Implementing more advanced e2ee features, such as cross-signing

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS GUIDE IS STILL A WIP!

So, you successfully implemented end-to-end encryption in your matrix client? Congratulations! This is a real step to be proud of and reason to celebrate!

You might have noticed, however, that some things are still on the rough edge: You have to manually verify every other device by comparing the public keys, decryption keys aren't shared between your devices, etc. In comparison, Element has cross-signing so that you have to only verify people in a user- friendly way, and it has things like online key backup. If you want to implement these features into your own client (or only some of them), then this guide is for you!

This guide will be using libolm. Of course, the general ideas etc. and process flows behind it will be the same, no matter if you use libolm or not. So, if you use something else than libolm, simply substitute those parts with whatever other libraries / algorithms you are using.

Here is a general road map of what is needed in order implement all of the following:

  1. Emoji verification (SAS or Short Authentication Strings)
  2. Display verification status based on cross signing status
  3. SSSS (Secure Secret Storage and Sharing)
  4. Signing of other keys
  5. In-room verification (Verification through messages in a room)
  6. Miscellaneous cross-signing things
  7. Bootstrapping SSSS and cross-signing
  8. Online key backup

Wow, that's a lot of steps... but don't worry, we'll tackle them one at a time. Each step (apart from perhaps #3) will greatly improve the user experience, so that should be a lot of motivation to keep going!

As a general warning, at the point of writing this guide (May, June 2020) not everything discussed here is in the spec yet, and some of the information can only be found scattered across multiple MSCs and reading through the source code of matrix-js-sdk.

1. Implement emoji verification (SAS)

Emoji verification is part of a verification model called SAS, for Short Authentication String. In addition to emoji verification, there is also numerical verification. It is expected that all clients that support SAS support at least numerical verification. This is to ensure that clients that may not be able to display emoji (perhaps some CLI application or embedded device display) can still be verified. Fortunately, the way these verification methods work is almost identical.

Unfortunately, due to legacy reasons, there are multiple ways you can receive a verification request for SAS. However, all of the cryptographically methods are already a part of libolm, so if you already use libolm bindings, it will be a breeze to implement!

There are two ways to verify other devices (and, by extension, other people): One way is via to_device messages, and the other is via messages in rooms. Verification via to_device messages is typically done to verify devices, while verification via messages in a room is typically done to verify people. While in-room verification will be added in this guide only later on, it is a good idea to think about how to structure your code to already support this from the start.

A general look at the verification process

Verification works via two devices sending each other messages, either via to_device messaging or through messages in a room. A device (Alice) that wants to verify another device (Bob) sends a m.key.verification.request message along with the methods it supports. Bob answers with a m.key.verification.ready, also informing Alice of which methods it support. In the client UI, Bob would get a new verification request popup after receiving a m.key.verification.request message. After both have accepted to start, either party (Alice and/or Bob) can send a m.key.verification.start, which is specific to the verification method used. In the case that both Alice and Bob send a m.key.verification.start and the verification method does not match, the verification request is canceled. If the verification matches, the m.key.verification.start of the lexicographically smaller user ID is used. If those also match up (as in, if you are verifying your own device), then the lexicographically smaller device ID is used. This ensures that it is unambiguous which m.key.verification.start is used. From now on, the device whose m.key.verification.start is used is the one who started the request (This is important as some things in SAS depend on who started the request). After that, some verification process happens, which is specific the specified verification method. If all is successful, both send a m.key.verification.done to each other.

To make all this work, each verification request has a unique transaction ID, which is an opaque string used to identify the specific verification request. In case of room verification, this is the event ID of the first sent message (m.key.verification.request). A verification request can be canceled at any time by either party by sending an m.key.verification.cancel, along with some information on the reason for cancellation.

As all messages sent get some common metadata added, it might be a good idea to write a send wrapper function to send key verification data. This function could also handle sending events as either to_device messages or as room events. The contents of the message differ slightly between to_device and for room verification:

For to_device messages, the transaction_id and from_device is simply added to the object sent. transaction_id denotes the unique ID of the transaction, whereas from_device is simply a string containing your own device ID. A payload such as

{
  "foo": "bar"
}

would thus look like:

{
  "foo": "bar",
  "transaction_id": "some-awesome-id",
  "from_device": "DXKKF"
}

For room messages, the transaction ID, which is the event Id of the first event, is added in the m.relates_to section of the event. The device ID is the same as to_device massages; it should be set to the ID of the sending device. So the above payload becomes:

{
  "foo": "bar",
  "from_device": "DXKKF",
  "m.relates_to": {
    "rel_type": "m.reference",
    "event_id": "$firstEventId"
  }
}

For simplicity, all payloads mentioned below will be shown without those extra keys.

The to_devices sent don't have to be encrypted, as the entire idea of verification requests is that they could be out in the open. The client may, however, chose to do so anyways, if e.g. their function for sending to_device messages defaults to sending them encrypted. Whether room messages are encrypted typically depends on whether the room they are sent in is encrypted or not.

m.key.verification.request

Sending this starts a verification request. It sends all the verification methods you know (in the case of SAS that is only m.sas.v1), along with the current timestamp in milliseconds.

{
  "methods": ["m.sas.v1"],
  "timestamp": 1590314157821
}

A receiving client is expected to reject the request if it is more than 10 minutes in the past or more than 5 minutes in the future.

m.key.verification.ready

Sending this indicates that you accept the key verification request and additionally reveals which methods you support yourself. That way both verification partners will be able to figure out which methods they have in common.

{
  "methods": ["m.sas.v1"],
}

m.key.verification.start

Sending this indicates that you are starting verification with a specific method. The exact payload is dependent on the verification method.

{
  "method": "m.sas.v1",
  // additional keys specific to m.sas.v1
}

m.key.verification.done

Sending this indicates that the verification process is fully done.

{}

m.key.verification.cancel

Sending this cancels the verification (timeout, key mismatch, user cancellation, etc.). It has a human-readable reason, along with a cancellation code.

{
  "reason": "The verification timed out",
  "code": "m.timeout"
}

A list of all cancellation codes and their use can be found in the Client-Server Spec.

Recap

To recap, the general verification process of Alice wanting to verify Bob works as follows:

  1. Alice sends Bob an m.key.verification.request along with the methods she supports.
  2. Bob receives that request. His device asks him if he wants to verify with Alice. He hits accept.
  3. Bob sends an m.key.verification.ready along with the methods he supports.
  4. Alice receives Bob's methods, and based on that and her own, she sends an m.key.verification.start for a method that they have in common.
  5. Bob also sends an m.key.verification.start, which happens to be the same method as alices
  6. As Alices user ID is lexicographically smaller (@alice:example.org vs @bob:example.org), the start command sent by Alice is used.
  7. The specific verification method follows here.
  8. When Alice and Bob are fully done with verification, they send each other an m.key.verification.done.

Taking a look at SAS

Okay, now that we took a look at how the verification process framework works in general, lets take a look at SAS specifically.

