[HN Gopher] Signal WhatsApp Chats Import
___________________________________________________________________
Signal WhatsApp Chats Import
Author : janisz
Score : 619 points
Date : 2021-01-08 16:18 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| alecco wrote:
| I want more features but first I donated. Also they are
| struggling with the sudden spike so their costs must be climbing.
| I couldn't add an attachment last night but they managed to fix
| it later.
|
| https://signal.org/donate/
| Aissen wrote:
| Since this is a feature request, it would be nice to the project
| to change the link to their community feature request:
|
| https://community.signalusers.org/t/migrate-from-whatsapp/10...
| tsjq wrote:
| but . . . what about WhatsApp's End-to-End Encryption ? :(
| evgen wrote:
| The person doing the import is one of the ends in that E2E
| chain...
| pmlnr wrote:
| Heh?
|
| Your - your device - is one of the "End" in End-to-End
| Encryption.
| beefee wrote:
| Why does Signal require a phone number, after all these years?
| It's a gigantic red flag that they unnecessarily require a tie-in
| to the primary governmental communication surveillance system.
| I've seen multiple attempted explanations, but nothing
| convincing.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I think it's for contact discovery. I agree that it would be
| better to have it not be tied to another system. However,
| sharing your new ID is a source of friction for messaging apps
| and everyone wants to grow their app as quickly as possible.
| sim_card_map wrote:
| Signal is not an open alternative.
|
| It's not federated, but most importantly, they don't allow 3rd
| party clients:
|
| https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...
|
| So you are stuck with their Electron junk without any options.
|
| Matrix should be promoted as an open alternative instead.
| dopu wrote:
| Are these things so important that we should give up the easier
| maintainability (and potentially, security) that comes from
| centralization and the standardization of user clients? I
| absolutely think projects like Matrix are worthwhile, but it
| seems foolish to me to argue that there are no benefits that
| come from doing things the way Signal does. Besides, as sexy as
| decentralization is, in the wild it is not really practiced.
| Mastodon is decentralized, but last I heard ~50% of users were
| on 3 nodes [0]. I'm assuming it's a similar situation for
| Matrix.
|
| [0]: https://rosenzweig.io/blog/the-federation-fallacy.html
| Asraelite wrote:
| In my opinion an ideal position is somewhere between the two
| extremes - promote the use of a single official client and
| server and let 99% of users use just that, but allow the
| development of alternatives for those that want them.
|
| There are more possible stances than just "we disallow third
| party clients" and "we strongly encourage third party
| clients".
| fsflover wrote:
| Federation is not an extreme, it's the only choice
| sustainable in the long term. Where will Signal get money
| to support, say, 1 billion people? It's just another walled
| garden. Telegram is already starting to show ads for this
| reason.
| juniperplant wrote:
| Which is what Telegram does.
|
| Still, I would like to see proper use of encryption by
| Telegram. Secret chats have no meaning if no one uses them.
| Evidlo wrote:
| > Mastodon is decentralized, but last I heard ~50% of users
| were on 3 nodes
|
| I would argue that the user distribution does not matter.
| What's important is eliminating network effects, which you
| get with federation.
|
| I think most people would consider email a successful
| federated service, and yet far more than half of users are
| only on the biggest three servers.
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/whos-the-biggest-u-s-e-mail-
| se...
| FreakyT wrote:
| The issue with Signal that annoys me most is the complete lack of
| any meaningful backup/export on iOS. I lost my entire chat
| history when I got a new phone because their bizarre "proximity
| based" solution failed.
| tdons wrote:
| Why is keeping a chat history important? I don't take notes of
| IRL conversation I have, they're ephemeral.
|
| Not trolling, honestly curious :-)
| qznc wrote:
| Still annoying is that all groups disappear. Only once
| someone else writes something, they are available again.
| colordrops wrote:
| I believe it's because they are not stored on a server.
| They only disappear if you delete all the messages. I
| suppose it could keep an index of groups locally to the
| phone though.
| Lutger wrote:
| Some people use chat software for more than just chitchatting
| and want the history as a memory.
|
| This is the reason why mattermost exists - the devs lost
| their chat history of some enterprise solution and thought:
| never again. So they created mattermost.
| beezle wrote:
| This. Signal devs should understand that different people
| have different use cases as well as different tolerances
| for (theoretical) secrecy/privacy. Some convos/groups are
| worth keeping history for, others probably not. Signal does
| not have anyway to know which so should let the user decide
| and allow for an easy(ier) backup/restore option.
| solstice wrote:
| You imply that they don't understand this. Are you sure
| this is the case? It could be that their priorities are
| simply elsewhere. Things will take time, even with
| funding because any crypto/security mistake will be so
| incredibly more damaging for them than for any other
| software shop. This goes especially for conversation
| backups.
| jonahx wrote:
| > I don't take notes of IRL conversation I have, they're
| ephemeral.
|
| Fairer analogy: If you could search transcripts of your IRL
| conversations at no additional cost (no notetaking), would
| you?
|
| I think most people would say yes.
| tonyztan wrote:
| That is a liability. Imagine if every word you have ever
| uttered to anyone is permanently recorded and can be used
| against you any time in the future, forever.
| godelski wrote:
| Take Twitter and remove even more context from a 10 year
| old comment.
| eat_veggies wrote:
| They're different mediums with different expectations of
| ephemerality. Chat history sits somewhere between speaking
| IRL and sending letters (but to be clear, is not a simple
| combination; it's its own thing) and nobody burns their
| letters when they move to a new house.
|
| People _do_ burn their letters for valid reasons (or use more
| naturally ephemeral media like phone calls, talking IRL, or
| Signal 's disappearing messages) but those reasons are
| orthogonal to moving house or getting a new phone.
|
| In any case, if people want to save chat history, the
| appropriate response is to support that requirement rather
| than to tell users that no, we've decided that they actually
| do not want to do that.
| officeplant wrote:
| >nobody burns their letters when they move to a new house
|
| Actually that's usually when I finally make the effort to
| burn old mail that I can't just throw away. (insurance
| payment paperwork, credit card bills, etc)
|
| Maybe I should invest in a shredder.
| saurik wrote:
| ... particularly given that Signal _does_ have this feature
| --maybe not as smooth or easy as it should be, but still
| totally functional--on Android; so it isn 't even a
| consistent argument that "we've decided they actually do
| not want to do that"!
| FreakyT wrote:
| I see it like more like email history (I don't really delete
| emails either) -- if someone sent me something, I like to be
| able to reference it later. It's not something I do super
| often, but it's nice to be able to do.
| smarx007 wrote:
| I actually try to take paper notes of almost all IRL/online
| meetings I take part in :)
| godelski wrote:
| Serious question, really? Like when you're just having
| beers with your friends? Why? Does it make your friends
| feel uncomfortable? What's the benefit to you?
| smarx007 wrote:
| I mean work/project meetings, not "social gatherings".
| Essentially, when an encounter serves more that just a
| social purpose and information is shared, I either want a
| record of that meeting (information) to be kept or for
| that meeting not to take place at all if there is nothing
| noteworthy (again, does not apply to meetings that have a
| predominantly social function).
| godelski wrote:
| Okay that I get, but I don't understand recording every
| text since that's more akin to recording social
| gatherings and private conversations.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Accountability and history. I have decades of email history,
| I'd like the same for my chats.
