Hacker 10 – Security Hacker

Tag: Skype alternatives

  • The best XMPP/Jabber servers for anonymous chat

    The best XMPP/Jabber servers for anonymous chat

    Jabber/XMPP is a decentralised instant messenger using the open source XMPP protocol, there is no central server that could be compromised, the multiple nodes construct a resilient and hard to monitor infrastructure. Dozens of XMPP servers, encryption and its open source nature make XMPP much harder to wiretap or shut down than cloud based Google Hangouts, Yahoo Messenger or Skype, all USA companies known to have a NSA backdoor.

    One of Jabber/XMPP main vulnerabilities is that the server you are connected to is not trustworthy, this is a list of XMPP servers with the best privacy policies:

    5th July XMPP: Swedish privacy foundation promoting free speech worldwide, in between other services they provide an open XMPP server with Off-The-Record Messaging (OTR) support, hosted in Sweden and with logs tuned off. They warn you that file transfers are not encrypted, only text conversations are.

    Calyx Institute: A not for profit privacy and cyber-security foundation running a public Jabber/XMPP server that does not create any records of who you communicate with or keep logs of the content of any communications, this server forces you to use OTR, Off-the-Record Messaging, a cryptographic plugin that stops the server administrator from accessing plain text of your communications.

    Dismail.de: Free public server located in Germany, you can register for an account using the web interface or your Jabber client. The privacy policy is very clear about how long for each one of your details are stored, metadata has to be saved for Jabber to work, it would be impossible to communicate with your contacts without saving who they are and your Jabber ID is of course also saved. Personal details like the IP address used to create the account and the files you upload are erased after a month.

    Pidgin Jabber XMPP setup
    Pidgin Jabber XMPP setup

    Neko IM: Running a public XMPP server located in Norway, they claim that no more information is collected and stored than what is absolutely necessary, TLS everywhere is enforced and Jabber clients need to support a strong cipher or they will not be able to connect to the network. Being a free volunteer run project, this server uptime comes accordingly to this and no guarantees are made about uptime other than “as much as possible“.

    XMPP Gajim Jabber chat
    XMPP Gajim Jabber chat

    Countermail: This is a paid for service from a Sweden based email privacy company that provides the XMPP server xmpp.counternet.com with TLS and SSL encryption only available to email account holders. The username and password are randomly generated, you can not create your own, however, all XMPP clients supports “alias” or “display name” that you can manually set up and this is what other Jabber users will see.

    SystemLi: Jabber server managed by an anti-capitalist tech collective. They do not retain any kind of data and a .onion link is available for those using Tor. To avoid spam accounts registration is only possible with an Internet browser.

    About Jabber/XMPP security

    Any IM client that supports the XMPP protocol can interact with other Jabber users, a few of the best know Jabber compatible clients are Pidgin, Thunderbird and Jitsi, they can be used for videocalls and sending files, but always remember that encryption and end to end  does not mean that your computer IP is hidden. Jabber will help you protect from wiretapping with encryption but the server you use could log what you do and your contact could find out your home IP if you are not on a proxy or VPN.

    Another benefit of Jabber is that the same username and password can be used to connect with the social network Jappix, unlike Facebook, you don’t have to provide your real identity to take part in Jappix. Another way to protect your online privacy is running your own Jabber/XMPP server with a custom logs policy, it is not hard to set up an XMPP server with basic understanding of Unix, search for Prosody or Tigase to find XMPP server software to run.

    I included XMPP servers with a clear privacy policy of minimum logging or being offshore, those are the claims that the server administrators make, there is no way to verify any of them. If you are social activist RiseUp and Austici provide anonymous Jabber chat servers for people fighting for world change but they are not on the list because they are strictly for political activists.

    Sometimes privacy minded individuals set up their own XMPP server and open them to everybody, due to the nature of one man operations, instead of including here privacy servers that have little backing and less chances of long term survival it is best that you check out an updated list of all public XMMP servers at https://list.jabber.at/

  • Encrypted Voice over IP chat Mumble works with Tor

    Encrypted Voice over IP chat Mumble works with Tor

    Mumble is an open source VoIP program for group or P2P chat that runs in Windows, Mac and Linux, with iPhone and Android versions in beta. Mumble encryption is implemented with public/private key authentication and unlike Microsoft owned Skype, which supposedly also encrypts calls, in Mumble cryptography experts can scrutinise the code to make sure that the NSA has not inserted a backdoor or weakened the algorithm.

    Mumble is widely used by gamers due to its low latency and background noise reduction resulting in superb audio quality, but you can use it for any kind of communication. Ninety per cent of the public chatrooms I visited where gaming clans and I had to manually add activist related Mumble servers like occupytalk. For high privacy group calls you have got to manage everything yourself, including the server, otherwise a rogue operator could carry out a man-in-the-middle attack to eavesdrop on you.

    Mumble server encryption details
    Mumble server encryption details

    When you first install Mumble you will be prompted if you would like to run your own server (called Murmur) this will give you total control over who can access the chatroom but it requires staff and time. The other option is to join one of the dozens of public Mumble servers classified by countries and create there your own chatroom or rent a Mumble server from a specialist provider, they can be easily found with an Internet search for Mumble server hosting.

    The Mumble client Audio Tuning Wizard helps you correctly set input levels for your sound card with voice activity detection and sound quality as well as optional text to speech to read typed in messages. Messages are read with a metallic voice but you have the option of buying a professional text to speech package from a third party and add it if you are going to use the feature a lot. The second Mumble client step creates a digital certificate to authenticate with servers. The most likely is that the servers you visit will have a free self-signed digital certificate poping up a warning window that you will have to accept before joining, this is not a huge security risk if you examine the certificate before accepting it and it only has to be done once.

    Besides AES256-bit encryption Mumble has the edge over other VoIP tools because it can communicate with the TCP protocol, this is absolutely necessary for any program to be tunnelled in Tor and most VoIP programs only work with UDP, Mumble also has very low bandwidth needs, it will not clog Tor nodes and it works as Push to talk (PTT), you need to push a button to transmit voice, instead of an always on call connection.

    You can either connect directly to Tor running it in your computer and configure Mumble by going to Configuration>Network tick the checkbox that says “Force TCP Mode” and fill in the SOCKS5 proxy settings with localhost and 9050 for the port, or roll your own anonymous Mumble server for your friends renting a VPS, installing the Mumble server software in the VPS, configuring the server firewall to accept incoming connections in Mumble’s default port 64738, installing Tor in the VPS and from then on all voice calls made using that server will be encrypted and anonymous.

    Visit Mumble homepage