The README, ARCHITECTURE.md and CRYPTOGRAPHY.md still described the old
handshake: keys and a session salt travelling inside the invitation, and a safety
code derived from the two DTLS fingerprints. None of that has been true since
5.9.0.
Adds a "The invitation" section to the README covering what the exchange was
reduced to and why that is a security change and not only a smaller QR code:
less material exposed before anyone is authenticated, the DTLS fingerprint as the
anchor, substituted keys failing closed on the commitment instead of on a human
comparison, a safety code that now covers the whole transcript rather than two
fingerprints, and the plain fact that a single QR is scanned in person where a
four-frame animated one pushes people to paste the invitation through a chat app.
Session lifecycle in ARCHITECTURE.md gains the in-band key exchange as its own
step. CRYPTOGRAPHY.md now states that the salt is derived from the transcript
rather than transmitted, and describes the transcript SAS and the signature that
replaced the challenge/response. DESCRIPTOR-SBQ2.md is listed in the doc index
and in the CONTRIBUTING impact table.
The invitation carried the whole session: both public keys, their signatures, a
salt, a challenge and the full SDP. It now carries only what brings up DTLS —
ICE credentials, the certificate fingerprint, candidates, an expiry — plus a
16-byte commitment to the key material. The key material itself moves to the
DataChannel and is checked against that commitment before it is parsed.
Measured on the live site: 2274 characters across 4 animated QR frames became
151 characters in a single frame.
The safety code is now computed over a transcript of both descriptors and both
key blobs, and the HKDF salt is derived from that same transcript instead of
being transmitted. authProof is replaced by one signature over it.
SBQ2_SEND_ENABLED is the single value that reverts new invitations to SB1.
Live cross-browser testing found three defects in the SBQ2 SDP template, all
invisible to Chrome and all fatal to Firefox.
The candidate lines omitted raddr/rport on srflx and relay candidates. RFC 8839
section 5.1 makes rel-addr and rel-port mandatory for non-host candidates even
though ICE never reads them; Chrome tolerates the omission and Firefox drops the
candidate. Relay-only connections to Firefox failed 0/8 against 8/8 for the
browser's own SDP. The STUN and TURN profiles hid it because a host pair
connected instead -- the relay candidates were never actually needed there.
The template also advertised ice-options:trickle without ever closing the
candidate set, though a descriptor is a complete one-shot set with no channel to
trickle over, and hard-coded the m= port and c= line to the 9 / 0.0.0.0 null
default candidate, which is the trickle convention for "nothing gathered yet".
Both are now correct: no trickle, an explicit a=end-of-candidates, and the most
publicly reachable candidate as the default.
All three are serializer-side and cost zero descriptor bytes; sizes are
unchanged at 98-149 bytes, QR version 6-8. Verified 48/48 across all 16
combinations of {Chrome, Firefox} squared and four network profiles, with every
relay-only pair now connecting over the relay.
The SB1 invitation runs 2000-2400 characters and needs QR version 38-40, past
the point where a single code is scannable, so the app falls back to an
animated multi-frame QR. SBQ2 is a fixed binary layout carrying only what
brings up DTLS -- ICE credentials, certificate fingerprint, candidates -- with
the SDP rebuilt from a template by a strict serializer. Measured on real Chrome
and Firefox SDP across four network profiles: 98-149 bytes, QR version 6-8.
Key material is meant to move to the DataChannel, bound by a commitment in the
descriptor. That half does not exist yet, so nothing calls this module: the
format is landed for review and freeze, not wired into the connection path.
doc/DESCRIPTOR-SBQ2.md records the gate on phase 3.
The decoder is a parser of hostile input: fixed offsets, explicit lengths,
deny-by-default on reserved values and unknown TLV extension types, trailing
bytes rejected, ICE credentials alphabet-checked so a CRLF cannot reach the
serializer. No compression -- DEFLATE adds bytes on this payload, and dropping
it removes the decompression-bomb surface with it.
Candidate pruning keeps coverage before count: one candidate per (family, type,
transport) survives before any surplus, so an IPv6-only or UDP-blocked path
cannot be pruned away by a v4-first sort.
Tests cover round-trip against captured Chrome and Firefox SDP, IPv6 and NAT64
addresses, ICE-TCP candidates, the TLV area, clock skew, one-shot binding and
SAS transcript coverage.
No protocol or message-protection changes.
The version in the application header was a literal and had fallen behind,
showing v5.6.0 while running 5.7.1. It now comes from package.json, and a test
fails if a hard-coded one reappears or if meta.json, the README badge, the
changelog and the docs disagree about the release.
Documentation reorganised so that everything technical lives in doc/ with an
index, and the root keeps only what belongs there by convention: README,
SECURITY, CHANGELOG and LICENSE.
- SECURITY.md rewritten. It listed a supported release line three major versions
out of date and made claims the software does not make. It now states what is
guaranteed, what is not, and how to report a problem.
- SECURITY_DISCLAIMER.md and RESPONSIBLE_USE.md merged into doc/USE-POLICY.md,
which says what the software cannot protect against rather than listing
generic advice.
- doc/SECURITY-ARCHITECTURE.md renamed to doc/ARCHITECTURE.md and rewritten
around the session lifecycle, what verification gates, and how recovery works.