For legacy reasons there are unfortunately clients that directly want to start SAS verification with m.key.verification.start, so that will need to be handled. If such a start request comes in, and it is SAS, prompt the user if they want to accept the verification or not. Then simply continue with the SAS flow as normal.

The general idea of SAS verification is that both parties wanting to verify each other, Alice and Bob, generate an ephemeral public/private keypair and exchange the public keys. Using Elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) they both generate the same key, provided that there was no man in the middle. This generated key is then compared, using either emoji or numbers. After it is verified that they both match up on either side, it is then known that the output of ECDH is the same. Thus the ephemeral public keys for ECDH sent to each other got successfully verified. With these keys, a secure channel can be formed, where the actual device keys that want to verify to each other are sent over. Upon receipt, the verification process is complete!

In practice, this works as follows: Alice sends Bob a m.key.verification.start along with a bunch of different parameters she supports (hash method, emoji/number verification, which specific ECDH to use, etc.) and Bob will reply with a m.key.verification.accept, which will, based on the capabilities Alice advertised and based on what Bob knows he can do himself, determine which exact method to use. Afterwards, they both generate and send to each other the ephemeral public keys for ECDH, and the emojis or numbers are displayed on screen. Once they both verified that they match using some secure third-party channel like meeting up in person, they will send each other a m.key.verification.mac, containing a MAC of the keys they should verify. After verifying them, they both send each other a m.key.verification.done and they are verified!

SAS introduces a few more cancellation codes, specific to SAS verification, as seen in the client-server spec.

m.key.verification.start

This sends a bunch of parameters that the sending device supports. Please note that you will have to remember this object while performing a commitment check (explained in the next section), of the one that includes the metadata of transaction_id and from_device keys, omitted in these examples.

{
  "method": "m.sas.v1",
  "key_agreement_protocols": ["curve25519-hkdf-sha256"],
  "hashes": ["sha256"],
  "message_authentication_codes": ["hkdf-hmac-sha256"],
  "short_authentication_string": ["emoji", "decimal"]
}

Commitment generation

A commitment is an additional verification process. It is the hash (based on the hash method specified) of the concatenated ephemeral public key you generate and the canonical json of the m.key.verification.start body. Libolm provides both the hashing method and the public/private key generation. Code for calculating the commitment could look as follows:

var sas = olm.SAS(); // save for later. This will generate our ephemeral public/private keypair
var canonicalJson = ""; // the canonical json of the `m.key.verification.start` request

var commitment = "";
if (hashMethod == "sha256") {
  var olmutil = olm.Utility();
  commitment = olmutil.sha256(sas.get_pubkey() + canonicalJson);
  olmutil.free();
} else {
  throw "Unknown hash method";
}

m.key.verification.accept

This accepts the m.key.verification.start request, and sends the parameters that both parties support. Along with that, it also sends a commitment, as defined above.

{
  "method": "m.sas.v1",
  "key_agreement_protocol": "curve25519-hkdf-sha256",
  "hash": "sha256",
  "message_authentication_code": "hkdf-hmac-sha256",
  "short_authentication_string": ["emoji", "decimal"],
  "commitment": "the-commitment-calculated"
}

m.key.verification.key

This sends the ephemeral public key to each other. If you haven't generated it yet (due to not having calculated the commitment), do so now with var sas = olm.SAS(); and read it with sas.get_pubkey();. Be sure that if you received the commitment, you use the received public key to verify the commitment you received earlier. The public key is both added to the sas object with sas.set_their_key(payload["key"]); and also saved in a separate variable, as you'll need it later, as unfortunately the sas object does not allow for it to be retrieved again.

{
  "key": "your-public-key"
}

Display Emojis / Numbers

Based on the agreed upon key_agreement_protocol and which short_authentication_strings are supported, the user should now be prompted with the emojis/numbers, so that they can verify that they match. For that, you will have to generate bytes to derive the emojis from for comparison. For that, a "SAS info" is created. For the key agreement protocol curve25519-hkdf-sha256 it works as follows:

The SAS info is MATRIX_KEY_VERIFICATION_SAS| concatenated with the user ID of whomever started the verification plus | plus the device ID who started the verification plus | plus the SAS public key who started the verification plus | plus the user ID who received the verification plus | plus the device ID who received the verification plus | plus the SAS public key of who received the verification plus | plus the transaction ID. In code that could look as follows:

var ourInfo = '${client.userID}|${client.deviceID}|${sas.get_pubkey()}|';
var theirInfo = '${request.userId}|${request.deviceId}|${theirPublicKey}|';
var sasInfo = 'MATRIX_KEY_VERIFICATION_SAS|' +
    (request.startedVerification
        ? ourInfo + theirInfo
        : theirInfo + ourInfo) +
    request.transactionId;

The key agreement protocol curve25519 is deprecated and should not be implemented. As such, it isn't outlined here.

Generate bytes

Once you have that SAS info, you use it to generate bytes through sas.generate_bytes(sasInfo, bytes). For emoji verification, 6 bytes are needed, for number verification 5 are needed. You could, however, always generate 6 bytes and, for number verification, only use the first 5.

If both parties said they can display emoji, display those! If one party only supports numbers, then display numbers. It might be a good idea to have a button to switch back and forth between emoji and numbers, just in case.

Numbers

To get the numbers you compare, you need to generate 5 bytes using the above method. Split these into three chunks of 13 bits each, discarding the last bit. Then add 1000 to each number, meaning they can be in the range of 1000 to 9191. It is expected to to display the numbers with some separator in between, e.g. 1337-4242-9001.

Emoji

To get the emoji to compare, you need to generate 6 bytes using the method above. Split these into 7 chunks of 6 bits each, discarding the last 6 bits. Then use the appropriate table in the client-server spec to display the emoji, along with their name.

Emojis / Numbers match: Calculating the MAC

Once the user says that their emojis / numbers match, that means that they have a secure channel! A MAC is then calculated out of the device IDs and the public keys you want the other party to verify. For now, only send your own public key using that method. Later on in this guide, you will also send your master cross-signing key. For that, a base information is created, which is the concatenated string of MATRIX_KEY_VERIFICATION_MAC, your own user ID, your own device ID, the other user's ID, the other device's ID, and the transaction ID. Note how, unlike SAS, no | delimiter is used and the order does not depend on who started the verification:

var baseInfo = 'MATRIX_KEY_VERIFICATION_MAC' +
    client.userID +
    client.deviceID +
    request.userId +
    request.deviceId +
    request.transactionId;

Next calculate the MAC of your device IDs and the fingerprints that you want to send:

String _calculateMac(String input, String info) {
  if (messageAuthenticationCode == "hkdf-hmac-sha256") { // this is from the m.key.verification.accept call
    return sas.calculate_mac(input, info); // the same sas object we used previously, from libolm
  } else {
    throw "Unknown message authentication code";
  }
}

Map<String, String> mac = {}; // create the map for the MACs
List<String> keyList = []; // the list / array holding all the key Ids to verify

// now add all the keys we want to verify
var deviceKeyId = "ed25519:${client.deviceID}";
mac[deviceKeyId] = _calculateMac(client.fingerprintKey, baseInfo + deviceKeyId); // client.fingerprintKey is here the public key string for our device
keyList.add(deviceKeyId);

// now we still need to sort the key list
keyList.sort();
var keys = _calculateMac(keyList.join(","), baseInfo + "KEY_IDS");

// send off the stuff!

m.key.verification.mac

Sends the MAC of the keys to verify off to the other party.

