And now they've "open sourced it" with minimal changes since then. Sounds to me like they stopped working on it, but they didn't want to keep getting asked by the tech media and crypto people about the project's status. So they went "Here, it's all yours now! You're welcome. Yes, we know how awesome we are."
But it doesn't look quite finished, so I wonder if anyone will bother to complete Google's half-assed job. Google didn't even bother to integrate it with Key Transparency before open sourcing it. That speaks volumes as well.
They've recently also released a centralized/hosted version of S/MIME for enterprise users as well, again showing their complete disinterest in continuing to support end-to-end crypto.
I'm guessing they stopped working on End-to-End around the time they started working on the hosted S/MIME. I wouldn't get my hopes up about Google supporting end-to-end crypto in the future. Now I'm starting to wonder if they'll also kill the feature in Allo, or just hide it some more in future releases, so that it becomes even harder to use.
Counterexample to "hard to use" point: Protonmail.
(Arguably, it's easier to use for some scenarios, compared to Signal or WhatsApp, because one doesn't need to have a reachable mobile phone number.)
As for the crypto - I think, OpenPGP isn't broken or "worse", just has different properties (like lack of standardized PFS, which has both cons and pros). But, yes, protocol limitations for metadata security (e.g. subject lines) are an issue.
It's not the only problem they have (there are a lot of important functionality missing or limited), but it's not related to "extremely hard to use" point, and it's all doable and isn't done because they have limited resources.
Chrome apps are themselves deprecated. This looks dead on arrival.
Hosted S/MIME is entirely different. It's completely unrelated to their general E2E efforts. The enterprise S/MIME solution is mostly to sell security to enterprises, not privacy to individuals.
aside from lack of funding, it might actually be better for the community to maintain this, no? I'd certainly prefer an independent set of developers build this, as principle.
Even if that were true, that's not reason enough for me. Why can't they just display random ads on the side-bar? There's no reason they need to read my emails for that.
I am not surprised. I got sick in 2014 and spent a summer implementing OpenPGP from scratch. It is _extremely_ ugly. If I was Google I would make something better and push that, instead of spending tearful days implementing the really bad specification that is RFC4880.
Well, given that Google is giant, unbelievably powerful, and have a very significant share of email market - they could've pulled just about anything. If OpenPGP isn't good (and it's true that it has issues), they could've implemented and proposed a whole new standard that addresses existing shortcomings, evangelize/market it - and it's very likely others would've followed.
I feel like there is a logical connection between you getting sick and working on an OpenPGP implementation, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what that connection is.
So, it is still decidedly beta (more accurately, alpha), but I wrote and just released http://gibber.it, to allow users to send end-to-end encrypted messages through basically any place in a browser that you can enter text.
I wrote this because it seems to me that the lack of end to end encryption in services like gmail is a problem - it also seems to me that there is no reason to have this service tied to a particular website, or for it to be administrated by another service provider. Accordingly, all GibberIt does is provide the encryption and key exchange - use it on gmail, nytimes comment boards and reddit (all working well so far) - or wherever the hell else you want. It will soon (I hope...) be working on facebook too (their content-security-policy is very strict - rightly so - and I am making the extension compatible with these requirements).
* It currently functions as a chrome extension.
* Sign up, invite connections just like any other social network.
* Encryption is end to end, AES 128 with nonce'd salts.
* Use a password you share with your connection (NOT your login password) to send connection invites - this is used to encrypt your keys during the invite process. (Make sure to accept the return invite! This is how your connection sends his or her keys back to you. Also note that you will likely need to reload any tab running the extension after accepting an invite in order to get the keys to load.)
* Use the chrome extension to encrypt and decrypt messages as you browse.
Please note that the system is in BETA. Still many tweaks to work out. Use is at your own risk.
Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. I welcome any and all feedback. Love the system? Hate the system? Please let me know.
Edit: Please note that the gibberit homepage - AND NO OTHER PAGE - uses google analytics. This is clearly detailed in my privacy policy. Aside from that, I do not use any tracking software.
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[ 20.7 ms ] story [ 219 ms ] threadhttps://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/google-yahoo-end-...
And now they've "open sourced it" with minimal changes since then. Sounds to me like they stopped working on it, but they didn't want to keep getting asked by the tech media and crypto people about the project's status. So they went "Here, it's all yours now! You're welcome. Yes, we know how awesome we are."
But it doesn't look quite finished, so I wonder if anyone will bother to complete Google's half-assed job. Google didn't even bother to integrate it with Key Transparency before open sourcing it. That speaks volumes as well.
They've recently also released a centralized/hosted version of S/MIME for enterprise users as well, again showing their complete disinterest in continuing to support end-to-end crypto.
https://security.googleblog.com/2017/02/hosted-smime-by-goog...
I'm guessing they stopped working on End-to-End around the time they started working on the hosted S/MIME. I wouldn't get my hopes up about Google supporting end-to-end crypto in the future. Now I'm starting to wonder if they'll also kill the feature in Allo, or just hide it some more in future releases, so that it becomes even harder to use.
(Arguably, it's easier to use for some scenarios, compared to Signal or WhatsApp, because one doesn't need to have a reachable mobile phone number.)
As for the crypto - I think, OpenPGP isn't broken or "worse", just has different properties (like lack of standardized PFS, which has both cons and pros). But, yes, protocol limitations for metadata security (e.g. subject lines) are an issue.
Hosted S/MIME is entirely different. It's completely unrelated to their general E2E efforts. The enterprise S/MIME solution is mostly to sell security to enterprises, not privacy to individuals.
If so, I'm not sure what the problem is with them not officially supporting it other than the awkwardness of dealing with certificates.
PS: goog employee
There's no reason they couldn't still send targeted ads based on other user info.
This is a choice gmail has to make between doing the right thing, and doing the profitable thing.
https://github.com/mailvelope/mailvelope
RFC4880 may be ugly. Yet great design can still turn it into a good user experience.
I don't think anyone considers TCP/IP pretty. Who cares? When I open my browser, I see none of it.
I wrote this because it seems to me that the lack of end to end encryption in services like gmail is a problem - it also seems to me that there is no reason to have this service tied to a particular website, or for it to be administrated by another service provider. Accordingly, all GibberIt does is provide the encryption and key exchange - use it on gmail, nytimes comment boards and reddit (all working well so far) - or wherever the hell else you want. It will soon (I hope...) be working on facebook too (their content-security-policy is very strict - rightly so - and I am making the extension compatible with these requirements).
* It currently functions as a chrome extension.
* Sign up, invite connections just like any other social network.
* Encryption is end to end, AES 128 with nonce'd salts.
* Use a password you share with your connection (NOT your login password) to send connection invites - this is used to encrypt your keys during the invite process. (Make sure to accept the return invite! This is how your connection sends his or her keys back to you. Also note that you will likely need to reload any tab running the extension after accepting an invite in order to get the keys to load.)
* Use the chrome extension to encrypt and decrypt messages as you browse.
* I am, by profession, a corporate, software and information lawyer. More about me here: http://www.lawyernamedliberty.com
Demonstration gifs of GibberIt here: https://www.gibberit.com/#!how
Please note that the system is in BETA. Still many tweaks to work out. Use is at your own risk.
Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. I welcome any and all feedback. Love the system? Hate the system? Please let me know.
Edit: Please note that the gibberit homepage - AND NO OTHER PAGE - uses google analytics. This is clearly detailed in my privacy policy. Aside from that, I do not use any tracking software.