| karakanb wrote:
| For me, they literally mean "history". Some conversation with
| a friend who passed away, chats with an ex-lover, remembering
| school years, tons of memories. I believe at this point those
| messages are an important part of my past.
|
| In other words, if I had a chance to record, search and
| navigate through real life conversations, I would have done
| that too; it is way better to have records than to try to
| remember things.
| solstice wrote:
| I totally understand what you mean and I also frequently
| look up older conversations to enjoy again the in-jokes,
| banter and actually useful information of my chats.
|
| However to avoid 1) having to manually delete things and 2)
| accumulating hundreds of megabytes of messages and 3) to
| not be swamped by months and years of "can you call?",
| "alright, see you later" and other ultimately meaningless
| stuff, I have conversations in Signal with my frequent
| interlocutors set to expire after a month.
|
| To save things, I currently simply screenshot the relevant
| parts of the conversation or forward them to my "Notes to
| myself" thingy for later. It's a bit manual, but at least
| it's simple to remember: what I don't actively save
| disappears. Screenshots leave out audio messages and gifs
| (to a certain extend) but it is at least something. (And I
| just realised that with Signal it's actually possible to
| download individual audio messages and video so that a
| later reconstitution is possible if tedious.)
|
| However, what would be great is to indeed have a way to
| backup messages including stickers, audio, videos etc. in a
| more high-fidelity way to relive important converations.
| godelski wrote:
| Personally all I want is a way to save specific messages.
| Like my friend recently sent me a recipe. That's nice to
| save. Everything else I'm fine cutting off at like 500
| messages or something. I guess a lot of this saving
| doesn't bother me because back in the T9ing days you
| couldn't save many messages and no one batted an eye. I'm
| surprised at the major paradigm shift, but also most
| communication happens through text now which is also
| interesting.
| costsNall wrote:
| As someone who has saved no chat logs, and just deleted
| pics, letters, and such from a long gone marriage; IMO,
| they're not that important.
|
| In fact, shedding that memory shed cognitive distraction I
| did not know I had.
|
| If I want to connect to people I do it here and now.
| Talking to the past in my head is unhealthy.
| [deleted]
| Forbo wrote:
| I vouched for your comment, because your experience is
| still a valid data point.
|
| As a counter to that, I lost a close friend to suicide.
| It was really good to be able to reflect back on the
| conversations we had and relive the lighter moments we
| shared together. I agree that dwelling on those things
| can be unhealthy, but they can also be a valuable part of
| the healing process.
| costsNall wrote:
| Sorry to hear that.
|
| I went through the same in my 20s, grieved and moved on.
|
| For what ever reason, reconnecting to it just makes me
| mad and depressed now. He's not dealing with
| environmental collapse, political unrest, economic
| inequality, racism...
|
| I find leaning into my anger over reality now leads me to
| be more productive than ennui over people no longer
| around to concern themselves with those issues.
| Daniel_sk wrote:
| Same here. Emails are much more important to keep.
| saurik wrote:
| Great for you. I happen to have spent my life talking to
| people using messaging apps instead of email, including
| business contacts and family. If you think your email is
| somehow valuable and my instant messaging logs aren't,
| that feels quite a bit insulting.
| eat_veggies wrote:
| The key is that the decision (and timing) to move on and
| delete those pics and letters should be the user's
| choice, not the platform's.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I just saved an hour or more of work by looking up a
| conversation I had in Oct 2020.
| m463 wrote:
| It depends on what type of person you are.
|
| Some people are nostalgic and find great comfort in something
| like a chat history or a photo album (sometimes they're
| almost one and the same)
|
| Nobody really needs it. Arguably it might be a burden or an
| impediment to growth.
| grishka wrote:
| I just never delete messages. Chat histories are an integral
| part of my past, and my past is what makes me, me.
|
| That said, I deleted my WhatsApp account today just because
| some organizations assumed that this was an acceptable and
| convenient way of reaching me if I gave them my phone number.
| Didn't use it much anyway.
| nelsonenzo wrote:
| a ton of useful conversations and media from my wife while we
| were waiting for her US Visa, and other family matters.
| AnonC wrote:
| Do you take photos and keep those around or you just don't
| use cameras? If you do preserve photos, why? Before cameras
| were invented, most people (who couldn't paint or pay a
| painter) had experiences and events only in their memories.
| You could follow that for photos and videos too. Or get a
| camera that shows the photo you took for a few seconds and
| then erase it permanently.
|
| I'm not trolling either. The point is not whether you value
| something to look back on in the future or not. It's that a
| lot of people value that and would use a service that aligns
| with those needs. Chats can also have photos and videos that
| someone else shared. It's not easy or clear to many people
| that they should save or offload those from an (unreliable)
| chat app if they want to look back at those later.
| prophesi wrote:
| What went wrong with their local device transfer solution?
| Asking as I'm on iOS and have yet to get a new phone.
| noja wrote:
| Nothing is wrong with it. There was a bug and they fixed it:
| https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4623
| FreakyT wrote:
| Their solution (as documented here:
| https://support.signal.org/hc/en-
| us/articles/360007059752-Ba...) requires that you place the
| devices "nearby" and wait for them to detect one another. For
| whatever reason, neither phone ever "saw" the other one
| (despite them being on the same network and physically next
| to one another). I tried this about 10 times before I finally
| gave up. (iPhone SE / iPhone 12 Pro)
|
| What made it more irritating was that you only get one "phone
| detection" attempt per account transfer process, and you're
| rate-limited on the server side, so I got soft-banned for 24
| hours after several attempts.
| tricolon wrote:
| Have you contacted their support? I did, and they informed
| me they'd fixed the bug in the app update that was
| published _the next day_. It might have been a coincidence,
| but at the very least they were responsive and
| knowledgeable.
|
| (I had the same issue migrating from an iPhone SE to an
| iPhone 12 mini.)
| moxie wrote:
| Yeah, bummer. There were some iOS 14 changes that made this
| stop working as reliably, which was unfortunately right
| around the time people were getting new devices. It should
| be better now, and we're working on more stuff in this
| area.
| pgalvin wrote:
| With respect, as I otherwise feel you've made an amazing
| app on Android and iOS, why do you allow local backups to
| internal storage on Android but not iOS?
|
| Enabling a backup on iOS, even if buried in advanced
| settings, that lets me export an encrypted .zip (for
| example, similar to Android) to my internal storage via
| the Files app would be tremendous. As it stands, I lost a
| very large amount of message history when an old iPhone
| broke.
|
| I totally understand your reasons for not enabling iCloud
| backup, but why not a local encrypted backup via the
| Files app, just like Android?
|
| Even if you feel this goes against your ethos, though I
| do not understand why that would only apply to iOS, it
| would be far better to go through a few warning messages
| and back up my messages than to lose years of
| conversations with a friend or partner who passed away.
| There's hundreds upon hundreds of anecdotal stories where
| people value this or were burned by Signal on iOS, so
| clearly it is important to a large part of your existing
| and also potential userbase.
| gaius_baltar wrote:
| I'm just curious why this feature exists in Android, but not
| iOS. Maybe due to some stupid Apple Store rule?
