Talk:Off-the-record messaging

Move to "Off-the-Record Messaging" (caps)
I think the article should be moved back to a capitalized title, "Off-the-Record Messaging", as the article documents a specific encryption protocol, not "off the record messaging" in general; "Off-the-Record" is merely a name. All official sources also capitalize the name. Any agreements/disagreements? -- intgr 09:11, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

You are right. --Liebeskind 19:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

OTR - Deniable encryption?
As far as I can tell, OTR doesn't have deniable encryption, just deniable authentication. I think the article intro should be changed in accordance with the Implementation section, which has it correct. Unless, of course, a cryptographer can explain otherwise. — metaprimer (talk) 12:48, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

It has malleable encryption (explained on the deniable encryption page), so i changed it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.243.37 (talk) 18:30, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

The way I understand it, the message signature proves (to anyone who can decrypt the message) that either Alice or Bob sent it. Bob knows that he didn't send the message, so it must have been Alice, but anyone else can't know whether the message was really sent by Alice or forged by Bob. Is this correct / useful? Gingekerr (talk) 22:38, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Rewritten explanation
Instead of complicated computer jargon, I tried to explain the difference between OTR and ordinary cryptography software using a picture of signed writing v. private conversation. Seems more understandable to me. Ceplm (talk) 21:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Further implementations
These two implementations are not yet stable but will become so. I don't know how to best insert this into the article conforming to Wikipedia standards, since this is no "install and use" kind of software yet. I consider it important, because these two are the most popular and feature rich jabber clients (note I have no hard evidence, though). --141.84.69.20 (talk) 21:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * For Gajim (http://gajim.org/) OTR support has been introduced in the development version (http://trac.gajim.org/wiki/OTR) and will probably soon be availiable with a coming release.
 * For Psi there exists a plugin: http://public.tfh-berlin.de/~s717689/ Currently you need to patch Psi, but this will allegedly vanish with continuing development of the plugin interface.

OTR support for Plugin was rewritten as a plugin. http://gajim-otr.pentabarf.de/ Adding Gajim to the list. SzpakEng (talk) 22:10, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I have been using Gajim 0.15 for a logn time, but there is only beta4 available. I comment Gajim waiting for the final reelase. SzpakEng (talk) 22:16, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Example picture
Somehow I do not understand the example picture, there are 2 windows on one machine (they have a common background) and they should be the same conversation - one "normal" the other "raw". But why is in the raw only macskeeball speaking, and why are there 6 messages and in the normal only 2 from him and 3 from "me"

If these 6 encrypted messages are the 2+3 messages from both, why is the first message from "me" also encrypted? it should be still plain. --147.142.13.23 (talk) 22:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

majority of cryptography tools indicate topic?
Quoting from the 2nd paragraph: "This is in contrast with the majority of cryptography tools which resemble more a signed writing on paper, which can be later used as a record to demonstrate the communication event, the participants, and the topic of communication."

I am skeptical of the claim that the topic is recorded. Can anyone explain? 68.33.193.71 (talk) 21:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The topic isn't recorded but it could be used to surmise evidence. For example, if a suspected terrorist has their hard drive seized, encrypted communications found on it could be used in court as evidence suggestive of plotting, especially if the date and other participants are also suggestive... I've changed it to "possible evidence of the topic of communication." ··gracefool&#9786; 01:19, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

