wickr/ > > Wickr: Can the Snapchat for Grown-Ups Save You From Spies? > by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, Mashable > > In the online world, our digital footprints hardly ever wash away. The > Internet never forgets — and neither does social media. > > Web users are coming to terms with ever-increasing storage, both > physical and in the cloud. As a result, data retention has become just > too easy. Sometimes it's just an embarrassing picture. Other times, in > places where there's a war or an uprising, people would like remove > their sensitive messages, which could be used against them by > oppressive regimes getting better at monitoring digital > communications. > > That's where Wickr comes in. > > The app, which could best be described as a Snapchat for grown-ups, is > only available for iOS right now. Launched in June 2012 by a group of > security experts, the app sends messages, photos (and soon videos) > that will eventually be erased. Wickr allows users to choose how long > they want their digital missives to last: as short as one second, and > as long as 5 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds. > > The main difference between the two apps, and the reason Wickr is more > ambitious than Snapchat, is that it encrypts all messages, striving > for perfect privacy and security. Wickr doesn't just want messages to > disappear once they are sent. Wickr doesn't want anybody, including > the app itself, to know what your digital correspondence contains. > > Nico Sell, a long-time organizer of famed hacker conference Def Con > and Wickr co-founder, says she wanted her kids to enjoy private > communication, but also designed the app for "very high tension > situations, where if information gets out ahead of time, people could > get hurt." In other words, Wickr is for you and me, for > privacy-obsessed people or tinfoil-wearing paranoids, but it is also > for journalists and sources, for freedom fighters and activists, > people who have something at stake and need to keep their > communications under wraps. > > So how does Wickr's privacy-enhancing encrypting technology work? > Therein lies the controversy. > > Messages are encrypted on your phone using a private key, and only the > receiver can read them once he or she taps on the unlock button that > appears when a message arrives. When traveling through Wickr servers, > the correspondence is unreadable to anyone who might be snooping. > Wickr claims it doesn't store any of the messages, so the service > can't even turn correspondence over as scrambled gobbledygook if the > feds or police come knocking. > > Wickr uses your own password and standard cryptography schemes like > AES and RSA to hide the content of your messages. For security > reasons, not even your password can be retrieved. If it could, > somebody could steal it, or maliciously reset it to intercept your > communications and pretend to be you. > > Some of the cryptography behind Wickr is widely used on the Internet. > It's the kind that ensures you are really paying Amazon instead of a > hacker, or that nobody is spying when you check your bank account > online. But Wickr also has a "proprietary algorithm," secret to > everybody except the app developers and some trusted reviewers. Wickr > doesn't have open source code. > > In other words, only the company knows precisely how its > privacy-enhancing system works. And that's exactly where Wickr's > privacy and security utopia could fail and crumble, according to > cryptography and security experts. > > "We have a kind of a maxim in our field, in cryptography, which is > that the systems should be open," says Matthew Green, a cryptography > researcher and professor at Johns Hopkins University Information > Security Institute. > > Green echoes what Bruce Schneier, a cryptography and security guru, > has been saying for a long time. "The idea is simple," wrote Schneier > in a 1999 newsletter. > > As it turns out, to have a secure, privacy-enhancing app, you might > need to have a thousand eyes on it. > > Green says this is nothing new. This maxim, that for some security > researchers is almost a dogma, goes all the way back in the history of > cryptography, to the 1800s. That's when Auguste Kerckhoffs, a > celebrated Dutch cryptographer, formulated his famous principle: "A > cryptosystem should be secure even if everything about the system, > except the key, is public knowledge." > > For Green, that means "if you don't know how a system works, you kind > of have to assume that it's untrustworthy." He adds that this is not > about being an open source activist. But Wickr, he says, doesn't even > have white papers on its website explaining how the system works. > > "If you're somebody who is a wine aficionado, you care about what's > inside the bottle, you don't care about the label," Green says. "But > unfortunately what's been hyped [at Wickr] is kind of the label, and > we want to know if what's inside is vinegar or if it's actually > something that we want to drink." > > He is not the only one to question. > > "From my perspective I don't think the company should be telling us, > 'Trust us, it's safe,' 'Trust us, it's encrypted,' or 'Trust us, it's > audited,'" says Nadim Kobeissi, a cryptographer and founder of > encrypted browser-based chat service Cryptocat. "We should