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| From what I've read on the forums, by the developers, is that
| the backup and restore process on Android has been a
| technical nightmare for them and it's fragile as it is. I
| presume that since they have limited resources they can only
| put so much effort into adding the feature to iOS (and
| improving it on Android) and have been concentrating on
| improved groups, group calling, Desktop calling, user name
| support, etc.
| saurik wrote:
| There definitely isn't an App Store rule against making your
| content backup-able: almost all other apps--and notably
| WhatsApp--have support for this in some way (if not the
| standard way). (If anything, I am surprised that Apple
| doesn't make "backup and restore via at least an iTunes
| encrypted backup correctly replicates your data" a
| requirement, given how it hurts their ability to sell new
| phones and undermines their own work making this seamless.)
| alerighi wrote:
| Really, this. And this is the problem that I have also with
| WhatsApp: i lost all my messages when transitioning between
| Android to iOS since the backup of Android (that is just a dump
| of the database) is not compatible to the one of iOS.
|
| At the other side there is Telegram, where the conversation are
| saved on the cloud, which is great, but everyone can delete or
| edit a message even years after it was sent! And thus even on
| Telegram you need backups (with is inconvenient, but can be
| avoided with a script that exports all your conversation
| scheduled to run every once in a while)
|
| I would actually use Signal (or whatever other application) if
| they would have a simple way to export and also import
| messages. Best thing would obviously be to make a standard
| interoperable, at least shared by open source applications,
| like is done with the mailbox format for emails, so you can
| take your chat, export them, and import them on another system
| if you want to migrate from one to another.
| amelius wrote:
| They could use Whatsapp's Web interface to extract the data
| (including images/videos). A browser extension or a bookmarklet
| could do the actual work.
| antirez wrote:
| That's funny. People use Whatsapp because outside US and Asia is
| the worldwide de facto standard for messaging. The new TOS does
| not state that Whatsapp is going to read your messages, actually
| even the non-techo-savvy population in Europe _knows_ that
| Whatsapp uses end-to-end encryption (they just know that "it
| cannot be intercepted"), so they use it for good reasons, and
| will continue to do so, because 99% of people don't give a shit
| about Facebook sealing your profile image and list of contacts or
| stuff like that. So it's not going to happen that there is a mass
| move outside of Whatsapp anytime soon. I also find very curious
| that people are concerned with that, but not with the fact that
| Facebook and Twitter can decide who can talk and who not, to te
| extend that one person can be the president of US but not writing
| his thoughts on social networks. You will hardly find somebody
| more against Trump than me, but that's not the point, the point
| is that is a lot more concerning that social network owners can
| decide what "free speech" is.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > So it's not going to happen that there is a mass move outside
| of Whatsapp anytime soon.
|
| I (sadly) agree with you on this. (Ciao Salvatore)
|
| I'm surprised you're being downvoted, is it possibly because of
| the reference to the current POTUS being "silenced" on Twitter
| (despite you later state that you're anti-Trump)?
|
| Anyway, I believe you're incorrect on your stance on the new
| TOS, but I'm studying it more now because I am also a bit
| confused and I've read conflicting interpretations.
|
| Edit: part of the confusion might stem from the fact that TOS
| in Europe do not include the data-sharing part with Facebook,
| which is instead included elsewhere [0]
|
| (HN user antirez is based in Europe, not in the US)
|
| [0]:
| https://twitter.com/NiamhSweeneyNYC/status/13471849630163394...
| actuator wrote:
| Regarding your other point, while you are theoretically right
| that this is a dangerous precedent.
|
| But I think this week's events were extraordinary. At the end
| of the day humans are running these platforms and it becomes
| very hard to ignore developments like these. As much as I love
| free speech we have seen throughout the world that there is a
| real human cost to not censoring these things.
| antirez wrote:
| I agree that it was extraordinary and extremely worrying,
| but:
|
| + Trump is not running out of channels to speak, just who
| supports him will believe he is censored and will develop a
| deeper attachment to him. Democracy works when you are able
| to understand somebody is fool even if you can read what they
| write.
|
| + Twitter censored his tweets partially even before what
| happened recently. When he claimed he didn't lost elections.
|
| + This time we believe it was acceptable because our
| political views here in HN, mostly are aligned with the ones
| of folks running social platforms. Next time it may be
| different.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > This time we believe it was acceptable because our
| political views here in HN, mostly are aligned with the
| ones of folks running social platform
|
| There's different types of acceptable that get confused
| (for some people they may be equivalent, but the problem is
| that they fail to recognize that for other people they are
| distinct, and also that they fail to realize that making
| them equivalent is the essence of totalitarian control),
| specifically:
|
| "Is it right that the private actor makes this decision?"
|
| vs.
|
| "Is it right that the private actor _is free_ to make this
| decision?"
|
| Twitter has made several curation decisions I thought were
| not acceptable in the first sense, because my political
| views _are not_ aligned with Twitter 's, such as deciding
| to lift the rules applicable to most participants from
| those that met a new leadership position test in response
| to widespread complaints about Trump's routine violations
| early in its term.
|
| But I don't find those decisions unacceptable in the
| _second_ sense because I believe in freedom.of speech and
| the press, which exactly means that Twitter ought to be
| free to decide on what content it will carry, including
| whether and how to take the social position of the source
| of the content into account.
| actuator wrote:
| > Trump is not running out of channels to speak, just who
| supports him will believe he is censored and will develop a
| deeper attachment to him. Democracy works when you are able
| to understand somebody is fool even if you can read what
| they write.
|
| Yeah, but what we have seen in social media is that the
| discourse gets polarized. Everyone hangs around in
| groups/channels/subreddits/blogs that are of the side they
| identify with. They are echo chambers which shape their own
| reality in many ways. So people often tend to believe one
| version of the events. Over the years we have seen
| fractures between ideologies grow deeper. So, I am not sure
| if this strategy works.
|
| > This time we believe it was acceptable because our
| political views here in HN, mostly are aligned with the
| ones of folks running social platforms. Next time it may be
| different.
|
| Completely agree on this. It is definitely dangerous.
| dotdi wrote:
| My dude, the new TOS stipulate that "you grant WhatsApp a
| royalty-free, transferable license to use, reproduce and derive
| works from data you upload, send, ..."[0], which makes no sense
| at all if WhatsApp/Facebook did not have a way to decrypt the
| things people send via WhatsApp.
|
| [0]:
| https://twitter.com/FSFTamilnadu/status/1346864102698754050
| antirez wrote:
| I think that the TOS is just terribly written and opaque, and
| that in the next weeks we will receive clarifications about
| the fact messages are protected. Otherwise if it will be the
| case that FB can read messages, the matter will be very
| different and I will agree on the switch. But so far to imply
| this looks far fetched.
| dotdi wrote:
| Even without that, all the metadata which is now shared
| with FB and Cambridge Analytica Friends is as sensitive as
| the actual transferred data. Contact lists and phone
| numbers are going to be correlated to Facebook profiles,
| messaging patterns mined, etc.
|
| It's about time people rise up and oppose this
| exploitation.
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| One can reliably scroll to the bottom of the comments section
| to get higher quality comments. Thanks censorship for ordering
| the world (albeit inverted;)
| LolTwo wrote:
| That is DEFINITELY a serious problem.
|
| Personally, I want to see more people using Matrix because it
| solves that exact problem, but before that can happen I think
| we need a really, really good, easy to use client for it that's
| less like a Slack/Discord clone and more similar to something
| like FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal, Etc.
| actuator wrote:
| Just a correction antirez. WhatsApp is extremely big in Asia
| too, specially South Asia.
| antirez wrote:
| Thanks! I was still thinking that Line and Wechat entirely
| dominated the Asian market.
| kondu wrote:
| You were partially correct: wechat is big in China,
| Whatsapp is big in the Indian subcontinent
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| And really big in SE Asia, AFAIR.
| angry_octet wrote:
| Spending the weekend building Signal for iOS so I can try to dump
| message contents before I send an iPhone in to Apple. Just
| astounding that there is deliberately no way to backup messages
| (which has be available on Android for some time). Definite love-
| hate relationship with users, which I fully reciprocate.
|
| So great job getting WhatsApp import working. But too bad you
| can't export anything from Signal. Dark patterns ahoy.
| faitswulff wrote:
| It's not working. This is just a link to renewed discussion on
| a closed issue.
| elaus wrote:
| It's really annoying that WhatsApp chat export isn't available in
| Germany. I used to export my chats as backup and for creating fun
| stats for group chats with friends, but that feature got removed
| about a year ago.
|
| I haven't found a way to circumvent this restriction. There were
| some tricks like installing a modified Russion WhatsApp APK but
| that risk didn't seem worth it.
| 4814 wrote:
| Faced the same problem a couple weeks ago. I ended up paying
| for this chrome extension which crawls them from the web client
| and worked for me:
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/backup-whatsapp-ch...
|
| A shame that WhatsApp had to remove that feature.
| plibither8 wrote:
| Was there any reason provided for the removal? I think it
| should in fact be essential in EU where they must follow. GDPR
| regulations and allow users to export their data easily.
| looperhacks wrote:
| Chat history isn't stored server side, so gdpr doesn't apply
| here.
| Aachen wrote:
| I always wondered about that. If a closed source app keeps
| my data in their silo, but I own the hardware their
| software runs on, I can't do anything with GDPR? Aren't
| they the controller if they run the software?
| plibither8 wrote:
| Exactly. We're not owners of that data, they are. Should
| be an extension of the regulations IMHO.
| Aachen wrote:
| That's also my "HO" but I was more wondering how to
| interpret this from a legal perspective. I've read large
| parts of the GDPR law but don't (at least off the top of
| my head) remember anything that would say either way.
| elaus wrote:
| There is a pending patent dispute with Blackberry and a
| German court ordered them to remove the chat export for
| German users.
| Merman_Mike wrote:
| For anyone curious, some googling found me this:
|
| https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-
| Android/issues/1014#issu...
|
| > This feature is unavailable in Germany due to patent
| concerns:
|
| > https://www.teltarif.de/whatsapp-chat-exportieren-
| iphone/new... (article in German)
| kangalioo wrote:
| For anyone wondering about the specifics:
|
| "For example, there was a dispute about whether Whatsapp
| uses a technology that Blackberry holds a patent on when
| sending a chat history to a third party via email."
|
| (translated via Deepl, source https://t3n.de/news/gericht-
| verbietet-apps-whatsapp-1231364/)
|
| The actual legal claims are in this document:
| http://docs.dpaq.de/13322-031127684372.pdf
| gaius_baltar wrote:
| > There is a pending patent dispute with Blackberry and a
| German court ordered them to remove the chat export for
| German users.
|
| A patent on backup up files?! Oh frak this system is broken
| beyond repair...
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| It was just the last 10k lines right? That used to just be a
| few months of backup chats with my girlfriend. I'd have to have
| made about 20 different backups (and somehow time them right)
| over time and pieced them together to get a full picture. And
| then it'd still be text-only.
| huangc10 wrote:
| Can this import my friends as well?
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| I have a UI issue with signal, but other than that I think the
| app is rock solid. I openly write and send passwords and credit
| card numbers to my wife from time to time.
|
| The interface can look better, and it would be great if it can
| automatically backup all messages and media to the cloud and
| encrypt it. There is also this annoying "verify pin" popup that
| shows up once in a while.
| soneca wrote:
| It is cool that this exists, but losing WhatsApp chat history is
| common enough (changing from Android to iOS, failing to keep
| backup up to date then buying new phone, losing, having it
| stolen, etc) that I don't think it is a relevant barrier for
| changing apps.
| plibither8 wrote:
| I seriously can't understand why a billion dollar company with
| hundreds of engineers can't and won't prioritize the abilitynto
| seamlessly transfer messages cross-OS. Its been years since the
| need for such a "feature", when it shouldn't even be a
| "feature" in the first place, it should be baked in!
| soneca wrote:
| I agree. It should not be that seamless since it needs
| explicit consent to break end-to-end encryption. But to force
| you to use iCloud or Google Drive for backup is weird. They
| should have a proprietary format and hosting for it.
| juniperplant wrote:
| There's even a third-party software that is able to do this:
| https://www.backuptrans.com/android-whatsapp-to-iphone-
| trans...
|
| I've used it myself.
| dddw wrote:
| That looks pretty dubious
| moxie wrote:
| A lot has changed since 2014, and this might actually be possible
| now. It could be tough to do this right and figure out what to do
| with the edge cases like importing a WA conversation that
| overlaps with an existing Signal conversation, or handling things
| like quoted replies, but this could be a fun project if anyone
| here wants to take a shot at coding it up.
| dribblecup wrote:
| There are lots of ways to export like this
| https://github.com/SoftwareArtisan/signal-backup-exporter
| FreakyT wrote:
| Seems like that only works on older versions? (The readme notes
| "55 or prior")
| satysin wrote:
| I have been using Signal for two years now and I love it.
|
| However I really, _really_ hope they can work on a good backup
| and restore process as losing my message history because I have
| to reinstall the app on my desktop[1] or have to reset my phone
| is a _horrible_ experience.
|
| Just build an encrypted blob and zip it up and pop it on my
| iCloud or Google Drive or leave it local and let me deal with it
| but I need _something_. As my Signal use moves from just messages
| with friends and family to business contacts I _need_ a reliable
| way to backup my messages!
|
| [1] I should state I mean losing the desktop copy as it starts
| "fresh" and does not import any messages from the phone.
|
| Edit: I should probably clarify I am talking about the iOS/macOS
| applications as these are what I use. iOS does have a migration
| feature but that doesn't help if your phone is lost/damaged. I
| need a _proper_ backup and restore process as well as the ability
| to import messages from the phone to the desktop app.
| FreakyT wrote:
| Exactly! The lack of this feature is completely baffling.
| bertmuthalaly wrote:
| On iOS now, if you're setting up a new device, Signal will
| prompt you to transfer your messages from your old device.
|
| Not exactly a backup feature but it covers one use case (I
| don't want to lose my chat history when I switch devices).
| codetrotter wrote:
| I dont use Signal myself so I'm not inclined to put in the
| work for that but just wanted to point out that given what
| you said and the fact that Signal is open source [0] it
| should then be possible to figure out how they do transfers
| and adapt that code in order to sync data from Signal on
| iOS onto your computer. Unless it ties into some feature of
| iOS itself that provides data transfer between phones in
| which case it will be more difficult to work out.
|
| [0]: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS
| saurik wrote:
| Putting aside the complaints people have that this feature
| was flakey and didn't really work, this one use case isn't
| sufficient, as I usually switch to a new phone because my
| old one was destroyed... and I imagine this is the _only_
| reason people poorer than me get a new phone. Users need
| the ability to do non-transfer backups (which it sounds
| like this feature doesn 't support).