- doc/CRYPTOGRAPHY.md rewritten: key schedule, the Double Ratchet, framing, and
memory handling, with values taken from the source rather than restated.
- doc/CONFIGURATION.md rewritten with the real file-type policy, ICE and TURN
guidance, and the deployment caching rules that matter.
- docs/webrtc-config.md moved to doc/CALLS.md and rewritten; the obsolete
docs/webrtc-audit.md, a working document full of stale line numbers, removed
along with the docs/ directory.
- doc/CONTRIBUTING.md records what the recent regressions taught us about
writing tests that can actually fail.
- doc/README.md added as an index.
Internal security review notes are excluded from the repository via .gitignore.
Those describe attack paths against specific releases in enough detail to
reproduce them, which is useful privately and harmful in public while users are
still updating.
Adds the Double Ratchet (Signal's design) on top of the existing ECDH session
keys, so message protection no longer rests on one set of keys lasting the whole
conversation. Every message gets its own key, derived through a one-way function
and discarded after use, and each change of direction introduces a fresh ECDH
key pair that re-keys the session root.
The ratchet needed no handshake change: both peers already hold each other's
authenticated ECDH public key, and the safety code compared during verification
covers exactly those keys. Its root is derived from the existing shared secret
through its own branch of the key schedule.
Support is negotiated in the invitation and response and used only when both
sides have it; a peer on an earlier release falls back to per-session keys. The
security panel reports which of the two is actually in force.
Out-of-order delivery is supported within fixed bounds (512 skipped keys per
chain, 1024 retained, five-minute expiry), and inbound frames are authenticated
before any ratchet state is committed, so a malformed frame cannot desynchronise
a live session.
Also in this release:
- Verification is enforced as a gate, not a label: control frames (reconnection
signalling, call setup, message deletion, delivery receipts) are acted on only
after both peers have compared the safety code, and verified state is set in a
single guarded place.
- Chat content reaches the interface through one authenticated path; an older,
weaker inbound path was retired.
- The security panel measures what it displays — several checks previously
returned a fixed result and now exercise the subsystem they describe.
- Invitation data is no longer kept in local storage, and entries left by earlier
versions are cleared on first launch.
- View-once and disappearing messages no longer place their text in system
notifications.
- Shared-secret buffers are overwritten once derivation completes; scanned QR
codes are decompressed with a size limit; voice notes are validated against
audio type and size budgets before skipping the consent prompt; the master
password is collected by the app rather than a browser dialog.
- Connection setup no longer fails on networks where STUN/TURN are unreachable:
it proceeds as soon as usable candidates exist and only waits while there are
none.
Test suite grows from 27 to 41 files, covering forward secrecy, post-compromise
re-keying, out-of-order delivery across ratchet steps, the skipped-key bounds,
tamper resistance, negotiation fallback, and byte-level key-derivation
compatibility with 5.6.0.
- Record voice notes in-browser, sent over the chunked AES-GCM file-transfer
channel (per-file session key + signed SHA-256 integrity).
- Captured as PCM and encoded to WAV for universal playback (incl. iOS/Safari);
auto-accepted and played inline from an in-memory blob, never written to disk.
- Composer mic button with live waveform + timer; desktop shows mic + send side
by side, mobile swaps mic to send when typing.
- CSP media-src now allows blob: so recorded/received audio can play.
- Roadmap: Desktop Edition -> 5.0, new 5.5 'Secure Voice & Calls', later
milestones shifted; version bumped to 5.4.5.
- Update README, docs (security/API/cryptography), and CHANGELOG.
- Implemented proper RFC 5869 compliant HKDF key derivation process
- Added Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) key for enhanced session security
- Improved key separation using unique info parameters for each derived key
- Enhanced salt size from 32 to 64 bytes for increased entropy
- Added comprehensive key validation and error handling
- Implemented proper ECDH + HKDF integration following Web Crypto API best practices
- Added metadata encryption key for enhanced data protection
- Improved compatibility with modern cryptographic standards (RFC 7748, NIST SP 800-56A)
-Enhanced logging and debugging capabilities for cryptographic operations
- Maintained backward compatibility while upgrading security infrastructure
Security improvements:
- Cryptographic isolation between different key purposes
- Enhanced protection against cross-key attacks
- Improved resistance to future key compromise scenarios
- Better compliance with OWASP cryptographic storage guidelines
Technical details:
- Refactored deriveSharedKeys() method for proper HKDF implementation
- Updated WebRTC manager to use new messageKey API
- Added comprehensive error handling and validation
- Improved browser compatibility with standardized cryptographic operations
- This update strengthens the existing security foundation with modern cryptographic practices while maintaining full system compatibility.
BREAKING CHANGE: Project renamed from LockBit.chat to SecureBit.chat
- Changed project name to avoid confusion with LockBit ransomware group
- Updated all documentation, branding, and references
- Maintained all existing functionality and security features
- Domain migration planned to securebit.chat
Reason: The LockBit name became associated with a notorious ransomware
group, causing conflicts on platforms and potential confusion for users.
SecureBit better reflects our mission of providing secure P2P messaging
while avoiding negative associations.
This change affects:
- README.md and all documentation
- Package.json name field
- Brand assets and logos
- Website references
- Social media handles
Core functionality remains unchanged:
✅ 12-layer military-grade security
✅ Lightning Network integration
✅ P2P WebRTC architecture
✅ Open source MIT license
lockbitchat