{
  "mac": { // is the "mac" object calculated above
    "ed25519:CCKDF": "<calculated MAC here>"
  },
  "keys": "<MAC for keys here>" // is the calculated "keys" string above
}

Receiving / verifying the MAC

After receiving the MAC and having the user verify that the emoji match (and thus also sending your own MAC), you have to verify that the received MACs are valid, and only verify the keys if the MACs are valid. For that, generate the base info from the perspective of the other party; essentially placing other person's information before your own:

final baseInfo = 'MATRIX_KEY_VERIFICATION_MAC' +
    request.userId +
    request.deviceId +
    client.userID +
    client.deviceID +
    request.transactionId;

Then generate the key list out of the dictionary keys of the mac object received and verify that the MAC matches up:

final keyList = payload["mac"].keys.toList();
keyList.sort();
if (payload["keys"] != _calculateMac(keyList.join(","), baseInfo + "KEY_IDS")) {
  await request.cancel("m.key_mismatch");
  return;
}

Then verify the MACs of the keys themselves by iterating over the objects, and calculating the MACs of the keys again as above. You should have the public key yourself already, as you are just verifying if the key matches. If you received the MAC of a key you don't know, just ignore it. It is likely to be a cross-signing key that you don't know how to handle yet. If only one of the MACs mismatch, however, don't verify any devices and cancel the entire request.

Finally send a m.key.verification.done, and you are done!

Recap

So, the entire SAS verification flow in short is as follows:

  1. (Optional) Alice sends Bob a m.key.verification.request along with the methods she supports, including m.sas.v1.
  2. (Optional) Bob receives that request. His device asks him if he wants to verify with Alice. He hits accept.
  3. (Optional) Bob sends a m.key.verification.ready along with the methods he supports, including m.sas.v1.
  4. Alice receives Bob's methods, and based on that, and the ones she knows how to do herself, she sends a m.key.verification.start for m.sas.v1. This will contain a bunch of parameters for how the SAS will specifically work. Alice's device notes down the canonical json of the request for later commitment verification.
  5. Bob could also send an m.key.verification.start for m.sas.v1. As Alice user ID is lexicographically smaller it is discarded, though.
  6. Bob received the m.key.verification.start, and generates his own ephemeral keypair with var sas = olm.SAS();. He then calculates the commitment using the canonical json of the m.key.verification.start request, before sending a m.key.verification.accept back to Alice, along with specific parameters to use for this SAS verificaton.
  7. Alice receives the m.key.verification.accept and stores the commitment to verify it later. She now creates her own ephemeral key pair with var sas = olm.SAS(); and sends Bob the public key, via m.key.verification.key.
  8. Bob receives the public key from Alice and sends his own public key. Bob's device displays the emoji / numbers for verification now.
  9. Alice receives Bob's public key, and can finally verify the commitment she saved earlier. If all matches, Alice's device will now display the emoji / numbers for verification.
  10. If the emoji / numbers both match up, they will send each other an m.key.verification.mac with the MAC'd information of the keys that should be verified.
  11. Finally, if all checks out, they send each other a m.key.verification.done and the verification process is concluded.

Things to look out for

  1. Always verify that an incoming message has a valid, known transaction ID.
  2. Always verify that an incoming message is no more than 10 minutes in the past.
  3. Always stop the verification process as soon as you receive a m.key.verification.cancel, be it for whatever reason.
  4. Don't just blindly assume that methods, message_authentication_code, etc. are as outlined here. More might be added in the future (e.g. to fix a discovered security flaw), as such always verify which ones you actually support and act accordingly.
  5. Don't forget to sas.free(); your generated SAS object all at the end of verification or when timing out or when it is being canceled.
  6. Don't forget to calculate and verify the commitment!
  7. It might be a good idea to generalize the code handling the verification flow so that you can easily add other methods than m.sas.v1 later on.

2. Display verification status based on signatures

Don't worry, after having implemented SAS this should be a breeze, it's way simpler and way less of a hassle to implement!

General ideas of Cross-Signing

The general idea of cross-signing is that instead of every device having to verify every other device, people will only have to verify other people, and you will have to verify each of your own new sessions (logins) only once. For this, each user has three keys: A master key, a self-signing key and a user-signing key. The master key will sign both the self-signing and the user-signing key. The self-signing key will then sign your own device keys, and the user-signing key will sign other people's master keys. The purpose of splitting this up into three keys is that in the case of either the self-signing key or the user-signing key getting compromised, you can easily exchange them, while still keeping the master key. As the master key is only used for signing your own user-signing and self-signing key, it is rarely used, so the attack surface to obtain it is minimal. Optionally, device keys themselves can sign their own master key.

Graph from jcgruenhage's blog, licensed as CC-BY-SA-4.0.

So, in addition to the device keys of others, we also need to fetch their cross-signing keys. We can then verify their signatures!

Cross-Signing keys

In addition to device keys, cross-signing keys are introduced. Instead of being identified by a key ID, they are identified via their public key. In order to prevent collisions, homeservers must make sure that no user has a key ID that is the same as a cross-signing key's public key. That is handy, as it means that as clients, we don't have to care about that part!

Keeping track of cross-signing keys

Keeping track of cross-signing keys should be simple if you already do so for device keys. When a user is flagged as out-of-date, you should already query their keys again with POST /_matrix/client/r0/keys/query and update your device_keys dictionary accordingly, just as before. This endpoint should now also return the master_keys, self_signing_keys and user_signing_keys of a user, given they are using cross-signing. Simply update and store this information locally as well. The format of these are pretty similar to the device_keys dictionary:

{
  "self_signing_keys": {
    "@bob:example.org": {
      "user_id": "@bob:example.org",
      "usage": ["self_signing"],
      "keys": {
        "ed25519:base64+self+signing+public+key": "base64+self+signing+public+key"
      },
      "signatures": {
        "@bob:example.org": {
          "ed25519:base64+master+public+key": "signature+of+self+signing+key"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

In this example we have Bob's self-signing key which has a signature of Bob's master key. The usage array additionally indicates the usage of the key, which is master, self_signing or user_signing. While for cross-signing there should only be one item in usage, in the future some other keys might be added that could have multiple uses. As such, an array is used here to future-proof things.

The master_keys and user_signing_keys sections look the same.

Changes to key verification

Now, there is a slight change you need to perform to the key verification, specifically SAS, that we previously implemented: In the m.key.verification.mac reply, there will be a dictionary of MACs to verify certain keys. These don't only contain device keys, but also contain cross-signing keys, identified by ed25519:base64+master+public+key, etc. Be sure to flag those cross-signing keys as verified, too.