|
| The reality is that my iTunes (encrypted) backup should
| include my chat message history. That the Signal client on
| iOS (and maybe even on Android, as while it has backup I
| think it is a bespoke backup) has decided that somehow
| Signal chat message history isn't something one can backup
| at all (much less do using the user's standard backup and
| restore process) is kind of ridiculous.
| AnonC wrote:
| It won't be baffling but appalling to see how the Signal team
| (moxie in particular) have responded to requests for a backup
| and restore feature. They're user hostile and prefer to do
| things their way. On iOS, Signal has always prohibited its
| data from being backed up with iTunes (doesn't matter whether
| your iTunes backup is encrypted and protected by a password
| or not). Even now there's only a recent "transfer data"
| feature from one phone to another in real time.
| parliament32 wrote:
| Why would you want this? You don't save history for other types
| of chats, like in person conversations or phone calls (even
| though you could, with your phone recording in your pocket or
| call recorder apps). If something important comes up, like an
| address or recipe, copy/paste it into your notes app. Otherwise
| set your messages to expire after a month and be done with it.
|
| I used to be a message-hoarder too, but I recently realized it
| was all utterly useless and the cost of maintaining and
| transferring that history around everywhere wasn't worth the
| twice-a-year I actually wanted to search for something.
|
| Signal isn't email.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Why would I want you to decide for me if I should keep my
| messages or not?
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| > You don't save history for other types of chats, like in
| person conversations or phone calls
|
| There are more than a few conversations I would absolutely
| love to be able to revisit, but I can't. Like those small,
| ordinary moments with my Grandma, of which I remember just
| very little, I didn't think much of them at the time. With
| those people I've lost who did leave chatlogs, they have been
| helpful at times.
|
| I find it also can be very insightful to be able to drop into
| ten-years-ago me's life, just to find how much I've changed
| in some respects - or how little. It's a great source of
| self-reflection for me.
|
| If keeping chat logs is something you personally don't value,
| that's great, you do you. But keep in mind that people are
| wildly different and lots will have needs, preferences and
| principles that are the opposite of yours, and just as valid.
| kitkat_new wrote:
| that's why I love Matrix
| beezle wrote:
| How about multimedia? Photos, videos? Docs that I may not
| wish to read now but have available at a later date if
| needed? Most of those I would rather leave 'archived' in
| context than pick and choose which to download to device
| storage and then have to further sort and annotate.
| tonyztan wrote:
| Exactly. Keeping message history is a liability. There is no
| need to keep all old messages beyond one week. If there is
| something specific worth saving, there are apps for
| taking/pasting notes.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| Well for example here Whatsapp is the main communication
| medium with your landlord. It's useful to keep that full
| communication history in case any disagreement comes up.
| pgalvin wrote:
| I can think of many reasons full message history is
| valuable.
|
| - a friend says something that you don't realise is
| important until months later and need to reference
|
| - a friend or partner dies and you wish to revisit old
| times by reading your messages
|
| - a couple wish to nostalgically re-read random
| conversations from their early time together
|
| - a group chat for work or students shares valuable
| resources that you wish to reference, but is impractical to
| make copies of the dozens of messages
|
| - legal reasons if somebody accused you of saying or doing
| something you did not do
|
| - you're going to an address (for example) that somebody
| sent you a week prior, but you forgot to save it
|
| People are forgetful, people are emotional and nostalgic,
| and people are argumentative. All very good reasons for a
| chat history. Disappearing messages are simply always opt-
| in precisely because most people do not want it.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| > There is no need to keep all old messages beyond one
| week.
|
| Based on what use case? Many times I searched old personal
| and group chats, to find what I wanted in a message from 1
| year before
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > Why would you want this?
|
| Because I have _repeatedly_ dug out useful information from
| chats, days, weeks, months, or years later.
|
| > If something important comes up, like an address or recipe,
| copy/paste it into your notes app.
|
| You're assuming that 1) you know what's important at the
| time, rather than realizing later, and 2) you want to take
| the time, at the time, to figure out somewhere to file it.
|
| > I used to be a message-hoarder too, but I recently realized
| it was all utterly useless
|
| That's your choice, but that doesn't make it the right choice
| for everyone. Your preferences are not universal. (And
| descriptions like "hoarder" deride the choices of others.)
|
| > Signal isn't email.
|
| People advocate using Signal in place of email, for security.
|
| I _cannot_ advocate Signal to anyone I know until it learns
| to treat user data as incredibly valuable and irreplaceable.
|
| If people _want_ to mark their messages as transient, or even
| mark _all_ their messages as transient, so be it; that 's
| their choice. But if a message is _not_ marked as transient,
| it must be possible to securely and _easily_ preserve that
| message for longer than the lifetime of any one device.
| skrowl wrote:
| Multiple devices / reinstall works flawlessly on Telegram.
|
| I can't walk my mom through the archaic Signal backup/restore
| all the time.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Agreed. I don't understand why iCloud backup is not a thing.
| When I broke my phone and needed a replacement, I lost all my
| groups.
|
| It's not even the message history I care about. It's the fact
| that people sent me texts in the group while having no idea I
| was no longer receiving them. If there was a way to back up
| just the group memberships, that would be great.
| unicornporn wrote:
| Not a solution for the average user, but this works:
| https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools
| pgalvin wrote:
| Unfortunately that's for the Android app. Signal iOS has no
| way of backing up your messages, at all.
| Evidlo wrote:
| Matrix has this. You can save your recovery key somewhere to
| recover your chats on a brand new device.
|
| You can actually just use another logged-in device (e.g. your
| desktop) to recover your chats by scanning a QR code to trust
| the new device. Recovery key is just in case this isn't an
| option.
| WC3w6pXxgGd wrote:
| I've always wondered why Matrix and Riot never blew up in
| popularity.
| colordrops wrote:
| This already exists in Android.
| ngrilly wrote:
| Yes, but it's only local, not cloud, as far as I understand.
| izacus wrote:
| Existing and being usable are not the same thing.
|
| Try to have your mom restore Signal backups after her old
| phone dies and you'll quickly see why.
| wcerfgba wrote:
| I'd at least settle for having the messages sync properly
| between my devices. When I used Signal ~1 year ago on Linux
| desktop and Android phone, if I had it open on my mobile I
| would get the messages there, and then if I later opened the
| desktop client I didn't get the same messages there. Sometimes
| I purposefully move from phone to desktop because _typing on a
| small touchscreen sucks_ and I want to type on a keyboard. But
| fragmenting the message history just ruined usability for me.
| Hopefully it is better now.
| davemtl wrote:
| Signal has a method to backup chats, at least on Android. It's
| under Settings > Chats and media > Chat backup. Baffling if
| this feature isn't available on iPhone.
| Forbo wrote:
| As mentioned elsewhere in the discussion they now provide a
| way to migrate data from one iPhone to a another, but that's
| assuming that you have the old device still.
| Y-bar wrote:
| I have an old device which I have saved because the
| messages on it are emotionally important to me, but that
| device is too old to transfer to my new device.
| officeplant wrote:
| Main problem being you don't have access to the file
| structure on an iphone. So you can't simply drop a backed up
| folder in there like you can on Android. You are stuck
| needing the previous device.
| leokennis wrote:
| Since iOS 12 or so, iPhone has a built in files app. Every
| app can integrate with that. So when I create a file (let's
| say chat backup) in app A, I can put it in the files app.
| Then in app B (or app A on a new phone) I can easily open
| that file from the same files app.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Even before that every app got a documents folder that
| was shared between the app and iTunes
| pgalvin wrote:
| iOS has had a Files app for years, locally. You could
| easily export an encrypted .zip from Signal and save it
| locally, just like how Signal on Android saves it to your
| internal storage.
|
| For some reason, the Signal devs won't even acknowledge
| this possibility and continue to say "we can't enable
| iCloud backup" - which is fair enough, but nobody is asking
| for that and they're simply putting their fingers in their
| ears.
| thekyle wrote:
| Buy why can't they enable iCloud backup? What's so bad
| about uploading an encrypted blob to the cloud.
| jl6 wrote:
| Yeah I just looked into switching to Signal away from WhatsApp
| after the recent data sharing announcement - but not being able
| to export/archive messages is a dealbreaking misfeature.
|
| I will not enter important data into any system that I cannot
| get it out of.
| fsflover wrote:
| Telegram solves it and at least the client is open source.
| Matrix is less developed, but it's distributed, so I choose
| it.
| cesarb wrote:
| Doesn't Signal already have backup? IIRC, when enabled it once
| per day saves all messages (encrypted with a backup key, which
| you have to write down somewhere) to /sdcard/Signal, and you
| can then use Syncthing or something similar to copy it to a new
| phone. If you put that /sdcard/Signal folder there _before_
| starting Signal for the first time, it 'll ask to restore from
| that backup. WhatsApp has an identical local backup and restore
| flow (except that it gets the backup key from their servers,
| instead of requiring you to write it down).
| saurik wrote:
| You are using the Android client. This feature is missing in
| iOS.
| [deleted]
| izacus wrote:
| It's a backup which demands that you WRITE down a very long
| numeric code, then manually copy files off and then hope your
| family doesn't lose all of it.
|
| It's a horrible user hostile process which isn't even
| implemented for iOS.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| Considering my wife keeps resetting her passwords on
| websites because she just forgets it, I have to agree this
| is not usable
| vinay427 wrote:
| To be fair (to iOS users, not to Signal), the device
| transfer procedure on Android is somewhat more cumbersome
| as a result.
|
| iOS gets the smooth new device-to-device direct transfer of
| the backup while Android users need to copy the encrypted
| blob (~2GB for me) to the new device and enter the
| encryption key. Admittedly, it does still allow for more
| flexibility than on iOS.
| mystcb wrote:
| It is nice that the iOS version has that, but it a major
| pain say, if you are asked to reset your phone and
| restore from backup.
|
| The recent issue with the Apple Watch not syncing health
| data meant that to get anywhere I had to wipe my phone, I
| had no where to transfer my Signal data too, thus - all
| gone.
|
| It's not ideal when dealing with members of your family
| who really don't want to lose data, and is probably one
| of the few things that stops me in my own situation going
| over.
|
| I do understand that in some cases this is actually a
| feature too, so I am not discounting it - just in my case
| this specific reason makes it really hard to justify a
| move over.
|
| Just annoying that there isn't really a viable
| alternative anywhere at the moment :(
|
| If iOS had that same option of a encrypted blob option
| then that would have solved my issue with the phone
| restore!
| DavidSJ wrote:
| Exactly this.
|
| I wanted to use Signal as my primary messenger. I _really_ did.
| But I had a ton of sync problems between my phone and my
| desktop client, tried to report them, and the developers didn't
| care. Then one day I got a new phone and discovered I'd lost my
| old Signal identity and there was no way to export my messages
| from my old phone. And the developers didn't care about that,
| either.
|
| They always had some excuse for why it was the "right" behavior
| and the user's fault. For example: clients just can't sync more
| than 1000 messages, and if you go this long without using your
| desktop client, well, you're out of luck, and you should have
| realized this.
|
| I just can't recommend a platform on which the developers don't
| care about usability.
| dundarious wrote:
| The lack of options to backup and restore from Android to
| iPhone was extremely frustrating. I convinced my mother to use
| Signal as her default SMS app on Android, and when I bought her
| an iPhone, all her SMSs were lost (except to open up the old
| device). Not the worst problem in the world, but it leaves a
| very nasty taste.
|
| Never mind that transitioning between iPhones (we almost bought
| her a new phone this year) has the same problem. That this is
| not supported invalidates Signal as a replacement for SMS or
| Whatsapp for many many non-technical users.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| >Just build an encrypted blob and zip it up
|
| Better yet, how about a zip of text files?
| zapita wrote:
| Same here. I used Signal a lot. Then it started crashing and I
| lost all my message history.
| izacus wrote:
| > However I really, really hope they can work on a good backup
| and restore process as losing my message history because I have
| to reinstall the app on my desktop[1] or have to reset my phone
| is a horrible experience.
|
| I've tried to report bugs and talk to developers about this but
| there's one fundamental problem here - the Signal team
| fundamentally does not value chat history the same way a lot of
| people do. They think that destroying all chats is a reasonable
| thing to do when things get hard - which is the exact opposite
| to many WhatsApp users, which deeply value images and texts
| sent to them on that platform.
|
| As such, they've been very very resistant at making the backup
| process for Signal easy for people. This is also why deskop app
| regularly happily just trashes all its state and fails to
| resync. This is why they will never let you make the backup
| process easy and portable.
|
| It's not a technical issue - they just think you're wrong when
| you want to keep your conversations.
|
| Unfortunately that's can also be a significantly bigger issue
| than privacy for a lot of people.
| Lutger wrote:
| Really? I can't believe that.
|
| I mean, in a sense, all software is just a vehicle for the
| data it processes, and the actual value lies in the data -
| not the software.
|
| That data is chats for Signal. If they think that's
| worthless, even just the history of it, it means they don't
| really value their own application.
|
| They are wrong.
| herbstein wrote:
| The Signal protocol is forward-secret. I don't know the
| nitty-gritty specifics of the protocol, but the essence is
| this:
|
| You don't want someone getting access to your account two
| years from now to be able to access every old message.
| Consider every message a separate object that gets
| encrypted. The keys are changed/updated each time a new
| device is added to an account. That new device only knows
| the new key(s), and thus can only decrypt new messages.
| hackmiester wrote:
| Neither you nor any Signal dev knows what I want (i.e.,
| what security vs convenience tradeoffs I am willing to
| make). I will choose the tool that allows me to use it in
| the way I want to use it.
| tw04 wrote:
| >You don't want someone getting access to your account
| two years from now to be able to access every old
| message.
|
| The messages I don't want people getting ahold of are
| either created with expirations or I manually delete
| them. I couldn't care less if someone 2 years from now
| can read a chat log between me and my mom if it means
| that I can actually read them 2 years and multiple
| devices away from now as well.
|
| What I don't want is to be forced to message with one app
| for secure chat and something completely different for
| daily driving. It's a pain, and nobody in my circle is
| willing to do it (and I don't blame them).
| FalconSensei wrote:
| Completely agree with that.
|
| This whole 'I don't care about history' discourse can
| change greatly for some people after a loved one dies,
| for example.
| j1elo wrote:
| I might see why they think that way, but I'll have a harder
| time sympathizing when the parent's use case starts being
| more prominent: what happens when your app grows in usage,
| gets out of the "niche curiosity" category for the mass
| public, and people start wanting to use it for "serious"
| matters?
|
| Not being able to back some conversations up is _not_ an
| option. It would be very ironic if the answer to this was
| "well, then don't use Signal, because we don't care", and
| people who cared about the WhatsApp stuff ended up being
| pushed into Telegram (which seems to be the only other
| popular alternative, by a wide margin).
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Signal is used both in many governments, and by groups in
| danger of punishment.
|
| In my opinion, Signal is not a "niche curiosity", and mass
| public is rarely right.
| j1elo wrote:
| I originally didn't write "mass public" but ended adding
| it to somehow convey that currently is already being used
| for "serious business", no doubt, but it has been far
| from widespread adoption so far.
| the-dude wrote:
| Pretty confusing to edit your post like that.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I doubt they think you are _wrong_ - they just don 't value
| it themselves personally, and lack empathy for their users
| who have different values.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| This right here is the definition of a technicality -- so
| much so, that (on second thought) I wonder if this was
| meant to be tongue in cheek. If so, bravo.
| simias wrote:
| Signal's devs, for better or worse, are very opinionated.
| If you don't do it moxie's way then you're doing it wrong.
| I was once shut down on HN by the Signal posse because I
| said that I'd like to have a Signal client library that I
| could use to write my own custom lightweight client.
| Apparently I'm not worthy and clearly incapable of writing
| secure code. Meanwhile I have to use that crappy, gigantic
| official electron app that cost them at least one serious
| security vulnerability in the past (JS injection, if memory
| serves).
|
| If you want to make a nerdy niche chat client that's
| probably a good mindset, but if you hope to appeal to the
| masses you'll have to put some water in your wine
| eventually. I managed to convince a couple of my groups to
| migrate away from WhatsApp lately, but unfortunately always
| towards Telegram. Signal is just not there yet if you want
| a drop-in replacement.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| > I'd like to have a Signal client library that I could
| use to write my own custom lightweight client.
|
| You already have that. Signal-cli is based on a
| standalone Java library distributed as part of the Signal
| codebase. Of course it is an unofficial client and the
| Signal team would really prefer you not use it, but if
| the Signal-cli team can develop something from that
| library, you probably could too.
| pbronez wrote:
| I didn't know that existed. Is there some way to use that
| to create a backup solution?
| FalconSensei wrote:
| > the Signal team fundamentally does not value chat history
| the same way a lot of people do
|
| This is the core problem as why many projects don't get
| mainstream. They have 2 options: they can focus on what they
| think is a priority, or on what the public thinks is a
| priority.
|
| I'm not saying Signal is wrong on doing what they are doing,
| as they are being successful among some niches (i.e: tech).
| But to grab Whatsapp users, they need feature and UX parity,
| at least to some level
| skrowl wrote:
| This is exactly why Telegram is beating Signal.
|
| They're singularly focused on the user experience and what
| users want.
|
| Uninstall / reinstall / multiple-devices works flawlessly.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| I fundamentally distrust any program which claims E2E
| encryption and is capable of recovering my chat history
| onto a new device. This means that Telegram is
| technically able to recover my chat history, making the
| "E2E" bit of the encryption smoke-and-mirrors.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| I am unaware of Telegram's implementation, but this is
| not necessarily true. The app could use a secret you
| provide and only you know (most obviously, your password)
| to store and restore chat history.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| I can be wrong, but on Telegram E2E is not default. Those
| are used only in 'secret chats', which I believe are not
| recoverable.
|
| So you can use regular texting for everything you don't
| care much about, like sending youtube videos and memes to
| your friends, and use the secret chat to things that re
| more sensitive. That's great for most people that
| currently use Whatsapp
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > I fundamentally distrust any program which claims E2E
| encryption and is capable of recovering my chat history
| onto a new device.
|
| I would expect a Signal implementation of this to allow
| recovering chat history _if you restore a backup onto the
| new device_ and _if you re-enter your PIN_.
| gsich wrote:
| Telegram only has E2E if you enable it. "Normal" chats
| are not E2E encrypted.
| natenthe wrote:
| That's ok. I care about data hygiene. Signal cares about
| data hygiene. I don't want old data lying around and
| ready to be used by nefarious third parties at any point
| in the future. I'm sticking with Signal as long as they
| stay true to their values. I don't need it to be #1.
| beebob wrote:
| Interesting piece of information. I'm one of the people that
| values the chat history. Mostly as there are often occasions
| where I would look up something like a product or a website
| someone sent me. Also for nostalgia.
|
| It would be perfectly fine if exporting/importing chat
| history would be a manual process via encrypted files and if
| it was disable by default. But not having it at all is an
| issue for me.
|
| That said: It isn't exactly easy with other messengers.
| WhatsApp does have some backup/restore. But afaik it is
| limited to the platform you are using (Android or iPhone).
| The export is limited and cannot be imported again. Telegram
| has all the messages on their servers... which... ah well,
| let's just leave it at that.
|
| Makes me think that I need some private third party database
| that just ingests and consolidates all my chat data for me.
| With something like that it might be okay just having a few
| days worth of chat history on the phone.
| xrisk wrote:
| Off-topic but does Signal support independent multi-device
| yet? Sorry I can't find reliable information about it online!
| xiphias2 wrote:
| It's open protocol and source though, so making a multi-
| device version wouldn't be impossible
| izacus wrote:
| Nope. You can't even use it on a tablet without owning a
| smartphone.
| xrisk wrote:
| So is the model similar to that of WhatsApp web? can you
| receive messages on the desktop app if your phone is
| switched off?
| mauricioc wrote:
| Unlike WhatsApp, the desktop app receives messages when
| the phone is off. Also unlike WhatsApp, messages received
| on the phone before you paired the desktop app do not get
| transferred to the computer.
| OkGoDoIt wrote:
| Nope, and that's the biggest blocker for me. I own multiple
| smart phones (work and personal), iPad, and two computers
| (windows and Mac). So far Facebook messenger is the only
| reliable way to do messaging across all of them, which is a
| shame because I hate Facebook and I don't particularly like
| messenger. But I have not found a single other solution
| that works cross-device and cross-platform. It also helps
| that basically everyone is on Facebook messenger, but I'd
| be willing to put effort into trying to migrate people to
| other chat solutions if there was literally anything else
| out there that works well on multiple devices.
| gomox wrote:
| Telegram
| nucatus wrote:
| If history is not something to care about, then what is the
| point of importing WhatsApp history?
| upofadown wrote:
| >...the Signal team fundamentally does not value chat history
| the same way a lot of people do.
|
| Keeping around old messages more or less negates the value of
| forward secrecy. The Signal Protocol is obsessively forward
| secret. So it would be reasonable for those that have put so
| much work into getting rid of old messages for good would not
| value them.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Well then forward secrecy gets sacrificed for the greater
| good. Too bad!
|
| Make a setting for those that care. Make it the
| responsibility of users to make sure all their devices
| agree on that setting. See? problem solved.
| tw04 wrote:
| It's not reasonable to expect it to be a defacto messenger
| if you can't save chat history. Full stop.
|
| If I want a conversation to be private, I set expiring
| messages, for the rest of it, I want to be able to go back
| and reference things all the time. Whether it be digging up
| a song link I sent a buddy, or looking up the address
| someone sent me a week in advance.
|
| If they can't operate or are unwilling to operate under
| those guidelines then they just aren't ever going to
| replace whatsapp with the general populace and the
| community should start work on something else or agree that
| telegram is "good enough" (I don't think it is).
| tigerlily wrote:
| Be a cool feature if they let us _encrypt_ chat history
| in a local file.
