Comment by arrdalan

I'm not familiar with Scrypted unfortunately. But thanks for the pointer. I'll have to study it to understand its security and privacy implications. I skimmed the docs very quickly but couldn't find info on their use of encryption.

About HomeKit: yes, HomeKit uses iCloud end-to-end encryption (https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651) and is certainly superior to those systems that don't use encryption at all or just use encryption between the device and their servers. But Privastead has two advantages:

1) Privastead uses MLS for end-to-end encryption, which provides forward secrecy and post-compromise security. iCloud's end-to-end encryption does not. So what does that mean? This is from the link I included earlier:

"If you lose access to your account, only you can recover this data, using your device passcode or password, recovery contact, or recovery key."

If an attacker manages to access your password, recovery key, etc., they'll be able to decrypt all your videos (assuming they have recorded all your encrypted videos). Such an attack is not possible in MLS. Similar to the Signal protocol, MLS uses double ratchet and there is not a single password, recovery code, key, etc. that can decrypt everything.

2) The HomeKit framework and iCloud end-to-end encryption are not fully open source as far as I know. Therefore, we simply have to trust what Apple says about their security and privacy implications. That might be okay for some users, but not others. Privastead is and intends to remain fully open source. IMO, being open source is a critical component of any security/privacy solution that would like to gain users' trust.