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Comment by tjohns | Hacker News Reader

First off, this looks like a nice project. So please take this as constructive criticism:

1. This really should have screenshots published. Especially when comparing with something polished like AirDrop, the UX is important. You even call this out as one of the features, so it's really odd not seeing the screenshots to support that statement.

2. "Uses state-of-the-art cryptography algorithm" isn't very reassuring. It would be nice to know what standards your using, maybe some details about the underlying protocol.

3. For Android, please consider publishing in Google Play or other stores. I'm not going to enable "untrusted sources" and install a random APK off the Internet.

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Thanks for your advice!

1. Yeah. I should have had screenshots on my webpage :). 2. It's Chacha20-Poly1305-IETF. I haven't have time to document the protocol, so if anyone wants to see it, they need to read the code :). 3. Yeah, that's also in the plan.

My point is that average people might not care about the exact algo being used. They might not even care that it's actually encrypted, so there is no need to specify it in the homepage. The only point of documenting this might be just for devs or people who wouldn't use before they know how it works.

I agree with you, the details on the frontpage are enough for 99.99% of users, but IMO security is something that people rely on "trusted sources" so having somewhere easily accessible for these "trusted sources" to learn how it works, helps, specially when a project is new.

After a while people just "know" that signal is secure not because they know how it works but because they heard enough "trusted sources" describe signal as such.

App seems to be using this: https://libsodium.gitbook.io/doc/secret-key_cryptography/aea...

I have little experience with cryptography, and have no idea whether it is a good choice or not.

If it is, how would you convince regular people that the state of the art “something something sodium chachacha” crypto algorithm in the app is the best for them?

It might be better not to mention the name.

Some stats would be nice, like: your files would take X years to decrypt if stolen (backed by some trusted sources).

libsodium is a solid choice.

> If it is, how would you convince regular people that the state of the art “something something sodium chachacha” crypto algorithm in the app is the best for them?

Personally, I'd make a separate page with more details for the subset of folks who are interested. It doesn't need to be on the main page, but at least something to reassure technical users that the project hasn't rolled it's own DIY crypto would help. :)

(And yes, libsodium is a great choice.)

You could have "state-of-the-art cryptography algorithm" as a link to a page with more details. Or just put the name of the algorithm in brackets afterwards, e.g. "state-of-the-art cryptography algorithm (ChaCha blah AES blah)".

I see. Should've been more concrete about this.

> App seems to be using this: https://libsodium.gitbook.io/doc/secret-key_cryptography/aea...

> I have little experience with cryptography, and have no idea whether it is a good choice or not.

libsodium is from DJB & Tanja Lange, it doesn't get better/more trusted than that without preferring to trust some state entity of choice. (For some reason ranging from regulatory requirement to hopelessly misguided.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_J._Bernstein#Cryptogr...

But yeah, average user doesn't care. It probably doesn't belong on the front page unless this intends only to target a security conscious audience.

Re 3. This is from the repo under control of the author. What makes you think that you will be safer if the author submits the same apk to the google store?

Google does some vetting. Also, if the author doesn't get in first, someone else could put it in the store, claiming the name and making it hard for the author to update.

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