Q: Why should i trust lokinet with my privacy?

[Kreyren]

1. Even though i have 14 years of experience with Computer Science I don't feel qualified to review the code and notice any possible issues for adaptation of my threat model

2. I am unable to hire any qualified expert who is able to process the code confidently

Those who tried were concerned about:
a) The blockchain aspect of keeping the traffic indefinetly across multiple blockchain members with some concerned about this being a scheme to sell user data via blockchain due to that high freeze requirements to run a relay (iirc 2500 EUR per relay in OXEN crypto)
b) loki's ability to use just 1 relay which seems to defeat the multi-layer encryption?
c) Security and privacy oriented project using discord as their primary community chat?
d) Unclear business plan to fund the project

3. +-7 months ago I was told that lokinet is undergoing an independent security review, but the findings were never published?

What can i do to understand the issues so that i can adapt my threat model and use loki comfortably?

[majestrate]

The blockchain aspect of keeping the traffic indefinetly across multiple blockchain members with some concerned about this being a scheme to sell user data via blockchain due to that high freeze requirements to run a relay (iirc 2500 EUR per relay in OXEN crypto)

The blockchain acts as a directory authority of a sort. I dont know how you'd sell user data with that.

Lokinet always has supported stakeless relays, there has never been enough interest to bootstrap an opennet despite this. I consider the gripes about the lack of an opennet existing despite it being fully supported to be anecdotal evidence of altruistic models being inferior.

loki's ability to use just 1 relay which seems to defeat the multi-layer encryption?

minimum hops is 2, 1 hops never worked well enough to justify enabling it. default is 4 hops.

Security and privacy oriented project using discord as their primary community chat?

no one i know of in lokinet uses discord, we have/had an inband irc network at irc.probably.loki i forget if it's still up. at the moment most community chatter is via SOGS. i genuinely despise discord with a passion.

Unclear business plan to fund the project.

the current idea is to use oxen governance block reward. that is actually not the initial idea for funding, in the very beginning before oxen i planned on having opennet + vpn exit broker pay service. initially there was no business plan to fund the project, then oxen offered a better one.

+-7 months ago I was told that lokinet is undergoing an independent security review, but the findings were never published?

that was session, not lokinet, the reports of that aduit were posted publicly. I would like an audit of lokinet as well. That has not materialized.

What can i do to understand the issues so that i can adapt my threat model and use loki comfortably?

most of these talking points seem to come as a result of the internet hearsay telephone game. when in doubt ask questions here. I'll do my best to answer them.

[Kreyren]

that was session, not lokinet, the reports of that aduit were posted publicly. I would like an audit of lokinet as well. That has not materialized. -- @majestrate (#1825 (comment))

I am aware of that for session, but i am confident that the discussion i had was about security review in lokinet?

I would like an audit of lokinet as well. That has not materialized. -- @majestrate (#1825 (comment))

Why it didn't materialized?

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Can you elaborate how the encryption works in lokinet for 2 and 4 hops?

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Are stakeless relays vulnerable to sybil attacks?

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Is there anything centralized on the routing?

[majestrate]

I am aware of that for session, but i am confident that the discussion i had was about security review in lokinet?

If there really is someone reviewing lokinet they have not made themselves known to the dev team.

Why it didn't materialized?

We have not paid for any 3rd party audits for lokinet to happen yet.

Can you elaborate how the encryption works in lokinet for 2 and 4 hops?

Lokinet's onion routing uses an ephemeral x25519 public key at each hop to derive a shared secret against the hop's x25519 public onion key, that shared secret is used in xchacha20 for symmetric encryption and the blake2 hash of the shared secret is used to xor against the nounce in xchacha20 for the next hop. so if you have 2 hops, you generate those secrets in a path build and do xchacha20 of the 2 hops when sending or receiving data on that path. max hop length supported by the protocol is 8.

Are stakeless relays vulnerable to sybil attacks?

yes.

Is there anything centralized on the routing?

no.

[Kreyren]

We have not paid for any 3rd party audits for lokinet to happen yet. -- @majestrate (#1825 (reply in thread))

Will that ever happen?

[majestrate]

We have not paid for any 3rd party audits for lokinet to happen yet. -- @majestrate (#1825 (reply in thread))

Will that ever happen?

Yes. Not sure when.

[KeeJef]

There's one thing to consider: Loki is Australian, Lokinet is Australian, Session messager is Australian. Australian law requires Australians to include backdoors and prohibits them from talking about them (they must deny their existence). And an Australian developer of an open-source radio set Opengd77 pointed out why he didn't put encryption and why Australian developers couldn't be trusted.

Everything is Open Source but you are using the Lokinet network which is managed by Loki, you can't verify that the code running on it is exactly the same as the one that is on github.

After that, everyone makes up their own minds.

https://www.opengd77.com/viewtopic.php?t=1317

Encryption
Encryption is illegal for Amateur Radio in most countries, and will therefore not be included as part of the OpenGD77 firmware.
It should also be noted. That in Australia a law was passed last year, which requires me to add a secret back door to any encryption functions I write, ( if the government requests this). I its also illegal to tell anyone about any backdoors which have been added.
This effectively means that no Australian developers can write encryption software, as it can't be treated as secure.

Our legal analysis suggests that this is not the case, please read our response here https://loki.network/2018/12/10/lokis-response-to-the-assistance-and-access-bill-2018/

[Ashthetik]

Adding an additional point to this as someone who worked previously as a defense contractor; despite having laws in regards to encryption "backdoors," it is also worth pointing out that these methods are only used after a warrant has been issued and approved by the Federal Court of Australia and any use of these methods without warrant, also breaches privacy laws.

The use of encryption backdoors is to assist in analysis post-warrant and is not consistently monitored as there's typically too much compute to monitor and decrypt all E2EE applications and network traffic -TLS/SSL inclusive.

[rjc3rd]

And as we all know, (at least in the US) that federal agents would never subvert the law, to get their man.