[whispersystems] Signal in Vietnam

[Justin]

Hi,
If I were to use the Signal app in Vietnam, is it likely that the authorities would get me in trouble for using it? I’ve heard that they don’t do DPI to classify application layer protocols, but could it be detected another way?
Thanks,
Justin.

[blake]

Can you elaborate on your threat model? I don't think Vietnam is trying to prosecute anyone for simply using signal. It'd be much easier for them to block signal's servers from within Vietnam anyway. And I doubt they are doing this, because China isn't even doing that. At least they weren't doing it when I was there last October.

Post by Justin
Hi,
If I were to use the Signal app in Vietnam, is it likely that the
authorities would get me in trouble for using it? I’ve heard that they
don’t do DPI to classify application layer protocols, but could it be
detected another way?
Thanks,
Justin.

[rhodey orbits]

Hey Justin & Blake,

I think you'll likely be OK using Signal in Vietnam, Justin, all traffic
from the Signal app is sent over TLS with perfect-forward-secrecy enabled
and then of course there is the perfect-forward-secrecy application level
encryption (Axolotl) on top of that. Vietnam can see that your phone is
connected to a Signal server because the Signal server IP Addresses don't
change very often, but that's really all they'll know. If you wanna do
better than this you could try routing the Signal traffic though Tor, but
then they see that you're connected to the Tor network so whatever.

Does WhatsApp work in Vietnam? The encryption in WhatsApp is exactly the
same as whats in Signal, having worked at Whisper Systems for 2 years I can
vouch for this (for whatever that is worth :P). WhatsApp is the most
popular messaging app on the planet so I can't imagine using it would raise
any suspicion.

-- rhodey

Post by blake
Can you elaborate on your threat model? I don't think Vietnam is trying to
prosecute anyone for simply using signal. It'd be much easier for them to
block signal's servers from within Vietnam anyway. And I doubt they are
doing this, because China isn't even doing that. At least they weren't
doing it when I was there last October.

Hi,
If I were to use the Signal app in Vietnam, is it likely that the authorities would get me in trouble for using it? I’ve heard that they don’t do DPI to classify application layer protocols, but could it be detected another way?
Thanks,
Justin.

--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[Jake McGinty]

Both Signal and WhatsApp work in Vietnam just fine.

Post by rhodey orbits
Hey Justin & Blake,
I think you'll likely be OK using Signal in Vietnam, Justin, all traffic from the Signal app is sent over TLS with perfect-forward-secrecy enabled and then of course there is the perfect-forward-secrecy application level encryption (Axolotl) on top of that. Vietnam can see that your phone is connected to a Signal server because the Signal server IP Addresses don't change very often, but that's really all they'll know. If you wanna do better than this you could try routing the Signal traffic though Tor, but then they see that you're connected to the Tor network so whatever.
Does WhatsApp work in Vietnam? The encryption in WhatsApp is exactly the same as whats in Signal, having worked at Whisper Systems for 2 years I can vouch for this (for whatever that is worth :P). WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app on the planet so I can't imagine using it would raise any suspicion.
-- rhodey
Can you elaborate on your threat model? I don't think Vietnam is trying to prosecute anyone for simply using signal. It'd be much easier for them to block signal's servers from within Vietnam anyway. And I doubt they are doing this, because China isn't even doing that. At least they weren't doing it when I was there last October.
Hi,
If I were to use the Signal app in Vietnam, is it likely that the authorities would get me in trouble for using it? I’ve heard that they don’t do DPI to classify application layer protocols, but could it be detected another way?
Thanks,
Justin.
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[Benedikt Radtke]

Hi,

as you may have noticed, the Signal-Android client starts complaining
about its expiration date.
Could you unroll an update to the appstore (and while you are at it,
merge one or another pull request)?


Thanks in advance,
Benni

---
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[Johan Wevers]

Post by Benedikt Radtke
as you may have noticed, the Signal-Android client starts complaining
about its expiration date.

Fortunately I have not, because I built my own and remove that annoying
expire function.

Post by Benedikt Radtke
Could you unroll an update to the appstore (and while you are at it,
merge one or another pull request)?

And, given the current development speed of Signal, an increase in the
expire period might be a good idea as well.

[Benedikt Radtke]

Me neither since I am working on using Signal-Android as a non-master
device, but i think a reminder on the mailinglist was due.


"might be a good idea" is a very polite way to put it.

Post by Johan Wevers

Post by Benedikt Radtke
as you may have noticed, the Signal-Android client starts complaining
about its expiration date.

Fortunately I have not, because I built my own and remove that annoying
expire function.

Post by Benedikt Radtke
Could you unroll an update to the appstore (and while you are at it,
merge one or another pull request)?

And, given the current development speed of Signal, an increase in the
expire period might be a good idea as well.

[Laurence Berland]

What about doing something a bit more foolproof than a static count down
timer?

On Aug 8, 2016 7:15 PM, "Benedikt Radtke" <

Post by Benedikt Radtke
Me neither since I am working on using Signal-Android as a non-master
device, but i think a reminder on the mailinglist was due.
"might be a good idea" is a very polite way to put it.

Post by Benedikt Radtke
as you may have noticed, the Signal-Android client starts complaining

Post by Benedikt Radtke
about its expiration date.

Fortunately I have not, because I built my own and remove that annoying
expire function.
Could you unroll an update to the appstore (and while you are at it,

Post by Benedikt Radtke
merge one or another pull request)?

And, given the current development speed of Signal, an increase in the
expire period might be a good idea as well.

[Johan Wevers]

Post by Benedikt Radtke
Me neither since I am working on using Signal-Android as a non-master
device,

Non-master device? What would that be?

[Benedikt Radtke]

Briefly summarized, implementing issue #5102 - enabling Signal-Android
to act as a slave-device like Signal-Desktop,

so that you may use it on your secondary phone and/or your tablet
without dealing with 2 phone numbers.


I am using a signal-cli master instance, and have successfully linked my
smartphone's Signal-Android to it.

Code is a proof-of-concept and not yet ready for a pull request, but it
works aside from a few known issues.


No redphone support so far, but with the current delay and quality
nobody i know uses it anyway.


https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/issues/5102

https://github.com/Trolldemorted/Signal-Android/tree/multidevice

Post by Johan Wevers

Post by Benedikt Radtke
Me neither since I am working on using Signal-Android as a non-master
device,

Non-master device? What would that be?

[Johan Wevers]

Post by Benedikt Radtke
No redphone support so far, but with the current delay and quality
nobody i know uses it anyway.

Well, then you know now someone: me and my partner use it regularly. All
voip solutions I tried sometimes suffer from bad sound quality (Signal,
Viber, Whatsapp, BBM); fortunately not always the same service suffers
from bad sound quality.