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Why Open Source Matters For Sensitive Email

Posted by samzenpus on from the better-mail dept.

Jason Baker writes Can you really trust your email provider? And even if you self-host your email server, can you really trust its security if you can't see the code? Over on Opensource.com, Olivier Thierry makes three cases for using open source to power your email solution: The power of numbers, the value of trust, and the importance of leverage.

8 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Open Source not a silver bullet by i+work+on+computers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We've seen over the last year many open source, power in numbers projects have critical vulnerabilities waiting to be exposed. Those defects were sitting there for years, yet being open source didn't magically fix them. I use many open source tools, but I've never inspected the code myself. Even if I did, I'm not going to be finding these hard-to-find defects that the people in the project can't find. I'm not going to implicitly trust an open source project just because it's open source. How do I know who's really contributing? At least if Apple is doing something naught with my iCloud email, at least in theory I can join a class action lawsuit and get a free download from iTunes. If the NSA is inserting nefarious code into an SSL project, there's really no recourse for action. Over the last year, I've learned that the key to internet security is that it doesn't exist. If there's something that really so sensitive, maybe you shouldn't email it.

    1. Re: Open Source not a silver bullet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Also of import: what's the status of turnkey open source email packages these days anyway? What is out there that exchange admins can switch to that won't make them hack on features or make their users ask WTF they just did? That is the elephant in the room and the million dollar question.

    2. Re:Open Source not a silver bullet by exomondo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      From a security perspective, even just having and being able to inspect the code is insufficient if you need top-notch security: you had better also be compiling that code yourself.

      With a verified compiler no less. We have seen ever more sophisticated malware these days, certainly a malicious compiler could easily slip vulnerabilities into the binary.

  2. Not really ... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unless you're using encryption, it doesn't matter, since there are many points of 'interest" between the sender and receiver.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  3. Trust by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sigh. Now somebody is going to bring up Ken Thompson's "Reflections on Trusting Trust" in 3... 2... oops, too late.

    --
    Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
  4. Stupid article is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Open source is a source licensing model. It has no magic powers for creating secure solutions to anything.

    Stupid headline: Why open source matters for sensitive email
    Stupid headline: Why closed-source matters for sensitive email
    Smart headline: Why security matters for sensitive email

    Code audits for security defects can happen regardless of source licensing model.
    Coders authoring a service, no matter how security conscious, and no matter how many eyeballs they have, will likely miss many exploitable defects.

  5. Re:Paranoia abound by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Even beyond that, e-mail can be encrypted client-side when necessary, meaning you don't have to trust anyone. There's no reason to trust your e-mail provider in the first place if the contents are truly sensitive. For everything else, e-mail should be considered about as secure as a postcard.

    If you need to protect the metadata as well as the content, then e-mail shouldn't even be used for that sort of correspondence. E-mail has never been secure. It probably never will be either, at least not for what we consider "e-mail" today, because there's too much legacy crap that would break if we lock it down (at least if we are trying to secure metadata).

    If we're OK with simply encrypting content as needed, then there are ways of building that sort of infrastructure into the system. We're seeing a lot of 3rd party messaging solutions that are using very good "trust no one" client-side encryption technologies and methods, such as What's App (now that they've integrated Open Whisper Systems security) or Threema.

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  6. Re:Paranoia is actually warranted these days by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Trust? Let me tell you about trust, there is no more trust...
    You cannot trust Microsoft, or Google or anyone else with your mail for that matter. Every commercial mail provider and software maker is either already in bed with your adversary, or subject to your adversaries whim. For that matter, you cannot trust the 1.5 BILLION transistors in your CPU. But let's ignore that for now.
    You CAN generally trust open source software for your MUA and MSA/MTA, and for your crypto.
    You NEED crypto.
    Then, you cannot send your encrypted mail through stupid commercial mail providers. It STILL exposes who you are mailing, from where, when, and the subject line, when your recipient was on to get it, etc, etc.
    And you CANNOT use stupid "webmail' that says they will encrypt your mail for you, because you are either giving up your keys to them or letting them take control of your browser... exactly like the safe-mail.net debacle, you're going to get screwed.
    So you both MUST use crypto AND use an anonymous Peer-to-Peer direct messaging service.
    Think I2P-Bote, or ImperialViolet's Pond, or BitMessage... something where your message is sent directly over the anonymizing network straight to your recipient, or so that only they can see any part of it... NOT off to sit on some centralized server that will get subpoenaed and snooped and raided.
    In summary, get this straight folks....

    USE crypto AND use an anonymous Peer-to-Peer direct messaging service.
    It is the ONLY way your messages will ever be private to only you and your correspondent over the wire.