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Unhandled Expression

Geoffroy Couprie – software security and architecture consultant

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SafeChat, P2P encrypted messages?

2013-10-29

For the first article in the new post serie about "let's pick apart the new kickstarted secure decentralized software of the week", I chose SafeChat, which started just two days ago. Yes, I like to hunt young preys :p

A note, before we begin: this analysis is based on publicly available information at the time of writing. If the authors of the project give more information, I can update the article to match it. The goal is to assert, with what little we know about the project, if it is a good idea to give money to this project. I will only concentrate on the technical parts, not on the team itself (even if, for some of those projects, I think they're idiots running with scissors in hand).

What is SafeChat?

Open source encryption based instant messaging software

SafeChat is a brilliantly simple deeply secure instant messaging system for mobile phones and computers

SafeChat is an instant messaging software designed by Commercial Free. There is no real indication about who really works there, and where the company is based, except for David Crawford, who created the Kickstarter project and is based in Montreal in Canada.

Note that SafeChat is only a small part of the services they want to provide. Commercial Free will also have plans including an email encryption service (no info about that one) and cloud storage.

Available technical information

There is not much to see. They say they are almost done with the core code, but the only thing they present is some videos of what the interaction with the app could be.

Apparently, it is an instant messaging application with Android and iOS applications and some server components.  Session keys are generated for the communication between users. They will manage the server component, and the service will be available with a yearly subscription.

It seems they don't want to release much information about the cryptographic components they use. They talk about "peer to peer encryption" (lol) which is open source and standard. If anyone understands what algorithm or protocol they refer to, please enlighten me. They also say they will mix in some proprietary code (so much for open source).

I especially like the part about NIST. They mock NIST, telling that they have thrown "all standard encryption commonly used today out the window". I am still wondering what "open source and standard peer to peer encryption" means.

Network protocol

The iOS and Android applications will apparently provide direct communication between users. I guess that from their emphasis on P2P, but also from the price they claim: $10 per user per year would be a bit small to pay for server costs if they had to route all the messages.

P2P communication between phones is technically feasible. They would probably need to implement some TCP hole punching in their solution, but it is doable.

Looking athe the video, it seems there is a key agreement before communication. I do not really like the interaction they chose to represent key agreement (with the colors and the smileys). There are too many different states, while  people only need to know "are we safe now?"

I am not sure if there is a presence protocol. The video does not really show it. If there is no presence system, are messages stored until the person is online? Stored on the server or on the client? Does the server notify the client when the person becomes available?

Cryptography

By bringing together existing theories of cryptography and some proprietary code to bind them together, we are making a deeply encrypted private chatting system that continues to evolve as the field of cryptography does.

Yup, I really feel safe now.

Joke aside, here is what we can guess:

There could be a PKI managed by Commercial Free. That would be consistent with the subscription model (short lived certificates is an easy way of limiting the usage of a service).

Threat model

Now, we can draw the rough threat model they are using:

What we want to do is make it impractical for an organization to snoop your communications as it would become very hard to find them and then harder still to decrypt them.

Pro tip: a system with a central server does not make it hard to find communications.

Attacker types:

So...

Really, nothing interesting here. I do not see any reason to give money to this project: there is nothing new, it does not solve big problems like anonymous messaging, or staying reliable if one server is down. Worse, it is probably possible to perform a MITM attack if you manage the server. Nowadays, if you create a cryptographic protocol with client side encryption, you must make sure that your security is based on the client, not the server.

Alternatives to this service: