Refactoring otr4j

❝Experiences refactoring and improving otr4j library.❞

A while back I published the Object Oriented Programming series articles. As a use case to support this series, I’ve looked into the code base of the Java implementation of otr (off-the-record), called otr4j, and used it for verifying and validating ideas described in this series. This article describes the findings while refactoring and eventually improving otr4j.

The work discussed here can be found at (Most recent commit at time of writing c607f0d50b6e791a23be30ca7f123504a5bd4cf2)


otr4j is a suitable project for refactoring with the added requirement of forming an overview of OOP-related issues, improvements and curiosities. A project that is too large, depending on how well it is modularized, may make you use all the mental energy for understanding the code base, leaving no room for observing the OOP interaction in the project. otr4j as a code base is small enough to be understood and evaluated at the same time. Going in, I was expecting to focus solely on OOP-like or non-OOP-like constructs. During refactoring it became clear that there was room for improving the library itself, and focus slowly shifted from purely refactoring to actual technical improvements and functional additions.

This article describes refactoring and improvements as a way to document the over 400 commits, some of which are very minor changes. During the whole process, I’ve taken an effort to make changes easily reviewable. This means that some minor changes do get their own commits to make changes transparent. Invariably there are some large commits, especially those that introduce the State pattern for Message states, Socialist Millionaire Protocol states and later on also Authenticated Key Exchange (AKE). See the OTRv3 specification for more information on messaging states, AKE states and socialist millionaire protocol (SMP) states.

Apart from syntactic changes, there are some semantic changes. Some of these semantic changes do result in modified behavior of otr4j, although only very minimally. Semantic changes are introduced in favor of a better and more stable protocol handling logic, and are documented here.

The process

The process I’ve started with consisted of 3 basic steps. From those basic steps, the rest followed naturally.

  1. Add braces to make scopes explicit.
  2. Make variables, fields and parameters final such that “moving parts” become more visible.
  3. Observe code and add markers (FIXME, TODO) for any part of code that needs more attention in the future.

Steps 1 and 2 are used to generate some overview of complexity of the code base. Step 3 is crucial for tagging pieces of code that warrant future attention such that we can forget about them for now and keep a clear focus on the task at hand. As I was going through the initial process, I have read significant parts of the code base. However, every time I was able to focus on a single kind of improvement.

The goal is to refactor and improve the code base while preserving backward compatibility for as long as possible. We only trade off backward compatibility for soundness/correctness of the logic.

Next sections discuss the various kinds of improvements that were identified and performed. The sections are divided by type of improvement.


This “engineering exercise” in refactoring the otr4j code base had the following results as a direct result:

  1. Discovered and fixed bugs in the code that verifies the computational components in the algorithm of the Socialist Millionaire Protocol. Specifically, fixed a deviation in the bounds checking code. The logic was off-by-one on both the upper and lower bound, for group elements as well as exponents.
  2. Call back to user code under controlled circumstances. This avoids bad user code from interfering with protocol message handling. In communication protocols we expect both endpoints to be in sync. We need to avoid unintended interruptions as they can interfere with message processing, causing the local protocol instance to become out-of-sync with the other endpoint.
  3. Deserialization of OTR-encoded data was refined to do extra size verification.
  4. Deserialization of OTR-encoded code had incorrect interpretation of (4-byte) integer-sized data, due to Java having only signed integers. Any integer of 0x80000000 and over would be interpreted as negative values and would be used as such in various pieces of code such as sizes for array allocations.
  5. Error in interpretation of Instance tags due to Java’s signed integers. Over half of valid instance tags would be rejected as invalid. However, in the otr4j code, this issue would occur only for the local user’s instance tag.
  6. Made various values such as constants used in cryptographic logic final as to avoid modification. Additionally, reduced visibility of constants that are only relevant to the otr4j package itself, specifically arrays - which are always mutable - that are used for cryptographic purposes.
  7. Deleted completely unused source code.
  8. Formalized fact that communication protocols can have unexpected state changes. There is an intended race condition between message from remote users being processed and commands from the local user being processed. IncorrectStateException represents the call to a method at an incorrect time as would be possible when a state change occurred just before the method is executed. This is a checked exception to make it apparent that this is an event that realistically can happen and logic should be able to handle the exceptional cases when it occurs.
  9. Better adherence to OTR specifications: any unexpected SMP message results in aborting SMP exchange.
  10. Restructuring of protocol implementations for Message state, Socialist Millionaire Protocol and Authenticated Key Exchange, represented as states from a state machine:
  1. Finalize methods that we need to be sure are executed as they are, for example to reset state and clear memory.
  2. Let methods that verify cryptographic data before use throw exceptions instead of returning result values. This way we cannot mistakenly forget to check the result or incorrectly interpret the result and we can be sure the process is interrupted when incorrect data is encountered.
  3. Fix bad logic when initiating new session. It would previously throw an exception if either OTRv2 or OTRv3 was disallowed, instead of when both OTRv2 and OTRv3 are disallowed.
  4. Improved on used return values by reducing unnecessary use of null. Now returns 0-sized arrays if suitable and resorts to null only if it actually makes sense.
  5. In general, used more OOP-compliant code, for example to clear the authentication state and partially copy the authentication state from the master session.
  6. Extending static analysis capabilities by applying JSR-305 annotations @Nonnull and @Nullable.
  7. Added more tests.

