Simon Fell
@superfell.bsky.social
Reposted by Simon Fell
techcrunch.com/2025/09/05/x... shouldn't surprise anyone but quotes me so it's obviously good
X is now offering me end-to-end encrypted chat — you probably shouldn't trust it yet | TechCrunch
X's new encrypted messaging feature, XChat, has some red flags.
techcrunch.com
September 5, 2025 at 4:53 PM
techcrunch.com/2025/09/05/x... shouldn't surprise anyone but quotes me so it's obviously good
Reposted by Simon Fell
Never forget today, when, on this day in 1988, Zero Cool crashed 1,507 systems in one day.
August 10, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Never forget today, when, on this day in 1988, Zero Cool crashed 1,507 systems in one day.
Reposted by Simon Fell
For once, a very good headline, and of course @paolobacigalupi.bsky.social is not wrong here
www.cpr.org/2025/07/12/i...
www.cpr.org/2025/07/12/i...
Acclaimed Colorado sci-fi author: Future stupider than I imagined
Paonia writer Paolo Bacigalupi reflects on 10 years since the publication of his climate thriller “The Water Knife.”
www.cpr.org
July 13, 2025 at 5:05 PM
For once, a very good headline, and of course @paolobacigalupi.bsky.social is not wrong here
www.cpr.org/2025/07/12/i...
www.cpr.org/2025/07/12/i...
Reposted by Simon Fell
So yesterday on X someone from X engineering tweeted at me that X does, in fact, use HSMs and the key ceremonies are “coming soon.” I’ve updated the post but I’ll be honest this whole thing doesn’t fill me with good feelings.
June 10, 2025 at 1:29 PM
So yesterday on X someone from X engineering tweeted at me that X does, in fact, use HSMs and the key ceremonies are “coming soon.” I’ve updated the post but I’ll be honest this whole thing doesn’t fill me with good feelings.
Regardless of how good or bad their Juicebox deployment is, at the end of the day, the client code has access to the unencrypted text and/or private key and can do whatever it wants with it.
June 10, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Regardless of how good or bad their Juicebox deployment is, at the end of the day, the client code has access to the unencrypted text and/or private key and can do whatever it wants with it.
And as you mention without an independently verified key ceremony, there's no way to know if the realm is running on commodity hardware, a poorly configured HSM that can leak keys, or a correctly configured HSM.
June 9, 2025 at 9:27 PM
And as you mention without an independently verified key ceremony, there's no way to know if the realm is running on commodity hardware, a poorly configured HSM that can leak keys, or a correctly configured HSM.
Reposted by Simon Fell
I wrote a bit more about X’s new encrypted DMs and the Juicebox protocol. blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2025/06/09/a...
A bit more on Twitter/X’s new encrypted messaging
Matthew Garrett has a nice post about Twitter (uh, X)’s new end-to-end encryption messaging protocol, which is now called XChat. The TL;DR of Matthew’s post is that from a cryptographic…
blog.cryptographyengineering.com
June 9, 2025 at 6:46 PM
I wrote a bit more about X’s new encrypted DMs and the Juicebox protocol. blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2025/06/09/a...
Juicebox had 2 realms running on real entrust HSMs managing billions of (test) keys. The impl is complete. That said I’m not aware of any deployments of it outside the ones Juicebox ran.
June 9, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Juicebox had 2 realms running on real entrust HSMs managing billions of (test) keys. The impl is complete. That said I’m not aware of any deployments of it outside the ones Juicebox ran.
Reposted by Simon Fell
If your DMs are “encrypted” but one org holds all the keys, you haven’t distributed trust – you’ve built a backdoor.
Juicebox only works when boundaries are real. Separation isn’t optional.
Replication != distribution.
Juicebox only works when boundaries are real. Separation isn’t optional.
Replication != distribution.
Don’t Put All Your Juice in One Box
At Juicebox, we believe key recovery should be secure, user friendly, and actually… work. That means it has to be more than cryptographic theater. It has to reflect the real world, where systems get h...
juicebox.xyz
June 6, 2025 at 1:43 PM
If your DMs are “encrypted” but one org holds all the keys, you haven’t distributed trust – you’ve built a backdoor.
Juicebox only works when boundaries are real. Separation isn’t optional.
Replication != distribution.
Juicebox only works when boundaries are real. Separation isn’t optional.
Replication != distribution.