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Bug 589778 - ZRTP support for end-to-end encryption
ZRTP support for end-to-end encryption
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: empathy
Classification: Core
Component: VoIP
3.2.x
Other All
: Normal enhancement
: ---
Assigned To: empathy-maint
empathy-maint
: 668370 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2009-07-26 16:52 UTC by Josh Triplett
Modified: 2018-05-22 13:37 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: 3.1/3.2



Description Josh Triplett 2009-07-26 16:52:07 UTC
(Note: this feature request probably requires more work in Telepathy than in Empathy, though the latter will still need UI support for it.  Telepathy feature request filed as https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22952 .)

ZRTP provides end-to-end encryption of RTP, without using SIP or similar for
negotiation or key exchange.  I'd love to see support for this in Empathy, for use with both SIP (via SofiaSIP) and XMPP/Jingle (via Gabble).

GNU ZRTP and the libZRTP SDK both provide libraries implementing ZRTP.

Several other clients have support for ZRTP, such as Twinkle; these should
interoperate with any other implementation of ZRTP.

I don't know if any client yet supports ZRTP for XMPP/Jingle calls; that would
prove particularly useful.
Comment 1 Guillaume Desmottes 2009-08-06 11:01:42 UTC
This feature is indeed blocked on lower layers for now (Telepathy, Farsight)
Comment 2 Christoph Anton Mitterer 2012-01-14 01:04:07 UTC
There are bugs on this:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22952
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=28056
Comment 3 André Klapper 2012-01-20 22:29:41 UTC
Similar Ekiga request is bug 335594.
Comment 4 André Klapper 2012-01-20 22:30:14 UTC
*** Bug 668370 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 lists 2012-01-22 07:19:37 UTC
Jitsi provides a good example of a ZRTP implementation, with ZRTP working for
both SIP and XMPP/Jingle:
http://jitsi.org/index.php/Documentation/ZrtpFAQ
http://jitsi.org/index.php/Main/Features

Some background information on this is here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/secureVOIP

There is also the nightlies of cSIPSIMPLE
(https://code.google.com/p/csipsimple/), which implements ZRTP for SIP calls on
Android.
Comment 6 lists 2012-02-19 09:37:16 UTC
I am really interested in this and would be prepared to throw a small amount of money at pushing it through the various stages required to get zRTP-secured
XMPP/Jingle calls in Empathy. (At the moment I'm using Jitsi, which isn't anywhere near as nice to use as Empathy.)

From the many comments that I have seen around generally, I would expect others to be the same. Perhaps you could establish a BidForFix to have this feature
implemented and see if people are interested in financing it?
Comment 7 lists 2012-03-04 02:56:27 UTC
On further thought, this seems like a prime candidate for funding from NLNet:
http://nlnet.nl/
Is there anyone from Collabora watching this who could please follow this up?

NLNet funded the development of zRTP in Jitsi, funded AbiWord to use Telepathy and funded Collabora to work on echo cancellation in PulseAudio. It therefore seems likely to me that they would consider an application by Collabora to develop zRTP for Telepathy/Empathy. I've deliberately drafted the below as the start for an application by Collabora to NLNet here:
http://nlnet.nl/foundation/request/

NLNet's Real Time Communications fund aims to improve internet communication with "standards-based, distributed (which means no single point of failure, including independence of individual vendors, security by design". Adding zRTP to Empathy would add standards-based security in a way that would interoperate with Jitsi. In addition, it would make Empathy the first client able to make and receive secure VP8 video calling over XMPP/Jingle, in a way that is fully standards-compliant.

As I understand it, zRTP support would require work at the Telepathy and Farsight layers, as well as interface work in Empathy. This means that the results of this would not only help Empathy, but all other projects that use or will use Telepathy/Farsight in the future.
Comment 8 Jean-François Fortin Tam 2012-06-24 14:05:41 UTC
Hi lists@whitehouse, I think that if you want Collabora to work on this with funding from NLNet, you should contact them directly for an estimate/proposal, not expect them to seek out business in bug reports ;) see http://collabora.com/contact/ instead.
Comment 9 Vulcain 2012-10-10 10:46:35 UTC
During the Arab Spring, Telecomix give a lits of tools (softwares, protocols) who could help to keep the communication safely.

http://cyphercat.eu/logiciels#VOIP (text in french)

Badly, there are no Linux's VoIP native software. Pidgin and Gajim give a secure chat with OTR (and with GPG for gajim) but nothing for VoIP (and VoIP don't work on Windows for Gajim and Pidgin).

Jitsi is the most user-friendly software for a secure VoIP, it use a SRTP und ZRTP for it. (IHU use ClI and it's only for an audio call)

As a simple user, i think that secure VOIP's communication is an important feature and i hope that empathy/telepathy give it us early.
Comment 10 Vulcain 2013-09-09 11:10:48 UTC
Should be an hight priority with the NSA's surveillance.
Comment 11 Vulcain 2013-11-08 14:47:24 UTC
Does someone know if this fonction could be add to Friend of Gnome? Whose goals is :
" We want people to be safe, in control, and enriched by the software they use. The GNOME community was inspired by the keynote delivered by Jacob Applebaum on the topic of privacy at this years' GUADEC and was reminded of our mission. To this end, GNOME is working on a new campaign focused on privacy. Through this campaign, we aim to enhance GNOME 3 so that it offers one of the most secure computing environments available "

http://www.gnome.org/friends/
Comment 12 GNOME Infrastructure Team 2018-05-22 13:37:19 UTC
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message --

This bug has been migrated to GNOME's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity.

You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/empathy/issues/100.