Discussing the details

In this section we’ll go into the changes in more detail. Although most of the existing otr4j framework is in tact, I did make a number of small public API breaking changes. Let’s start with the trivial language features.

Language features

Explicit scopes

We add braces everywhere to make scopes explicit. This is done simply to prevent making mistakes when moving code around, by inadvertently overlooking an implicit end of scope.

final variables, fields, parameters

Final variables make programs easy to read and predictable, since a variable is assigned exactly once. By making these variables final we can identify the “moving parts” in the application. Additionally, we have the advantage of having only to determine once whether a variable is (potentially) null.

Apart from identifying variables that are used multiple times, it also uncovers variables/fields that should be used only once but aren’t, because final cannot be applied without static analysis pointing out errors.

Among others, making important crypto-related constants final, such as the GENERATOR_S constant from the Socialist Millionaire Protocol logic. Additionally, with more final fields we help static analyzers reach larger parts of the code.

final methods, classes

We finalize methods that are not intended to be overridden. For this change we focus on methods that are expected to work as defined in the base class and results in problems if the base implementation logic is not executed.

@Override annotations

Everywhere where a method is overridden, the @Override annotation is added. This ensures that if we ever change signatures, we detect overriding methods that have stopped overriding due to the method signature change.

Reducing visibility of constants

Replace return codes with exceptions

For checking logic in the Socialist Millionaire Protocol, throw exceptions instead of returning a boolean value as a good/bad indicator. That way it is not possible to mistakenly forget to check the return value or to wrongly interpret the return value.

Extract constants for string literals

Extract constants for string literals that are used for requesting specific cryptographic algorithms, for example to be used as: key factories, hashes, HMAC factories, etc. These are defined as constants as they are fixed by the OTR specification.

Initialization and intelligent reduction of exceptions

The OTR specification is fixed. We have a set number of constants for cryptographic primitives. Therefore, we are able to catch a certain category of exceptions that are only relevant in the dynamic use case: NoSuchAlgorithmException. These exceptions are thrown in case we specify an unknown/invalid type of algorithm. However we know beforehand if the algorithm is available, as we only rely on a predefined fixed set. (That is, if the algorithm is unknown, it is a programmer mistake instead of a user mistake.)

To verify that the running JVM knows all required algorithms, we use a static initializer. The static initializer attempts instantiation, allowing us to discover missing features early. Throughout all further use of cryptographic logic, we can wrap the NoSuchAlgorithmException with an IllegalStateException as we can reasonably assume that the exception will not happen. This significantly reduces the amount of error handling.

Explicit serialVersionUID

Exceptions are required to be serializable. Originally, serialVersionUID was almost never defined. As a consequence the JVM would on-the-fly generate an UID. The way this UID is generated, can be different for different JVMs and different versions of JVMs. By defining serialVersionUID ourselves, we ensure that this is the actual UID that is used.

Discovering and fixing bugs

SMP: intermediate value verification

Fix incorrect handling of SMP values. Verification of exponent and group element were incorrect. Specifically, the upper and lower bound both were incorrectly checked resulting in an off-by-one in the verification logic.

Deserialization value cases

A bug in the deserialization of SMP communications causes data incorrectly interpreted as negative integer value causes exceptions during array allocation or array index addressing.

Integer value interpretation

Fix and document cases where 4-byte unsigned integer data is read from OTR communications. Currently, assumed integer limitation of Java Integer.MAX_VALUE as maximum readable integer value. This is a limitation of otr4j and is documented. At this point there is no reason to jump through hoops in order to fix this limitation, as we are already working with very large values.

InstanceTag parsing

Fix OtrAssembler parsing code w.r.t. InstanceTag values. Integer.parseInt only reads 31 bits. This code would reject more than 50% of valid InstanceTags. (This is a follow up of an earlier fix where InstanceTag values were generated in far too small range.)

Fixing encodings/locales

Fixed remaining unicode string handling issues, encoding-/Locale-related issues. Use of predefined encoding constants to simplify code and decrease amount of necessary exception handling. Furthermore, we ensure that the encoding/locale is specified everywhere, such that we are never OS-dependent for network communications / byte processing.

