From 36cebf25d0e0f24cf63be4380ccb5d03da726a74 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Christophe Besson Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2026 17:50:28 +0200 Subject: feat(chat): encrypt group chat under per-device epoch keys (MNP 2.0) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Chat messages are sealed with AES-256-GCM under a key derived per group, per epoch, per *device*, and signed over the ciphertext with the device key the node pinned. The node relays and archives; it cannot read a message. There is no switch. MNP goes to 2.0 and MNP_MIN_SUPPORTED moves with it, so a 1.x peer is refused at the handshake with `version_too_old` rather than admitted and then unable to speak. An opt-in flag was designed and rejected: every node is a test node, so it would have bought nothing and left a plaintext branch reachable — C6's lesson one feature later. A test reads the source and refuses any code that consults a `chat_encrypted` setting. Not Sender Keys, and `senderkeys.py` is now documented as unused. With distribution under the group key and a node that serves history to devices which were not present, the node must retain each chain's earliest key, and a chain key at iteration i yields every message key from i on by pure HKDF — forward secrecy is zero either way. What the ratchet was left buying was stateful client code with silent failure modes, three of them reproduced: any member could sign as any other, a second device dropped the first's chain, and the skipped-key cache grew without bound. The reasoning is in docs/chat-sender-keys.md, which is the specification and the decision record. Epochs, not rotation: the epoch key is wrapped under the group key at delivery and never stored under it, so `gek_rotate` is a re-wrap. A group-key-derived archive key would have made every message ever sent unreadable on the first `member unpin`, which is the documented step after removing a member. A new epoch opens on member revoke/unpin, device revoke and `gek_rotate`; old epochs are kept and still delivered, so history stays readable to everyone who could already read it, and nothing anywhere deletes one. Three prerequisites this needed, each a live defect on its own: * The peer registry was keyed by user_id, so one account's second device evicted the first and the broadcast skipped recipients by account — a person's phone never saw what they typed on their laptop. * The handshake authenticated an account, never a device. `device_hello` (additive, signed, refused unless the key is a live device of this account in the node's own roster) is what lets the node refuse a member claiming somebody else's key. * `_admin_exec_file_delete` authorized against the exact uploading key, so device linking had already broken deleting your own file from your other device. It now authorizes against any non-revoked device of `uploader_id`. Found by driving the real panel over the real transport, not by reading source: `chat_keys_resp` was routed by arrival order and handed to an unanswered `media_meta_req` — the original frozen-tab defect in a message type that did not exist when that probe was written. And `_asText` had been deleted with an unrelated helper beside it; its only caller sits inside a promise the panel catches, so every conversation rendered empty with nothing in the console. Existing node data is migrated by QE/migration/migrate_chat_encryption.py (not versioned, per the QE rule), run with the node stopped. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01TZZxYjz8YeWRz13xDi8LJr --- packages/meshbay-common/src/meshbay_common/adminop.py | 8 ++++++++ 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+) (limited to 'packages/meshbay-common/src/meshbay_common/adminop.py') diff --git a/packages/meshbay-common/src/meshbay_common/adminop.py b/packages/meshbay-common/src/meshbay_common/adminop.py index 9a56934..ed6e940 100644 --- a/packages/meshbay-common/src/meshbay_common/adminop.py +++ b/packages/meshbay-common/src/meshbay_common/adminop.py @@ -112,6 +112,14 @@ OP_ROOT_REMOVE = "root_remove" OP_APP_DIRECTORIES = "app_directories" OP_CHAT_DIRECTORY = "chat_directory" OP_CHAT_LINK_PREVIEW = "chat_link_preview" +# Open a new chat epoch for a group, by hand. The removals that matter open one +# by themselves (member revoke/unpin, device revoke, gek_rotate); this is the +# operator saying "do it anyway", which is the same shape as `gek_rotate` and +# signed for the same reason. +# +# There is no op for *enabling* chat encryption. It is not a setting — MNP 2.0 +# has no plaintext chat to fall back to. +OP_CHAT_EPOCH = "chat_epoch" OP_ROOT_UPDATE = "root_update" OP_ROOT_EJECT = "root_eject" OP_ROOT_PLUG = "root_plug" -- cgit v1.2.3