On Fri, Apr 17, 2015, at 10:41 AM, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote: > Yes, that's correct. OTR will associate any remote peer with access to > Bob's secret key material as though it were Bob. > > Secret keys need to remain secret for any cryptosystem to retain its > security guarantees, and OTR is no exception.
Then why don't the docs explain this? I assume that the docs are also for people who want security but don't understand the details of cryptography? How can the docs claim that "They are also confident that no one watching the network can read their messages" [1]. That seems like an obviously false statement to me. This seems like a major and serious vulnerability to me, and it seems like the weakest link in the chain. I am not criticizing OTR for having this vulnerability because, as Daniel wrote, all cryptosystems have it. But not emphasizing it in the docs seems really deceptive to me. It is really not that hard for Mallory to get Bob's private key. If he leaves his computer unattended for 5 minutes Mallory could stick in a USB flash drive and copy his private key. Or Mallory could use spyware or some sort of other hacking. Or Bob might include his private key file in an online backup or Dropbox not realizing it. [1] https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/help/4.0.0/levels.php?lang=en -- Greg Reagle System & Network Administrator Center for Economic and Policy Research rea...@cepr.net _______________________________________________ OTR-users mailing list OTR-users@lists.cypherpunks.ca http://lists.cypherpunks.ca/mailman/listinfo/otr-users
