Gibberfish, Inc./Gibberfish User Documentation

By ‘robust’ we mean procedures that have been established or vetted by trusted security experts. These include, but are not limited to, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Guardian Project and Tor project.

We use ‘consistent’ to emphasize that the intermittent use of any security practice is as bad as not using one at all. Once you develop a threat model and a strategy to defeat it, you must apply that strategy every time you engage in private activities. 

Every user must understand your group’s Threat Model and consistently use the same security practices.

For more information on Threat Models, please refer to this excellent primer produced by the EFF.

When you first log in, your chat roster on the right side of the screen will be empty. From the menu at the bottom you can Add Contact. Just start typing and it will automatically search for existing users on the server, or you can type in the XMPP address of external users.

To stay connected when you’re not logged in to Gibberfish, you can also connect to the server directly using an XMPP-compatible client such as Adium, Pidgin, or one of many mobile apps.

The chat server is also reachable as a Tor “onion service” on port 5222. Ask your administrator for your server’s Tor address.

However, when chatting with users outside your server, you have no guarantee of privacy unless you and your contacts use an end-to-end encryption plugin such as “OTR”. Most chat clients support end-to-end encryption, and have guides to help you understand and enable it.

It is difficult, but possible, for your data to be intercepted by resourceful adversaries while in transit. For this reason we do not recommend syncing your data without carefully considering your Threat Model and your security practices.

Administrators should also familiarize themselves with the Admin Manual.

Finally, we recommend subscribing to the Gibberfish Blog in the News app to keep up to date on important announcements and our canary statement.

We rely on donations to survive. If you can afford it, please consider making a charitable contribution of any amount at https://gibberfish.org/donate. We will appreciate it immensely. Thanks!

For security reasons, we only respond to requests from your registered Administrator. If you have service-related questions, please ask your administrator.

PROFILE

If this is your first time logging in, you should take a few minutes to fill out your profile, and while you’re there change your passphrase! Click on the colored circle in the upper right corner and choose Personal to edit your profile. 

PASSPHRASES

TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION

Once you’ve changed your passphrase, we also strongly encourage you to enable Two-Factor authentication (“2FA”). This involves installing an app on your mobile device that generates a unique 6-digit code you must enter each time you log in. For someone to hack your account, they would need to know your passphrase and physically possess your phone. This combination keeps you more secure. Because Gibberfish is part of the Nextcloud ecosystem, you can use the Nextcloud 2FA app. This app supports FreeOTP, which can be downloaded in the app store for Android and iOS devices.

KEY VAULTS

If you’re not already in the habit of doing so, it would be a good idea to store your passphrases in a key vault like KeePass. Key vaults make it easy to securely remember all your passphrases. You will need to lock your key vault itself with a Diceware generated passphrase. In addition, we strongly recommend you enable full-disk encryption on the device storing your key vault.