Fixing initiation of new session

Fix incorrect policy verification logic for starting a new session: only throw exception if both OTRv2 and OTRv3 are not supported. Previously threw an exception if either OTRv2 or OTRv3 was disallowed. This does not make sense, since we can perfectly operate with only one allowed protocol version as long as the other endpoint supports it.

Null handling

Fixed (for as far as possible) handling of null in plain message. null characters in message content are not allowed due to null being used as a separator of message and TLVs.

Missing verification of receiving counter

In order to reuse the same encryption key for multiple messages many ciphers rely on a counter value that is incremented. This counter ensures that the ciphertext is always slightly different even if everything else is the same, i.e. both secret key and plain text content. It is recommended to verify the counter value against all previous messages received with the same secret key. This functionality was missing.

Improving logic

Improved logging

Fixed logging statements to be (more) useful: log exceptions instead of e.printStackTrace(), log exceptions with root cause, log more exceptions and add useful explanation to the nature of the cause.

Improved method arguments and return values

Better exception handling

Introduced checked exceptions for check... methods of SMP logic. This way we need to actively work around the thrown exception in order to nullify a failed check. This prevents us from mistakenly forgetting to check the result.

Improved state transitions

Restructured code for Message state, AKE (Authenticated Key Exchange) and Socialist Millionaire Protocol to State pattern. As a welcome consequence we now group data with corresponding logic and we only need to instantiate fields when this particular state is created. We moved whole batches of logic into a specific state, reducing and simplifying the logic that is independent of the messaging state. Furthermore, many fields can become immutable (final) for that particular state and do not need to be preserved over state transitions. State transitions become atomic. States themselves manage state transitions such that the states are self-sufficient.

Particularly for the Message state state implementations, we group all cryptographically-oriented logic with the message state encrypted, since that is the only state where this logic matters. Therefore we cannot mistakenly misidentify the state in which this logic can be active. This protects the programmer in case of enhancements. Some methods are only relevant in some states. In all other cases we signal with IncorrectStateException.

Particularly to the Socialist Millionaire Protocol state implementations, for any unexpected message we immediately abort SMP and reset to initial state. This is the default implementation logic, available in the AbstractState class. If no overriding implementation is provided by the particular state implementation, this will be the prevailing logic. Hence any unexpected method call results in an abort of the SMP exchange.

Redesigned slave session management

OTRv3 introduced support for slave sessions. This is the mechanism to cope with multiple chat clients responding to the same OTR query message. OTRv2 would do its best to perform authentication, but would get confusing/duplicate messages as more than 1 chat client would respond to the message that was sent to a “single user account”. By introducing slave sessions, it made it possible to distinguish between various chat clients on same user account.

Additionally, with (slave) session management now in place, it should even be possible to maintain an OTRv2 and multiple OTRv3 sessions simultaneously.

Improving semantics

Recognize multi-threading nature of protocol implementation

Introduction of IncorrectStateException to formalize potential last-second state transitions. Given that this is a communication protocol, a state transition can happen at any moment as it might be initiated by the counter party. With the introduction of IncorrectStateException we formalize those actions that may fail at the last moment due to an unexpected state transition.

Prevent courtesy calls to listeners from interfering with process

otr4j allows for an Engine Host and any number of listeners to be registered. These listeners will be informed at key events in the communication protocol. Interaction with listeners are improved in following ways:

  1. Listeners are called after crucial otr4j logic is executed: We first ensure correct and full execution before calling out to listeners, for as far as this is possible.
  2. Calls to listeners (EngineHost and other listeners) are executed safely. Faulty implementations of listeners that unexpectedly throw an exception will not be able to interfere with the execution of the protocol logic.
    Any exceptions will be caught and logged to identify the faulty listener. Execution will proceed as normal, since the protocol is not expected to deviate from the specification in case of errors in the client. We ensure that clients at both ends are kept in sync regardless of client errors.
  3. Given previous improvement, we can now be sure that resets/clean-ups are executed.

Trigger listeners after successful processing

State implementations are now completely self-sufficient. Triggering events to Engine Host and other interested listeners, will happen after the message is fully processed. This may result in slightly different behavior.

For one particular case, this difference is mitigated. This is the case for aborting an SMP exchange. To mitigate the change in behavior we let the abort call return false if no state transition was necessary, i.e. no SMP exchange was previously in progress, or true if an SMP exchange was previously in progress. We only inform listeners in case we actually interrupted an active SMP exchange.

Improved static analysis

In an earlier section we described how we use final to create an overview of variables/fields/parameters used once and those that are updated and reused multiple times. Using final also improves static analysis.

Nullability analysis

Introducing JSR-305. Using annotations @Nonnull and @Nullable to indicate guarantees regarding null values. This helps analysis of potential null-related bugs.


Future work

Some plans that are still brewing for improving otr4j (in order as they popped up in my mind):

This post is part of the Object Oriented Programming series.
Other posts in this series: