SRP-6a with Argon2id, the password never leaving the device and unlocking the account's key pairs (libsodium on devices); mandatory TOTP with recovery codes, a 72-hour reset by mail as Proton has it, a recovery phrase; data keys per store sealed to the account; studysets private or not, private by default; email codes only for resets; GitHub sign-in deprecated. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Signed-off-by: Tizian 「ティツィアーン」 <raisondetredev@pm.me>
93 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
93 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
# ADR 0017: A password, TOTP and the account's keys
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- **Status:** decided 20 Oct 2026, by the developer (D1–D5 below).
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- **Decided before:** 19 Oct 2026, the developer: people sign in with a password that never
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leaves the device (SRP) and a mandatory TOTP code; the password unlocks the account's keys;
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recovery codes and a recovery phrase; Sign in with SimpleLogin later, as an extra way in.
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- **Builds on:** ADR 0002 (the content envelope: `keyId`, `nonce`, `payload`), ADR 0010
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(email sign-in), ADR 0016 (the register).
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- **Followed by:** ADR 0018 (the agenda), the first data encrypted with these keys.
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## Context
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Todo is to be the agenda of every Halkyon service, both ways (ADR 0016), and what people
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plan there may need to be encrypted end to end later: readable on their devices, never by an
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instance. Proton does this with one account key pair per person, unlocked on the device by a
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key derived from the password, and random keys per store (a calendar, a vault) wrapped with
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it; times a server must index stay readable but signed.
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Today people sign in with a code by mail (ADR 0010), GitHub, or no account. No secret exists
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that the instance doesn't also know, so nothing could be encrypted for the person alone.
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## Proposal
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1. **Signing in** (identified accounts): the email address (kept as its keyed hash, as ADR
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0010 keeps it), a password and a TOTP code. The password never leaves the device. It
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replaces email codes for signing in outright (nobody signs in with them yet); a code by
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mail serves only resets (5, 6).
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2. **The protocol (D1).** SRP-6a (RFC 5054, the 3072-bit group, SHA-256), as Proton runs it:
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the device proves it knows the password without sending it or anything that would sign in
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in its place; the register keeps a verifier. Its private value is derived from the
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password with Argon2id, so guessing a leaked verifier costs Argon2id per guess.
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Implemented in Dart (BigInt), held to RFC 5054's test vectors, and reviewed before release.
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3. **The keys.** At sign-up the device makes the account's key pairs (X25519 to encrypt,
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Ed25519 to sign) and encrypts their private halves (XChaCha20-Poly1305) with a key derived
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from the password (Argon2id, a salt per account, parameters a phone manages in about a
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second; HKDF splits it from SRP's value). The register keeps the encrypted private keys,
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the public ones and the salt; it can never use them.
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4. **Data keys** are random per store (Todo's agenda, later an app's space), sealed to the
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account's public key, so every device that unlocks the account opens them; sharing with
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someone later seals them to that person's key too, as Proton shares a calendar. Content
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goes into ADR 0002's envelope (`keyId`, `nonce`, the encrypted `payload`), signed by its
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author; what a server must read (a reminder's time) stays readable and signed.
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5. **TOTP** (RFC 6238: SHA-1, 6 digits, 30 seconds, one step either way), mandatory for every
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identified account; its secret kept by the register, encrypted with a key of the instance's
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(a new password, `totpKey`). Ten recovery codes, shown once, kept as hashes, each used once.
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6. **Recovery.** A recovery phrase (24 words, BIP-39's English list: 256 bits) also wraps the
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private keys: a lost password with the phrase keeps everything. Without it, the address
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(a code by mail) resets the account: new keys, and what was encrypted with the old ones
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is lost, as Proton warns. A lost TOTP device: a recovery code (D3).
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7. **Libraries.** On devices libsodium through `sodium` and `sodium_libs` (Android, iOS,
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Linux, Windows, macOS: Argon2id, X25519, XChaCha20-Poly1305, Ed25519); on servers only SRP's
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arithmetic, SHA-256 and HMAC (`crypto`): no server ever decrypts a key.
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8. **Where it lives:** with the register (ADR 0016); a member forwards SRP's two steps to it.
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9. **Anonymous accounts** stay without a password. Their device makes the key pairs itself
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and keeps the private halves in its keyring, so their private studysets are encrypted as
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anyone's; setting an address and password makes them identified, wrapping those keys with
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the password and handing them to the register.
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10. **Private or not, per studyset** (D5): a studyset, with everything inside it, is private
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(end to end encrypted with a data key of its own) or not, chosen when it is made and
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changeable later (the device re-encrypts or decrypts it and syncs it anew). New ones are
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private. A private studyset can't be published, read by the Claude connector, counted for
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"learn this here" or checked by the instance's LanguageTool; asking an AI assistant from
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the device (Lumo's hand-off) works as before. Other apps choose per store alike; Todo's
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agenda is always private.
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11. **GitHub sign-in is deprecated** (D2): people who sign in with it add an address, a
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password and TOTP at their next sign-in; three months after the release GitHub signs no
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one in any more and the instance forgets the GitHub IDs.
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## Decisions (20 Oct 2026, the developer's)
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- **D1** SRP-6a, as decided on 19 Oct (over OPAQUE, which has no Dart implementation, and
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Bitwarden's hash, which signs in in the password's place should TLS be broken).
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- **D2** GitHub sign-in is deprecated: its people set an address, a password and TOTP at
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their next sign-in; it ends three months after the release (11).
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- **D3** A lost authenticator without recovery codes, as Proton: the password plus a code by
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mail (or the recovery phrase) turns TOTP off, but only 72 hours later, with a mail at the
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start, and called off if the person signs in meanwhile; several authenticators may be
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linked.
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- **D4** Nobody signs in with email codes yet, so the password replaces them outright (1).
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- **D5** Privacy is the person's choice per studyset, private by default (10).
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## Consequences
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- People keep a password, an authenticator app and a recovery phrase: more to keep than a
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code by mail, and the reason the agenda can be encrypted.
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- Every app gets the sign-up and sign-in screens (halkyon_app), the key store on the device
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(the keyring, as sessions are), and the recovery screens.
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- The instance can't read what is encrypted, can't recover it, and can't reset a password
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without the data encrypted under it being lost.
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- Learn's server-side features (publishing, the connector, the learner count, LanguageTool)
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ask whether a studyset is private and refuse it; each says why, and how to open it up.
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- SRP and the key handling are security-critical code of our own: test vectors, a second
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reading of every step, and no release before both.
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