Getting the verification level based on cross-signing status

If you want to know if a device key is verified, just recursively check all of the valid signatures of the keys, until you hit a key that is already verified! This means that given a signature chain as follows (assuming you are Alice):

Alice' Master Key --> Alice' User-Signing Key --> Bob's Master Key --> Bob's Self-Signing Key --> Bob's Tablet

And you have previously (via e.g. emoji verification) verified Alice's (your own) master key, and want to know if Bob's Tablet is verified, you propagate that chain backwards, provided all the signatures are valid, until you hit your verified master Key.

Verifying a signature

Libolm to the rescue! It has a method which makes verifying signatures easy! If you have key A and want to verify the signature that key B added, you will have to do the following:

  1. In the key A signatures dict, find the entry for key B and note down the signature.
  2. Create the string for verification: take key A's complete dictionary, strip off of the unsigned and signature dictionaries and convert it into canonical json.
  3. Use olmutil.ed25519_verify(key_b_pub_key, canonical_json, signature); to verify the signature: note that this will throw an error if invalid, and none if valid.
  4. That's it, you have verified the signature!

Check if a user is verified

To see if a user is verified, simply check if their master key is verified! You can find the master key of a user by looking for a cross-signing key which has master within their usage array.

If a user is verified but all of their devices are not, it is a good idea to display a warning.

Things to look out for

  1. Never trust invalid signatures. Just treat them as if there was no signature at all.
  2. Signature loops will exist. Add infinite recursion protection to your signature loop checking.
  3. While signature checking doesn't seem to be expensive, it might be a good idea to cache the results in-memory while the program is running.
  4. Be sure to query the keys for a user if you are told in the sync loop they need updating (if you implemented this correctly previously, nothing changes here).
  5. Instead of recursing until you have found a valid key, you could also recurse until you find your own, verified master key. This in practice, however, does not allow easy migration between device-device verification and cross-signing verification. Recursing until you hit a verified device is thus preferred.

3. Implementing SSSS

SSSS is short for Secure Secret Storage and Sharing, which provides a method of storing secret data on the server, without the server administrator or anyone else having access to that data. As such, this is optimal for storing the private keys for cross-signing on the server so that all your devices can use them later on to generate signatures, and thus verify other people.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any help from libolm for implementing SSSS so this will become rather cryptographic-y to implement. You will mainly need to find libraries for the following functions:

  1. AES-CTR encryption and decryption
  2. SHA256 HMAC calculation
  3. Base58 encoding and decoding
  4. PBKDF2

As the "sharing" aspect is simpler to implement, here it will be implemented first. It can later on also be easily used to debug & verify the functionality of the "secure secret storage" part. It is, however, still crucial to look at the general structure of the SSSS first.

TODO: This section doesn't list yet how to create keys, add this later on.

General Structure of SSSS storage

SSSS depends on keys with which the actual secrets are being encrypted to be stored. These keys need to be provided by the client. There is, however, metadata information on the keys in a users account_data. For that, there are entries m.secret_storage.key.<keyId>, where the keyId is the unique ID of said key. In addition, there is an m.secret_storage.default_key which denotes the default key to use.

The m.secret_storage.<keyId> objects contain a MAC and an IV to easily verify if you have the correct key, and, in case if there is also a password associated with it, some information on how to generate the key out of the password. More specific on that later.

Secrets, such as the private keys for cross-signing, can only be strings (not binary data) and are stored encrypted in the account data of your account. For example, the m.cross_signing.master entry in account data is the private key of your master cross-signing key. Each secret can be encrypted by multiple SSS keys. Inside the encrypted object there is a mapping of key ID to the ciphertext, iv and MAC of the secret. A content could look as following:

{
  "encrypted": {
    "awesomeKeyId": {
      "iv": "supercooliv",
      "ciphertext": "secretciphertext",
      "mac": "macthingy"
    }
  }
}

Caching of secrets

You have to access some secrets comparatively often. As fetching from the store requires to get a key for said secret, that requires user interaction. As such, if a client can store a secret reasonably securely client-sided, the client could cache some secrets locally. As this introduces an attack surface of a third party manually reading out the clients cache, but also improves user experience to not have to ask the user for their secret store passphrase, each client will have to decide which secrets to cache and which not, based on what kind of security it can offer. For cross-signing the needed secrets would be m.cross_signing.self_signing, m.cross_signing.user_signing and for online key backup that would be m.megolm_backup.v1. Blindly caching all secrets is a security risk, as some secrets such as m.cross_signing.master are highly sensitive and shouldn't be stored in plaintext on any disk, ever.

You should always keep a whitelist of what secrets to cache, never a blacklist, as in the future some new highly-sensitive secret may be added.

As a secret might change in the future, it might be a good idea to store in the secret cache some more information along with the secret - perhaps its ciphertext with key id? So that if either key id or ciphertext changes, you know that you'll have to fetch the secret from the store again, and your cache is out-of-date.

Sharing

The same limitations of caching apply to sharing: It only makes sense to request secrets or share secrets that are cacheable, as else potentially sensitive data is leaked, or it requires user interaction to load those secrets in the first place anyways.

Secrets can only be requested from other devices of your account that you already have verified, be it via cross-signing or directly. As such, it might be a good idea to request all cacheable secrets after successfully completing verification with yourself, as far as that also verifies your own master key (else the other client likely doesn't have cross signing and thus requesting secrets doesn't make much sense). For that you would also want to add a short delay prior requesting secrets, just to be sure that the other device has already finished processing the verification.

You request a secret by sending an m.secret.request, and you receive it back via an m.secret.send to_device event. Please keep in mind that m.secret.send has to be encrypted! To do your part in the sharing of secrets, you should also appropriately reply to a sharing request of another of your verified devices, provided you have that secret cached.

m.secret.request

This requests a secret from another device, or cancels a pending request.

{
  "action": "request", // or request_cancellation
  "name": "m.cross_signing.self_signing", // the name of the secret you are trying to receive
  "requesting_device_id": "<your own device id>",
  "request_id": "<unique string to identify this request>"
}

m.secret.send

This sends / shares a secret with another device

{
  "request_id": "<same request id as received in m.secret.request>",
  "secret": "<contents of the secret>"
}

Asking for a secret

  1. Only ask your own, verified devices for a secret. Be reasonably sure that they might have it (e.g. the other device sent you your master key to verify).
  2. When receiving a secret, verify that it was encrypted
  3. When receiving a secret, verify that it was from one of the devices you sent the request to (possible via sender_key of the encrypted to_device content).
  4. Optionally, validate the secrets you received: In the case of the cross-signing and the online key backup secrets, calculate the public key out of the received private key and compare them with the advertised values.
  5. Send a request cancellation to all other devices you sent the request to but haven't heard back from yet.

Sharing a secret

  1. Make sure the request is coming from ourself
  2. Make sure that that particular device is verified
  3. Make sure we have the secret cached
  4. Make sure the request hasn't been canceled yet
  5. Make sure that the shared secret is verified

Opening keys

To be able to access stored secrets, or store some yourself, you need to be able to access the SSSS keys. This is done either by passphrase or by keyfile, afterwards the m.secret_storage.key.<keyId> is used to verify the validity of the key.

