--- type: module weight: 110 --- ### Secrets Clients may have secret information that they wish to be made available to other authorised clients, but that the server should not be able to see, so the information must be encrypted as it passes through the server. This can be done either asynchronously, by storing encrypted data on the server for later retrieval, or synchronously, by sending messages to each other. Each secret has an identifier that is used by clients to refer to the secret when storing, fetching, requesting, or sharing the secret. Secrets are plain strings; structured data can be stored by encoding it as a string. #### Storage When secrets are stored on the server, they are stored in the user's [account-data](#client-config), using an event type equal to the secret's identifier. The keys that secrets are encrypted with are described by data that is also stored in the user's account-data. Users can have multiple keys, allowing them to control what sets of secrets clients can access, depending on what keys are given to them. ##### Key storage Each key has an ID, and the description of the key is stored in the user's account\_data using the event type `m.secret_storage.key.[key ID]`. The contents of the account data for the key will include an `algorithm` property, which indicates the encryption algorithm used, as well as a `name` property, which is a human-readable name. Key descriptions may also have a `passphrase` property for generating the key from a user-entered passphrase, as described in [deriving keys from passphrases](#deriving-keys-from-passphrases). `KeyDescription`
Parameter Type Description
name string Required. The name of the key.

algorithm

string

Required. The encryption algorithm to be used for this key. Currently, only m.secret_storage.v1.aes-hmac-sha2 is supported.

passphrase

string

See deriving keys from passphrases section for a description of this property.

Other properties depend on the encryption algorithm, and are described below. A key can be marked as the "default" key by setting the user's account\_data with event type `m.secret_storage.default_key` to an object that has the ID of the key as its `key` property. The default key will be used to encrypt all secrets that the user would expect to be available on all their clients. Unless the user specifies otherwise, clients will try to use the default key to decrypt secrets. ##### Secret storage Encrypted data is stored in the user's account\_data using the event type defined by the feature that uses the data. The account\_data will have an `encrypted` property that is a map from key ID to an object. The algorithm from the `m.secret_storage.key.[key ID]` data for the given key defines how the other properties are interpreted, though it's expected that most encryption schemes would have `ciphertext` and `mac` properties, where the `ciphertext` property is the unpadded base64-encoded ciphertext, and the `mac` is used to ensure the integrity of the data. `Secret`
Parameter Type Description

encrypted

{string: object}

Required. Map from key ID the encrypted data. The exact format for the encrypted data is dependent on the key algorithm. See the definition of AesHmacSha2EncryptedData in the m.secret_storage.v1.aes-hmac-sha2 section.

Example: Some secret is encrypted using keys with ID `key_id_1` and `key_id_2`: `org.example.some.secret`: ``` { "encrypted": { "key_id_1": { "ciphertext": "base64+encoded+encrypted+data", "mac": "base64+encoded+mac", // ... other properties according to algorithm property in // m.secret_storage.key.key_id_1 }, "key_id_2": { // ... } } } ``` and the key descriptions for the keys would be: `m.secret_storage.key.key_id_1`: ``` { "name": "Some key", "algorithm": "m.secret_storage.v1.aes-hmac-sha2", // ... other properties according to algorithm } ``` `m.secret_storage.key.key_id_2`: ``` { "name": "Some other key", "algorithm": "m.secret_storage.v1.aes-hmac-sha2", // ... other properties according to algorithm } ``` ###### `m.secret_storage.v1.aes-hmac-sha2` Secrets encrypted using the `m.secret_storage.v1.aes-hmac-sha2` algorithm are encrypted using AES-CTR-256, and authenticated using HMAC-SHA-256. The secret is encrypted as follows: 1. Given the secret storage key, generate 64 bytes by performing an HKDF with SHA-256 as the hash, a salt of 32 bytes of 0, and with the secret name as the info. The first 32 bytes are used as the AES key, and the next 32 bytes are used as the MAC key 2. Generate 16 random bytes, set bit 63 to 0 (in order to work around differences in AES-CTR implementations), and use this as the AES initialization vector. This becomes the `iv` property, encoded using base64. 3. Encrypt the data using AES-CTR-256 using the AES key generated above. This encrypted data, encoded using base64, becomes the `ciphertext` property. 4. Pass the raw encrypted data (prior to base64 encoding) through HMAC-SHA-256 using the MAC key generated above. The resulting MAC is base64-encoded and becomes the `mac` property. `AesHmacSha2EncryptedData`
Parameter Type Description

iv

string

Required. The 16-byte initialization vector, encoded as base64.

ciphertext

string

Required. The AES-CTR-encrypted data, encoded as base64.

mac string Required. The MAC, encoded as base64.
For the purposes of allowing clients to check whether a user has correctly entered the key, clients should: 1. encrypt and MAC a message consisting of 32 bytes of 0 as described above, using the empty string as the info parameter to the HKDF in step 1. 2. store the `iv` and `mac` in the `m.secret_storage.key.[key ID]` account-data. `AesHmacSha2KeyDescription`
Parameter Type Description
name string Required. The name of the key.

algorithm

string

Required. The encryption algorithm to be used for this key. Currently, only m.secret_storage.v1.aes-hmac-sha2 is supported.

passphrase

object

See deriving keys from passphrases section for a description of this property.

iv string The 16-byte initialization vector, encoded as base64.

mac

string

The MAC of the result of encrypting 32 bytes of 0, encoded as base64.