origin of the name
Why is this called "Off-the-Record Messaging"? --Gaborgulya (talk) 21:15, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Its name is a reference to a convention in journalism. Say a politician wants to discuss something controversial with a journalist, without being recorded, transcribed, or having what he says published. He first requests to speak "off the record". It's a matter of convention, which has existed for many decades before OTR Messaging was invented, but journalists generally hold conventions pretty high. There are exceptions, though.
 * It's "off-the-record" because, after the conversation has taken place, it can't be proven that any single person has sent any single message, because they might have just as well been forged (see how the article describes 'deniable authentication'). Another reason it might be called 'off-the-record' is because there is, in most scenarios, no central authority that keeps record of the cleartext messages as they arrive. That's because of the perfect forward secrecy - the server relaying the message can't see what's being said. Even if a key were to be found, previous conversations would not be compromised. One key is used for each message.
 * In this way, nobody can know what is being said, apart from the participants in the conversation. After the conversation happens, and one party leaks the conversation, it's not possible to pin what was said in the conversation on any party, because the messages might as well have been forged, because it's possible to do so with the deniable authentication.
 * All this is already mentioned in the article. --BurritoBazooka (talk) 01:36, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

OTR in Kopete
Information about OTR in Kopete should be reviewed. References [10], [11] and [12] are no more relevant. 217.151.195.214 (talk) 14:14, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

IM Plus supports OTR
IM Plus supports OTR, mentioned eg. here:

https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/software.php

Android (free): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.shapeservices.impluslite Android paid: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.shapeservices.implusfull iOS: http://www.shape.ag/en/products/details.php?product=im&platform=iphone

I have tried the Android version. Cannot comment on other platforms at the moment.

IM Plus appears to be completely ignored in all instant messaging articles here for some reason.

"Authentication" is bad title
Mutual Authentication is not Authentication. After SMP, you cannot verify you are talking to the person you think you are. You can just be sure there is no third party in between. For example, Alice and Bob have a conversation. Cary wants to use man in the middle. After SMP, Alice and Bob can be sure no one is in the middle relaying the message. But Cary can still attack Alice and do a SMP with Alice alone, and pretend to be Bob, without relaying the message. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lesiw (talk • contribs) 13:44, 7 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Alice is supposed to pick a question/answer that only Bob knows. And since Cary doesn't know those secrets, they can't complete a successful authentication. How is this not authentication? -- intgr [talk] 07:45, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Off-the-Record Messaging. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080328080733/http://kopete-otr.follefuder.org:80/news.html to http://kopete-otr.follefuder.org/news.html

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Weaknesses
Maybe this is an offtopic subject and this should be placed somewhere else, but I assume that people writing and discussing OTR are experts, so they could awnser my question

If the security and safety of a application is as strong as the weakest part in chain of creation and use. Are then not the application, its creator and its protocol the weakest part, but the OS the application is running on? A simple and undetected keylogger running on OS level could already expose all the input of users?

If a Microsoft or Google allow for 3rd parties or themselves an undetectable keylogger running on their OS, then all security of an app is breached? Also when 3rd parties do find exploits without OS creators knowing of it.

Correct me if i'm wrong. I have just the idea that nobody is really safe on the web if you are using any app running on an OS that "helps" breaching its security. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:464A:91BD:0:184B:3853:EE3D:95E6 (talk) 18:15, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

key exchange vulnerability
Does the section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-Record_Messaging#Authentication mean the man-in-the-middle security flaw described at https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0364.html#security is fixed in OTR 3.1? Otherwise we could add this from the link above in the article: "Because Diffie-Hellman (D-H) key exchange is unauthenticated, the initial D-H exchange which sets up the encrypted channel is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack." --Baptx (talk) 12:43, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * To quote from the link you provided: "No sensitive information should be sent over the encrypted channel until mutual authentication has been performed inside the encrypted channel." So there isn't a "security flaw" to "fix", it's just stating that the initial handshake and authentication are done separately, and implementations need to be aware they should do that. But yes, the normal way authentication is done in OTR is SMP, as described in the section you linked. --Tga (talk) 18:24, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 1 October 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jerium (talk) 19:39, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Off-the-Record Messaging → Off-the-record messaging – Per MOS:EXPABBR. This seems more of a technology than strictly a proper name to me at this point. Feel free to disagree. alexiaa (talk) 10:10, 1 October 2023 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support. Agree with the nom that as currently written the article covers the topic as a technology. Jenks24 (talk) 09:43, 5 October 2023 (UTC)