Keyfile

The contents of the keyfile is just base58-encoded data. They consist of two prefix bytes, 0x8B and 0x01. Additionally they contain a parity byte all at the end, which is all other bytes XOR'd onto each other. The key itself is base58-encoded chunked into characters of four. As such, the key can easily be decoded like the following:

Uint8List decodeRecoveryKey(String recoveryKey) {
  // don't forget to strip all spaces before base58 decoding!
  final result = base58.decode(recoveryKey.replaceAll(' ', ''));

  // check the parity byte
  var parity = 0;
  for (final b in result) {
    parity ^= b;
  }
  // as we xor'd ALL the bytes, including the parity byte, the result should be zero!
  if (parity != 0) {
    throw 'Incorrect parity';
  }

  // check if we have the correct header prefix
  var OLM_RECOVERY_KEY_PREFIX = [0x8B, 0x01];
  for (var i = 0; i < OLM_RECOVERY_KEY_PREFIX.length; i++) {
    if (result[i] != OLM_RECOVERY_KEY_PREFIX[i]) {
      throw 'Incorrect prefix';
    }
  }

  // verify that the length of the key is correct
  var OLM_PRIVATE_KEY_LENGTH = 32; // can also be fetched from olm somehow...
  if (result.length !=
      OLM_RECOVERY_KEY_PREFIX.length + OLM_PRIVATE_KEY_LENGTH + 1) {
    throw 'Incorrect length';
  }

  // and finally, strip the prefix and the parity byte to return the raw key
  return Uint8List.fromList(result.sublist(OLM_RECOVERY_KEY_PREFIX.length,
      OLM_RECOVERY_KEY_PREFIX.length + OLM_PRIVATE_KEY_LENGTH));
  }
}

Passphrase

The passphrase block of the key information in the account data specifies information on how to generate the key off of the password. It an look as follows:

"passphrase": {
  "algorithm": "m.pbkdf2", // currently only this one is supported
  "iterations": 500000,
  "salt": "<some-random-string>",
  "bits": 256 // optional, defaults to 256
}

Out of this information we need the iteration, the salt and the number of bits for PBKDF2. Simply use these parameters with the hash algorithm SHA-512 to generate a key:

Uint8List keyFromPassphrase(String passphrase, _PassphraseInfo info) {
  if (info.algorithm != 'm.pbkdf2') {
    throw 'Unknown algorithm';
  }
  var generator = PBKDF2(hashAlgorithm: sha512);
  return Uint8List.fromList(generator.generateKey(passphrase, info.salt,
      info.iterations, info.bits != null ? info.bits / 8 : 32));
}

Important: Some PBKDF2 implementations take the length in bytes (like here), while others take the length in bits. Divide by 8 appropriately, and only when needed.

Validating the generated key

To know if the right keyfile was supplied or if the user entered the right password, we need to verify the resulting keys validity. For that, the other information of the keys object in account data is relevant:

{
  "algorithm": "m.secret_storage.v1.aes-hmac-sha2", // some old accounts might use a different algorithm, which is not covered in this guide
  "iv": "<base64 encoded iv>",
  "mac": "<bae64 encoded MAC>"
}

To verify the key, encrypt 32 bytes of 0 with a blank name and the IV of the key information. Compare the resulting MACs with each other. Be sure to compare the unpadded Base64-encoded MACs, so strip all the trailing ='s! The encryption itself will be outlined below.

bool checkKey(Uint8List key, AccountData keyData) {
  var info = keyData.content;
  if (info['algorithm'] == 'm.secret_storage.v1.aes-hmac-sha2') {
    if ((info['mac'] is String) && (info['iv'] is String)) {
      // ZERO_STR are 32 bytes of zero. We encrypt with our generated key, a blank name and the iv of the event
      var encrypted = encryptAes(ZERO_STR, key, '', info['iv']);
      // stripping all the trailing = of the MACs prior comparing
      return info['mac'].replaceAll(RegExp(r'=+$'), '') ==
          encrypted.mac.replaceAll(RegExp(r'=+$'), '');
    } else {
      // no real information about the key, assume it is valid
      return true;
    }
  } else {
    throw 'Unknown Algorithm';
  }
}

Encrypting and decrypting

Both encrypting and decrypting is done with AES-CTR. Out of the secret key and the name of the secret using HKDF with SHA-256 both the actual AES key and the key for the MAC integrity is generated. IVs are randomly generated 16 bytes, with bit 63 set to 0. In the account data events of the secrets, the MAC, the IV and the ciphertext are all base64 encoded.

Note: AES-CTR is a stream cipher, not a block cipher. As such, the input data is unpadded. If your library (incorrectly) does not properly handle that due to an invalid block, simply append prior en/decryption 0's to your data to fill up the input to a full number of blocks. One block here is typically 16 bytes in size. After en/decrypting, strip the extra bytes again. Please note that this method will not work with block ciphers (e.g. XTS), it is something specific to stream ciphers, such as CTR.

Deriving the keys using HKDF

As key deriving is needed for both encrypting and decrypting it makes sense to implement this first. If you have a working HKDF implementation, you can use that. If not, you can implement it yourself. HKDF is a series of specific HMAC-SHA256 MACs, as following:

_DerivedKeys deriveKeys(Uint8List key, String name) {
  var zerosalt = Uint8List(32); // generate 32 bytes of zero
  // hash the key with the zeros as secret
  var prk = Hmac(sha256, zerosalt).convert(key);

  var b = Uint8List(1); // generate one byte
  b[0] = 1; // and set it to one
  // use the previously resulted MAC as key, and hash the name, with the one-byte added to the end
  // the result is the aes key
  final aesKey = Hmac(sha256, prk.bytes).convert(utf8.encode(name) + b);

  b[0] = 2; // set the byte to 2
  // use the first computed MAC as a key, this time hashing the aes key plus the name plus the byte two
  // the result is the HMAC key
  var hmacKey = Hmac(sha256, prk.bytes).convert(aesKey.bytes + utf8.encode(name) + b);

  // this just returns the raw, derived aes and HMAC keys in an object
  return _DerivedKeys(aesKey: aesKey.bytes, hmacKey: hmacKey.bytes);
}

Decrypting

Now, to decrypt, you just create a MAC with the HMAC key of the raw ciphertext, and compare it with the MAC stored in the account data secret. If it matches, you decrypt using AES-CTR. The name here is the name of the secret we want to decrypt. The resulting code could look as follows:

String decryptAes(_Encrypted data, Uint8List key, String name) {
  // derive our keys using the before written function
  var keys = deriveKeys(key, name);

  // decode our ciphertext, as it is base64 encoded
  var cipher = base64.decode(data.ciphertext);

  // HMAC our cipher with the generated HMAC key, base64'ing it afterwards
  var hmac = base64.encode(Hmac(sha256, keys.hmacKey).convert(cipher).bytes);

