ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Josh Leverette <coder543@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Who uses SMS much anyway these days ? Its all  IM."

You have no idea how much I wish that were true. For me and my friends
though, it couldn't be further from the truth. All we use is SMS,
practically speaking.


On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 5:09 PM, Alan Miller <dralanmiller@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>  Who uses SMS much anyway these days ? Its all  IM.
> We used to use small electronic boards from Bladox to encrypt SMS in the
> past but that was before IM and smart phones.
> There is very  clear need for some kind of encryption proxy built into
> Ubuntu that could provide point to point encryption. I have always liked
> Phil Zimmermanns ZPHONE and how it worked. It sits in the protocol stack
> and when it detects another ZPHONE it jumps up and opportunistically
> encrypts using ZRTP.
> The key is generated in the media stream and wiped afterwards so no public
> key is needed, just verbal verification of the fingerprint strings.
>
> Two ubuntu phones no matter which service they used would be able to send
> and receive encrypted messages or even audio point to point.
> OTR can easily be implemented as well.
> All that is needed is a way to announce to the world that you are capable
> of encryption and to do that all you need is to transmit a character at the
> beginning of each message and that can used to trigger OTR or ZRTP.
> The fingerprint strings could be brought up to the UI easily enough at the
> top like the battery or Wifi indicators and pulled down to view and verify.
>
> While we are on this topic, could someone get crypto.cat working on
> ubuntu as an app ?
>
> On 18 Jul, 2013, at 3:26 AM, Marius Kotsbak <marius@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> They have given up individual SMS charging in Norway too. Also the content
> could be en compressed inside the encryption so that it might not require
> so many SMS-es.
> Den 17. juli 2013 21:08 skrev "Gianguido Sorà" <gianguidorama@xxxxxxxxx>
> følgende:
>
>> Exactly, in the USA there are unlimited SMS but in other countries there
>> aren't.
>> In Italy for example if an operator give 200/month is a great deal.
>> I think that the XMPP approach is more useful, because (almost) free
>> 3G/4G data access is more reliable and easy to use.
>> Il giorno 17/lug/2013 20:57, "Josh Leverette" <coder543@xxxxxxxxx> ha
>> scritto:
>>
>>> I didn't say linking. Just breaking it up and sending them out. It's the
>>> user's choice. Encrypting it won't make it take up more space necessarily.
>>> If the user wants to send that many messages, they can. In a number of
>>> countries, SMS is unlimited. Here in the United States, all of the
>>> companies essentially gave up on charging for each message. It really is
>>> absolutely free for the cell company, and once one of them started offering
>>> unlimited SMS, none of the others could do any less and be competitive.
>>> Doing an XMPP system would work too, but that requires having a data
>>> connection, which should always be more expensive than SMS, realistically.
>>> I'm fine with it being XMPP, but the advantage of using SMS is that it
>>> works even when you barely have any signal, and SMS is dirt cheap compared
>>> to data, at least here in the United States. I can't speak about the rest
>>> of the world, but SMS as a technology is infinitely cheaper. Whether the
>>> company chooses to charge appropriately, that's up to them.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 1:52 PM, Rasmus Eneman <Rasmus@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Linking SMS cost money, you have to pay for every SMS. Also I'm pretty
>>>> sure you only can link up to 4 SMSes.
>>>> However an XMPP based service would still be better as key exchange may
>>>> happen automagically. You have
>>>> already broken the standard so why continue to use it when you only
>>>> gets its limitations?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2013/7/17 Josh Leverette <coder543@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>
>>>>> Also, I don't see why encrypting SMS would be impossible. You don't
>>>>> send encrypted SMS to people who can't decrypt them. Since we're talking
>>>>> about asymmetric encryption anyways, then the only people *you could
>>>>> even think* *of* sending encrypted SMS to are people for whom you
>>>>> have a public key. If you don't have a public key for a contact, then
>>>>> obviously you have no method of encrypting a message to them. But, more
>>>>> importantly, you can always break up an SMS into multiple SMS as the need
>>>>> arises, so length isn't an issue as long as the user knows how many
>>>>> messages it will form.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 1:36 PM, Mike Bybee <mike.bybee@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Well, SMS obviously can't do GPG due to character limits - however,
>>>>>> there are dozens of varieties of secure SMS tools currently on Android. It
>>>>>> seems that some variety encryption could be supported by the default client
>>>>>> - much like OTR for Pidgin, etc.
>>>>>> Not that it should default to it - that would be awful. But that it
>>>>>> should be able to have an easy to enable option.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There's a lot of people world wide mad about security right now - and
>>>>>> if Ubuntu Touch can eventually ship with a good basic set of security
>>>>>> options, it will appeal to people who otherwise might have no reason to use
>>>>>> it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 11:30 AM, Rasmus Eneman <Rasmus@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You can't have GPG on SMS as it can't handle that amount of
>>>>>>> characters. Also it would be stupid
>>>>>>> as no one can't receive GPG/PGP SMS. If this feature is realy wanted
>>>>>>> on Ubuntu to Ubuntu
>>>>>>> then implementing something like iMessage or Hangouts should be done
>>>>>>> using XMPP and bound
>>>>>>> to the Ubuntu One account.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2013/7/17 Mike Bybee <mike.bybee@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thanks. I think with PRISM and it's various world-wide equivalents,
>>>>>>>> we're all thinking about this.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 11:08 AM, Josh Leverette <
>>>>>>>> coder543@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I'm still waiting on the actual native email client to be written.
>>>>>>>>> Once that happens, adding encryption should be relatively trivial. So,
>>>>>>>>> whenever that happens.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 1:07 PM, Mike Bybee <mike.bybee@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>  Are there currently any plans to make sure the ubuntu mail app
>>>>>>>>>> will support gpg or some other standard - and likewise for SMS?
>>>>>>>>>> I know right now it just uses webmail, but I'm sure that's not
>>>>>>>>>> the long term goal
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>>>>> Mike Bybee
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
>>>>>>>>>> Post to     : ubuntu-phone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>>>>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
>>>>>>>>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>> Sincerely,
>>>>>>>>>     Josh
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>>> Mike Bybee
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
>>>>>>>> Post to     : ubuntu-phone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
>>>>>>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Rasmus Eneman
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Mike Bybee
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Sincerely,
>>>>>     Josh
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Rasmus Eneman
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Sincerely,
>>>     Josh
>>>
>>> --
>>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
>>> Post to     : ubuntu-phone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
>>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>>
>>>
>> --
>> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
>> Post to     : ubuntu-phone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>
>> --
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
> Post to     : ubuntu-phone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>
>
>
> --
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
> Post to     : ubuntu-phone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>
>


-- 
Sincerely,
    Josh