be able to > verify ourselves." > > Kobeissi refers to two recent examples that highlight the importance > of open source cryptography software. > > The first one is his own creation. Cryptocat, which could be > considered a Wickr competitor, was born as an open source project, in > which everyone could inspect the code and make improvement suggestions > or flag bugs and flaws. Initially, Cryptocat received some criticism, > with experts claiming it wasn't safe to use in high-risk situations. > But with the feedback from the community, the application has improved > and everybody has learned from it, Kobeissi says. > > Another example, he notes, is Silent Circle, an app that also promises > encrypted and secure communications. Silent Circle was founded by > Phillip Zimmerman, the inventor of the vaunted data-encrypting program > Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). Even with his involvement, the > cryptographic community retreated when it learned Silent Circle would > not be open source. > > Following pressure from critics and the cryptography open source > community, Silent Circle decided to open some of its code. Once it > did, "people still found flaws in their software; they still found > bugs in it," Kobeissi says. But "Silent Circle still benefited from > making their code open source so that people could review it." > > And the same Zimmerman seems to have come to terms with the fact that > they initially made a mistake. "It’s not just [to look for] back > doors, but what if they screw up and make a mistake?" he said at a > security summit in Puerto Rico. > > When asked about the open source controversy, Wickr's co-founder Sell > says that they "never considered being open source and don't plan > being open source" any time soon. > > Dan Kaminsky, a security and cryptography guru known for spotting a > critical flaw in the DNS system and, basically, having saved the > Internet as we know it, doesn't agree with the critics. "Obscurity has > some place in the world," he says. "There are many ways to deliver > secure systems: One way is to be as open as possible, one way is not." > > Kaminsky, who serves as a formal advisor for Wickr, has personally > reviewed the code and vouches for the security of its cryptography > scheme. Additionally, on Feb. 25 the company announced the app has > been audited by application security company Veracode and has received > its maximum rating. Green, however, notes that Veracode isn't > specifically designed to find "subtle cryptography problems" but > rather fool-proof the code for generic bugs and errors. And Schneier > also famously wrote that "security has nothing to do with > functionality. You can have two algorithms, one secure and the other > insecure, and they both can work perfectly." > > The cautionary tale that many reference is the case of Hushmail, an > encrypted mail service that used to claim that "not even a Hushmail > employee with access to our servers can read your encrypted email, > since each message is uniquely encoded before it leaves your computer" > — words that echo Wickr's own proclamations. Sell tells Mashable that > Wickr's "architecture eliminates backdoors; if someone was to come to > us with a subpoena, we have nothing to give them." > > As it turned out, Hushmail wasn't so impenetrable. In 2007 it was > revealed that, actually, Hushmail coud eavesdrop on its users > communications when presented with a court order. > > Cryptography controversy aside, Wickr has some undeniable advantages. > It's extremely easy and intuitive to use. In that regard, it's a lot > like Whatsapp. You install it, create your username and password and > it takes just an instant to learn how to send messages. It really > looks like any other messaging app you've already used a thousand > times. And that was the developers' goal. > > "There has been a real problem with security being too difficult for > the average user." Kaminsy says, "Nerds to nerds communication is > doing OK, but what about the real world? What about my friends? What > about my family?" > > Also, since the messages self-destruct, even if somebody somehow gets > a hold of your phone or your account, there isn't that much to see > (although the recipient can always take a screenshot). Past > communications disappear forever. "Such a feature makes sense when we > consider the pervasive world of targeted attacks," writes Jacob > Appelbaum, a famous hacker and Wikileaks supporter, in a mailing list. > "If you compromise, say, my email client today, you may get years of > email," but if you compromise something like Wickr, you only get a > limited amount of information. > > So could Wickr be used by an activist in Syria who is worried about > enemy spies and Assad's regime? Sell has no doubts — she answers that > question with an unflickering "yes." > > But cryptography expert Green disagrees. "I would not recommend they > use something like Wickr." > > And even Kaminsky is not so sure. "There's no such thing as 100% > security ... I don't recommend you put your life on the line to any > consumer grade electronic, to any software," he says. "Pretending that > anything that we can offer is going to stand up to highly funded > adversaries with weaponry is foolish." > -- > Too many emails? 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