  // compare the resulted MAC with with the one stored, unpadding both encoded values
  if (hmac.replaceAll(RegExp(r'=+$'), '') != data.mac.replaceAll(RegExp(r'=+$'), '')) {
    throw 'Bad MAC';
  }

  // decrypt the cipher with the generated aesKey, using AES-CTR and the supplied IV
  var decipher = AES(Key(keys.aesKey), mode: AESMode.ctr, padding: null)
      .decrypt(Encrypted(cipher), iv: IV(base64.decode(data.iv)));

  // and return the decrypted secret
  return String.fromCharCodes(decipher);
}

Encrypting

Encrypting is rather similar. If no IV is specified, you have to randomly generate 16 bytes and set bit 63 to 0, as mentioned above. Again, we derive our AES and HMAC keys off of the supplied key and the name. Then the ciphertext and the HMAC is computed, which is can be then stored later on. The name here is the name of the secret we want to encrypt. The resulting code could look as follows:

_Encrypted encryptAes(String data, Uint8List key, String name, [String ivStr]) {
  Uint8List iv;
  if (ivStr != null) {
    // if we have an IV already, let's just use this
    iv = base64.decode(ivStr);
  } else {
    // if we don't have one, generate a random 16-byte IV
    iv = Uint8List.fromList(SecureRandom(16).bytes);
  }
  // And don't forget to set bit 63 of the IV to zero
  iv[8] &= 0x7f;

  // derive our AES and HMAC keys using the before written function
  var keys = deriveKeys(key, name);

  // get our plain string (utf8) into bytes
  var plain = Uint8List.fromList(utf8.encode(data));

  // encrypt our plain text, using unpadded AES-CTR, with our aesKey and our (possibly generated) IV
  var cipher = AES(Key(keys.aesKey), mode: AESMode.ctr, padding: null).encrypt(plain, iv: IV(iv)).bytes;

  // calculate the HMAC of the resulting cipher, using the hmacKey
  var hmac = Hmac(sha256, keys.hmacKey).convert(cipher);

  // base64 the iv, the cipher and the MAC, returning it all
  return _Encrypted(
    iv: base64.encode(iv),
    ciphertext: base64.encode(cipher),
    mac: base64.encode(hmac.bytes),
  );
}

Storing a secret

To store a secret, just encrypt it and save the outcome to the account data, using the format mentioned above.

Debugging hints

Debugging can be hard. If you successfully encrypt and decrypt a secret using your methods, how do you know that you followed through implementation correctly and didn't just e.g. derive the keys wrong? To mitigate that, you could receive a secret (e.g. m.cross_signing.self_signing) via sharing from another device, and then compare that received value with what is stored in SSSS. If your decryption works properly, they should match up. If you then can successfully encrypt and decrypt something, that means your encryption is working, too.

As using a keyfile is simpler in implementation than using password, you could also test with keyfile first, and only after that is working fine, debug any errors you might have in deriving the key from the password.

Things to look out for

  • Only cache a whitelisted set of secrets, that is m.cross_signing.self_signing, m.cross_signing.user_signing and m.megolm_backup.v1.
  • When fetching a secret from the store that is cacheable - cache it!
  • Only share secrets with own devices you trust.
  • Only request secrets from own devices you trust.

4. Signing of other keys

At this point you already display the verification status of others based on cross signing and are able to access your own private keys - either cached in some way, or you decrypt them from SSSS, or you request them from other devices via SSSS as outlined above.

This means that now you have the ability to sign other peoples keys! This is an important step - that way when you verify other people, you can also sign their master key, so that other of your own devices will see all of their other devices verified.

Which keys to sign

This step is rather simple: When successfully verifying either another of your own devices or another person via interactive verification, you take all the devices you verify and (potentially) all the devices you receive, be it device keys or cross signing keys, and sign them with one of your own keys:

  1. If you receive your own master key, you sign it with your own device key
  2. If you receive a device key of your own account, you sign it with your own self-signing key
  3. If you receive another persons master key, you sign it with your own user-signing key

All other keys received, that is device keys of other people, are not signed.

How to sign a key

To sign a key, you take the device key object, or the cross signing key object, remove the unsigned and signature keys and sign the canonical json encoded object. Afterwards you upload them to the server.

For example, you want to sign the following device key:

{
  "user_id": "@alice:example.com",
  "device_id": "JLAFKJWSCS",
  "algorithms": [
    "m.olm.v1.curve25519-aes-sha2",
    "m.megolm.v1.aes-sha2"
  ],
  "keys": {
    "curve25519:JLAFKJWSCS":
        "3C5BFWi2Y8MaVvjM8M22DBmh24PmgR0nPvJOIArzgyI",
    "ed25519:JLAFKJWSCS":
        "lEuiRJBit0IG6nUf5pUzWTUEsRVVe/HJkoKuEww9ULI"
  },
  "signatures": {
    "@alice:example.com": {
      "ed25519:JLAFKJWSCS":
          "dSO80A01XiigH3uBiDVx/EjzaoycHcjq9lfQX0uWsqxl2giMIiSPR8a4d291W1ihKJL/a+myXS367WT6NAIcBA"
    }
  },
  "unsigned": {"device_display_name": "Alices mobile phone"}
}

Then you strip the signatures and unsigned keys:

{
  "user_id": "@alice:example.com",
  "device_id": "JLAFKJWSCS",
  "algorithms": [
    "m.olm.v1.curve25519-aes-sha2",
    "m.megolm.v1.aes-sha2"
  ],
  "keys": {
    "curve25519:JLAFKJWSCS":
        "3C5BFWi2Y8MaVvjM8M22DBmh24PmgR0nPvJOIArzgyI",
    "ed25519:JLAFKJWSCS":
        "lEuiRJBit0IG6nUf5pUzWTUEsRVVe/HJkoKuEww9ULI"
  }
}

And then the canonical json you need to sign is:

{"algorithms":["m.olm.v1.curve25519-aes-sha2","m.megolm.v1.aes-sha2"],"device_id":"JLAFKJWSCS","keys":{"curve25519:JLAFKJWSCS":"3C5BFWi2Y8MaVvjM8M22DBmh24PmgR0nPvJOIArzgyI","ed25519:JLAFKJWSCS":"lEuiRJBit0IG6nUf5pUzWTUEsRVVe/HJkoKuEww9ULI"},"user_id":"@alice:example.com"}

You can easily sign a key with libolm:

String sign(String canonicalJson, Uint8List key) {
  final keyObj = olm.PkSigning();
  try {
    keyObj.init_with_seed(key);
    return keyObj.sign(canonicalJson);
  } finally {
    keyObj.free();
  }
}

Keep in mind that the keys coming from SSSS are base64 encoded and olm needs a raw byte array, so you will have to base64 decode that!

Uploading signatures

After creating the signatures, you need to upload them! For that you bundle all the key objects with only your new signatures together and POST them to /_matrix/client/unstable/keys/signatures/upload. The payload is bundled by user ID, mapped to device ID or cross signing public key, which then contains the key objects with the new signatures. An example payload could thus look as following (taken from the spec):

POST /_matrix/client/unstable/keys/signatures/upload HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "@alice:example.com": {
    "HIJKLMN": {
      "user_id": "@alice:example.com",
      "device_id": "HIJKLMN",
      "algorithms": [
        "m.olm.curve25519-aes-sha256",
        "m.megolm.v1.aes-sha"
      ],
      "keys": {
        "curve25519:HIJKLMN": "base64+curve25519+key",
        "ed25519:HIJKLMN": "base64+ed25519+key"
      },
      "signatures": {
        "@alice:example.com": {
          "ed25519:base64+self+signing+public+key": "base64+signature+of+HIJKLMN"
        }
      }
    },
    "base64+master+public+key": {
      "user_id": "@alice:example.com",
      "usage": [
        "master"
      ],
      "keys": {
        "ed25519:base64+master+public+key": "base64+master+public+key"
      },
      "signatures": {
        "@alice:example.com": {
          "ed25519:HIJKLMN": "base64+signature+of+master+key"
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "@bob:example.com": {
    "bobs+base64+master+public+key": {
      "user_id": "@bob:example.com",
      "keys": {
        "ed25519:bobs+base64+master+public+key": "bobs+base64+master+public+key"
      },
      "usage": [
        "master"
      ],
      "signatures": {
        "@alice:example.com": {
          "ed25519:base64+user+signing+public+key": "base64+signature+of+bobs+master+key"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Things to look out for

  1. Only sign the keys mentioned above, do not sign any other keys.
  2. Use the correct key to sign the correct key type - self_signing for your own things, user_signing for other users and your own device key for your own master key.
  3. If you don't have the self_signing or user_signing keys cached, you might have to propmpt the user to open their SSSS with their recovery passphrase / key.
  4. If you are doing the first verification with an own device you don't have any cross-signing keys yet. Signing the other persons device key doesn't make much sense, as it is likely already signed. Instead, only sign your own master key in that specific case. In a following section will be discussed how you can detect whether you should do this behaviour - for now you could only sign other own device keys if you have your own self_signing key cached.
  5. Don't forget to request SSSS secrets over share requests when verifying an own device and you don't have them yet.

5. In-room verification

The idea of cross-signing is that users verify other users. So far we only talked about devices verifying devices, though. For that, in-room verification is introduced. In-room verification is typically used when verifying other users. To not confused the user it should be considered to hide device verification for other users all-together, and to only show device verification for verification with yourself.

Starting in-room verification

In-room verification happens in a direct message room between two users. So, when Alice wants to verify Bob she has to find an existing direct message room she has with Bob, and, if there is none, create it and invite him.

Afterwards, as with the to_device verification flow, messages are sent in the room specific to the verification flow chosen. There are, however, a few changes.

Sending a verification request

Instead of sending an event with type m.verification.key.request, a normal message event with the msgtype of m.verification.key.request is sent. As normal room messages already have an origin_server_ts the timestamp field is omitted. As transaction ID the event of this message sent is used. Additionally, a from_device and to field are added. A body is present as fallback for clients that do not support in-room verification.

As the content of such an m.room.message for Alice to start an in-room verification request with Bob could look as follows:

{
  "methods": [
    "m.sas.v1"
  ],
  "from_device": "MPLIJIXIIF", // The device ID of Alice device starting the request
  "msgtype": "m.key.verification.request",
  "to": "@bob:example.org", // Bobs mxid
  "body": "Attempting verification request. (m.key.verification.request) Apparently your client doesn't support this"
}

Sending other payloads

Next messages are sent with the type being the type of that specific step, e.g. instead of sending a message as m.room.message as above, you send it as m.key.verification.accept. The from_device property is still added as usual.

As transaction ID the event ID of the original request is used. That, however, is added in an m.relates_to block as follows:

{
  // other content of that specific type
  "from_device": "DEVICE_ID",
  "m.relates_to": {
    "rel_type": "m.reference",
    "event_id": "$event_id_of_the_original_request"
  }
}

Things to look out for

  1. Don't allow to directly verify other users devices
  2. Use in-room verification to verify other users, not specific devices
  3. Don't use in-room verification for self-verification, use device verification for that
  4. If Alice starts an in-room verification with Bob and Bob has two devices, only one of the devices, probably the one Bob uses to accept the verification, should send verification messages.

6. Miscellaneous cross-signing things

Apart from bootstrapping cross-signing there are a few miscellaneous things that you can optionally implement to smoothen out the cross-signing experience for the user, things that don't justify their own section. As such, they are listed here.

Detect if you are verified for others

Your client might want to introduce a popup or something saying "This session isn't verified for others. Please verify it with one of your devices.". For that, you need to detect if that is the case.

To do so, you have to check the valid signature of your own device to your own master key. It should look as following, where -> denotes "is signed by": Own device -> Own self-signing key -> Own master key

You could re-use the same recursive method to determine if a device is verified as previously implemented, but only cut off if it reaches at your own verified master key, not at any verified key.

Migration of previous verifications

Let's say Alice and Bob previously met, before cross-signing and had manually verified their devices specifically. And now, both have enabled cross signing. Alice could detect Bobs master key as verified with the following signature chain, where -> denotes "is signed by": Bobs master key -> Bobs device key, previously verified

Alice could then, based on this trust establishment, sign bobs master key with her own user-signing key, thus bootstrapping a cross-signing relationship from Alice to Bob.

Self-Verification

Let's say you log into a new device but don't have any other device to verify with around. Don't worry, this is where self-verification comes in: You prompt the user their SSSS passphrase / recovery key and use that to verify and sign yourself:

  1. Ask for SSSS credentials
  2. Decrypt your master key (m.cross_signing.master), generate the public key out of it and compare it with your own advertised master ed25519 key. You can do this with libolms olm.PkSigning(), property init_with_seed. Keep in mind that you have to base64-decode the secret of SSSS!
  3. Decrypt your own self-signing key, and sign your own device key with it.
  4. Sign your own master key with your own device key.
  5. Upload the signatures.
  6. Fetch all entries from SSSS that you want to cache and cache them.

7. Bootstrapping SSSS and cross-signing

By now your client should be able to cross-sign other devices, use SSSS if it is set up and sign other people via verification. To set up all the things that means to bootstrap them, you still rely on other clients, such as element.

Bootstrapping is actually pretty straight-forward: You create all the keys, encrypt the cross-signing keys and set the events. So, a rough roadmap of what to do can look as following:

  1. Create a new SSSS key, be it via a randomly generated key or from a passphrase
  2. Generate a new, random, key ID for that key
  3. Set the information for that key in your account data
  4. Set the new key as default key
  5. Do other things (generate cross-signing keys, etc.) with that new key

Creating the SSSS key information

Creating the key information for the new m.secret_storage.key.<keyid> event is basically just doing what you did before to verify if an entered key is correct, but now using the data to set the account data event. In the case of a passphrase you will have to generate a salt and iteration times yourself. All keys have 256 bits.

Important: Make sure that all random things generated here, be it keys or salts, are as securely random as possible. Many languages have libraries for creating more securely random data than the default pseudo random number generator.

Key from passphrase

A reasonably-secure iteration number for PBKDF2 is 500000 (That is five-hundred thousand). The salt needs as much random data as our hash function. While PBKDF2 uses sha512 as hash, the generated key is only 256 bits long, so 256 bits should be reasonably secure. To make sure that the salt is usable, you can just base64 the randomly generated salt.

After that, you use PBKDF2 to get the key from the passphrase, and calculate the MAC and IV.

Code for generating the key could look as follows:

// "passphrase" is the passphrase by the user

var passphraseInfo = {
  "algorithm": "m.pbkdf2",
  "iterations": 500000,
  "salt": base64.encode(SecureRandom(32).bytes), // we use secure random! 32 bytes = 256 bits
  "bits": 256,
};
var generator = PBKDF2(hashAlgorithm: sha512);
var key = Uint8List.fromList(generator.generateKey(passphrase, passphraseInfo["salt"],
      passphraseInfo["iterations"], passphraseInfo["bits"] / 8));

Generating a random key without a passphrase

Just generate a 256-bit long key.

var key = SecureRandom(32).bytes; // 32 bytes = 256 bits

Calculating the key information

You still need an IV to be able to calculate the MAC you later on use to verify the key. For that, generate 16 bytes and base64-encode them. Afterwards you just generate the MAC like you would for verifying the key, and then store the account data event.

// "key" is the key
var iv = base64.encode(SecureRandom(16).bytes);
// ZERO_STR are 32 bytes of zero. We encrypt with our generated key, a blank name and the iv of the event
var encrypted = encryptAes(ZERO_STR, key, '', iv);
var info = {
  "algorithm": "m.secret_storage.v1.aes-hmac-sha2",
  "iv": iv,
  "mac": encrypted.mac,
  "passphrase": passphraseInfo,
};

Generating the key ID

The key ID is just a short, random string which doesn't contain a dot. For that, you can e.g. generate a few random bytes and base64 encode them. Make sure no key with such an ID exists yet! After you have the key ID, set your key information object to account data m.secret_storage.key.<keyId>.

To set the newly generated key as default key, simply set the m.secret_storage.default_key account data to the key ID (NOT the full account data type):

{
  "key": "<keyId>"
}

Bootstrapping cross-signing

Now that you bootstrapped SSSS, it is time to bootstrap cross-signing! For that, you generate an ed25519 keypair for master key, self-signing key and user-signing key. Afterwards you store the base64-encoded private keys in SSSS, generate the key objects with the public keys for uploading, sign the self-signing and user-signing key with the master key, and upload them. While you are at it, you can also sign your own device with the newly generated self-signing key and sign the newly generated master key with your own device key. Don't forget to mark the master key you just generated as verified!

Fortunately libolm gives us methods for creating an ed25519 keypair. We already showed how to sign key objects with libolm above, when creating new signatures after verifying.

var master = olm.PkSigning();
try {
  var masterPrivateKey = master.generate_seed();
  var masterPublicKey = master.init_with_seed(masterPrivateKey);
  // generate key object (and save for later)
  var json = {
    "user_id": "@alice:example.com",
    "user": ["master"], // adjust to "self_signing" and "user_signing" for the other keys
    "keys": {
      "ed25519:$masterPublicKey": masterPublicKey,
    },
  };

  // self_signing and user_signing ONLY! Generate signature:
  var signature = signWithMasterKey(json);
  json["signatures"] = {
    "@alice:example.com": {
      // as it was the *master* key that made the signature, we always need to put the master key
      // here
      "ed25519:<base64-of-master-public-key>": signature,
    },
  };

  // store in SSSS
  var secret = base64.encode(masterPrivateKey);
  storeInSsss("m.cross_signing.master", secret); // adjust to "m.cross_signing.self_signing" and "m.cross_signing.user_signing" for the other keys.
} finally {
  master.free();
}

After you generated all the json key objects you can POST them to /_matrix/client/unstable/keys/device_signing/upload. Keep in mind that this endpoint uses user-interactive authentication, so you will also have to send an additional auth array with the needed information to complete stages. Hereby master_key holds the master key object, self_signing_key the self-signing key and user_signing_key the user-signing key. An example request could look as following (taken from the spec):

POST /_matrix/client/unstable/keys/device_signing/upload HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "master_key": {
    "user_id": "@alice:example.com",
    "usage": [
      "master"
    ],
    "keys": {
      "ed25519:base64+master+public+key": "base64+master+public+key"
    }
  },
  "self_signing_key": {
    "user_id": "@alice:example.com",
    "usage": [
      "self_signing"
    ],
    "keys": {
      "ed25519:base64+self+signing+public+key": "base64+self+signing+master+public+key"
    },
    "signatures": {
      "@alice:example.com": {
        "ed25519:base64+master+public+key": "signature+of+self+signing+key"
      }
    }
  },
  "user_signing_key": {
    "user_id": "@alice:example.com",
    "usage": [
      "user_signing"
    ],
    "keys": {
      "ed25519:base64+user+signing+public+key": "base64+user+signing+master+public+key"
    },
    "signatures": {
      "@alice:example.com": {
        "ed25519:base64+master+public+key": "signature+of+user+signing+key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Changing SSSS passphrase / key

Along with bootstrapping you can implement other things, such as the ability to change the SSSS passphrase. When doing so, keep in mind that keeping an in-tact SSSS is crucial for having a functional account, as such an algorithm is needed where any single step can fail and no data at all is lost. For this, it is helpful to utilize that an encrypted SSSS secret in account data can be encrypted by multiple keys at once, by setting multiple ciphertexts:

{
  "encrypted": {
    "firstKeyId": {
      "iv": "supercooliv",
      "ciphertext": "secretciphertext",
      "mac": "macthingy"
    },
    "secondKeyId": {
      "iv": "othersupercooliv",
      "ciphertext": "othersecretciphertext",
      "mac": "othermacthingy"
    }
  }
}

Now, the following algorithm could be used to change the SSSS passphrase:

  1. Scan all account data for things that look like they could be stored SSSS secrets
  2. Gather all needed SSSS keys needed to decrypt them (typically only one - the current default)
  3. Prompt the user to unlock all of those keys
  4. Decrypt and cache all secrets
  5. Prompt the user for a new passphrase / key
  6. Generate the new SSSS key
  7. Re-encrypt all cached secrets with the new SSSS key, putting the new ciphertext there in addition to the old ciphertext
  8. (Optional) Re-verify that all account data events have been set correctly, e.g. by attempting to decrypt with the new key and comparing with the cached secrets
  9. Set the new key as default key
  10. Remove from the account data events the old ciphertext, as only the new one is needed anymore

Contents

1. Implement emoji verification (SAS)
2. Display verification status based on signatures
3. Implementing SSSS
4. Signing of other keys
5. In-room verification
6. Miscellaneous cross-signing things
7. Bootstrapping SSSS and cross-signing

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