For example, the `m.secret_storage.key.key_id` for a key using this algorithm could look like: ```json { "name": "m.default", "algorithm": "m.secret_storage.v1.aes-hmac-sha2", "iv": "random+data", "mac": "mac+of+encrypted+zeros" } ``` and data encrypted using this algorithm could look like this: ```json { "encrypted": { "key_id": { "iv": "16+bytes+base64", "ciphertext": "base64+encoded+encrypted+data", "mac": "base64+encoded+mac" } } } ``` ###### Key representation When a user is given a raw key for `m.secret_storage.v1.aes-hmac-sha2`, it will be presented as a string constructed as follows: 1. The key is prepended by the two bytes `0x8b` and `0x01` 2. All the bytes in the string above, including the two header bytes, are XORed together to form a parity byte. This parity byte is appended to the byte string. 3. The byte string is encoded using base58, using the same [mapping as is used for Bitcoin addresses](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Base58Check_encoding#Base58_symbol_chart), that is, using the alphabet `123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz`. 4. The string is formatted into groups of four characters separated by spaces. When decoding a raw key, the process should be reversed, with the exception that whitespace is insignificant in the user's input. ###### Deriving keys from passphrases A user may wish to use a chosen passphrase rather than a randomly generated key. In this case, information on how to generate the key from a passphrase will be stored in the `passphrase` property of the `m.secret_storage.key.[key ID]` account-data. The `passphrase` property has an `algorithm` property that indicates how to generate the key from the passphrase. Other properties of the `passphrase` property are defined by the `algorithm` specified. ####### `m.pbkdf2` For the `m.pbkdf2` algorithm, the `passphrase` property has the following properties:
Parameter Type Description
algorithm string Required. Must be m.pbkdf2
salt string Required. The salt used in PBKDF2.
iterations integer Required. The number of iterations to use in PBKDF2.

bits

integer

Optional. The number of bits to generate for the key. Defaults to 256.

The key is generated using PBKDF2 with SHA-512 as the hash, using the salt given in the `salt` parameter, and the number of iterations given in the `iterations` parameter. Example: ``` { "passphrase": { "algorithm": "m.pbkdf2", "salt": "MmMsAlty", "iterations": 100000, "bits": 256 }, ... } ``` #### Sharing To request a secret from other devices, a client sends an `m.secret.requests` device event with `action` set to `request` and `name` set to the identifier of the secret. A device that wishes to share the secret will reply with an `m.secret.send` event, encrypted using olm. When the original client obtains the secret, it sends an `m.secret.request` event with `action` set to `request_cancellation` to all devices other than the one that it received the secret from. Clients should ignore `m.secret.send` events received from devices that it did not send an `m.secret.request` event to. Clients must ensure that they only share secrets with other devices that are allowed to see them. For example, clients should only share secrets with the user’s own devices that are verified and may prompt the user to confirm sharing the secret. ##### Event definitions ###### `m.secret.request` Sent by a client to request a secret from another device or to cancel a previous request. It is sent as an unencrypted to-device event.
Parameter Type Description

name

string

Required if action is request. The name of the secret that is being requested.

action enum Required. One of ["request", "request_cancellation"].
requesting_device_id string Required. The ID of the device requesting the secret.

request_id

string

Required. A random string uniquely identifying (with respect to the requester and the target) the target for a secret. If the secret is requested from multiple devices at the same time, the same ID may be used for every target. The same ID is also used in order to cancel a previous request.

Example: ```json { "name": "org.example.some.secret", "action": "request", "requesting_device_id": "ABCDEFG", "request_id": "randomly_generated_id_9573" } ``` ###### `m.secret.send` Sent by a client to share a secret with another device, in response to an `m.secret.request` event. It must be encrypted as an `m.room.encrypted` event, then sent as a to-device event.
Parameter Type Description
request_id string Required. The ID of the request that this a response to.
secret string Required. The contents of the secret.
Example: ```json { "request_id": "randomly_generated_id_9573", "secret": "ThisIsASecretDon'tTellAnyone" } ```