| [deleted]
| nmlnn wrote:
| Am I missing something? That's how their backups work
| currently
| tw04 wrote:
| The problem is it doesn't work at all on iOS, and there's
| no way to sync between iOS >> Android or iOS >> PC.
| topkeks wrote:
| Settings -> Chats and media -> Chat backups
| angry_octet wrote:
| This really miscomprehends what forward secrecy means. PFS
| prevents an adv who obtains the keys from decoding previous
| messages -- even with access to your unlocked phone (and
| the long lived keys) they couldn't obtain cleartext on any
| message you had deleted, even with the ciphertext. Also,
| having a plaintext message does not confirm it was a
| particular ciphertext.
|
| But it really isn't available to the software author to
| know how long we want to keep a message for. If I want I
| can set a disappearing message timer.
| beezle wrote:
| >Keeping around old messages more or less negates the value
| of forward secrecy.
|
| Why? Can you please explain as my understanding of perfect
| forward secrecy is that should not matter. I'm not a crypto
| expert so perhaps I've overlooked something?
| KAMSPioneer wrote:
| I mean, from the perspective of the crypto it doesn't
| matter. But it defeats the point of building a forward-
| secret system.
|
| Think of it like this: if I'm an attacker that breaks
| into the forward-secret chat app on your device, and you
| have kept a perfect record of every conversation you've
| ever had using that crypto system in _the same place you
| keep your identity keys_, then does it really matter
| whether the messaging system was "protected" by a
| forward-secret system? You might as well just have
| scrapped all that complexity and had non-forward-secure
| messages if you want to keep a perfect, eternal record of
| your conversations.
|
| I actually think the Keybase guys did a great job at
| this. They have non-forward-secure chats by default (so
| that you never lose chat history), but exploding messages
| (which delete themselves after a short time by design)
| are forward-secret, since then it actually makes a
| difference.
|
| I suppose it depends on your "threat model..." How do you
| want to use your chat system?
| upofadown wrote:
| The way I like to think about it:
|
| If you had a way to keep your old messages safe then you
| could of just used that method to protect your private
| key.
| fsflover wrote:
| > But it defeats the point of building a forward-secret
| system.
|
| Such thinking defeats the actual purpose of the program:
| to serve users. I don't want to delete at least some of
| my history. It's like Windows, which know better than the
| users what they want.
| dwohnitmok wrote:
| Chat history isn't immediately at odds with PFS. As I see
| it PFS first and foremost is for protecting messages in
| transit. This is to prevent dragnet-style surveillance.
|
| Chat history means giving up some measure of at-rest
| security, but it has no impact on the in transit part.
| Personally I also think some compromise of at-rest is a
| reasonable trade-off for a lot of consumer contexts
| because physical capture of your device already is
| basically game over.
| KAMSPioneer wrote:
| But PFS is specifically about including "my adversary
| may, at a later date, compromise my private key" in your
| threat model without giving up plaintext. If we assume
| that calculating a private key from the public key is
| ~impossible (which I hope you agree we can do), and we
| further assume the private key never leaves the device,
| then forward secrecy is what lets us know the only way to
| get plaintext is by stealing it from an endpoint. Maybe
| I'm failing to see the adversary you're defeating with
| PFS if they're never going to access your device and
| siphon off private data...
|
| I'm no expert, but if all you care about is transit
| security, I don't think you need PFS (in E2EE messaging!
| TLS is a different story, because you have to trust the
| server). Just protect your private key. But if you're
| carrying multiple device's worth of accumulated messages
| _right alongside_ your private key, then what's the point
| of rotating ephemeral keys after each message?
|
| EDIT: I agree about a compromise on PFS/chat history
| being reasonable in most scenarios. But I also think that
| defaults are really important, especially as the contents
| of chat history can be leaked by other participants,
| whose chat backups you can't really control. It's a tough
| problem to solve for everyone.
| darkwater wrote:
| > But PFS is specifically about including "my adversary
| may, at a later date, compromise my private key" in your
| threat model
|
| I'm no crypto expert but that "later date" when talking
| about PFS is to avoid an external dragnet _recording_ all
| your ciphered streams and then deciphering them once they
| have your non-PFS secret key.
|
| I mean, in your definition basically all the messages
| should be ephemeral on your device and on each recipient
| device to have PFS.
| godelski wrote:
| Honestly I personally just want the ability to save
| specific messages. My friend sends me a recipe? Save. Just
| shooting the shit? Don't save. I don't understand why
| people want to save their whole chat history but I do
| understand why you'd want to save specific messages, and
| that's a big missing feature.
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| The idea is to save all messages _and_ have a good search
| option, so you 'll only ever see the good posts when
| looking back into your history. No need to tag them
| beforehand.
| godelski wrote:
| Honestly I don't want _all_ messages saved. I don 't see
| that as useful. Not only is that noise but just makes me
| feel uncomfortable in the same way I would if someone
| pulled out a tape recorder while we were shooting the
| shit over beers. Then you think about how cultures change
| and people make a fuss over things from years ago on
| Twitter even when the person has changed opinions? No
| thanks. Not everything needs to be recorded. That's the
| premise of too many dystopian sci-fi stories.
| fsflover wrote:
| You can simply keep those messages in an encrypted
| backup. Who knows how valuable they will be in 20+ years.
| And maybe you will be able to apply (local) AI to them
| and find out interesting things about yourself.
| jolmg wrote:
| s/specific messages/& and conversations/
|
| > I don't understand why people want to save their whole
| chat history
|
| Valuable messages and conversations can happen too often
| that it's a hassle to save them manually. This is
| probably more common in group chats where lots of people
| occasionally share valuable stuff.
| hackmiester wrote:
| Your point and use case are valid but unrelated. I agree
| with the parent comment but not with your sentiment.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| The thing is: your use case and wants seems to be
| different than like, 90% of Whatsapp users, as they
| expect to never lose their history. So... Signal is not a
| replacement to Whatsapp
| hackmiester wrote:
| That's fine with me. I was just pointing out that those
| two requests are not really related.
|
| I don't know much about WhatsApp, and I've never lost any
| message in Signal, so I am not sure I am well equipped to
| discuss whether it's fit for that purpose. But I would
| certainly love to save individual messages in some sort
| of vault, as well.
| godelski wrote:
| Sure, conversations. But honestly I feel like saving
| everything just generates more noise and makes it
| difficult to find the signal.
| fsflover wrote:
| See my reply here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690699.
| richardw wrote:
| I don't always know which are important messages until a
| while later. Someone mentions a useful service or name,
| so I search WhatsApp to find it. Moved phones recently,
| iOS backup was screwed up, and I lost some great covid
| memes and was looking for a specific one. Had to ask the
| sender to resend it to me.
| gshulegaard wrote:
| I think it's astute of you to point out that the Signal
| developers do not value chat history the same way many people
| do, but I am not sure I track with this:
|
| > It's not a technical issue - they just think you're wrong
| when you want to keep your conversations.
|
| as much.
|
| When you are treating security as a number one priority I
| think there are a lot of things that become technical issues
| which aren't typically. Transferring or backing up history
| between disparate devices, which become trusted at different
| times, is one of those things that I think _is_ difficult to
| do without sacrificing security.
|
| For example, in the classic case when a user adds a new
| device and wants history to be available on both you can't
| let the devices controlled by one person simply sync with one
| another. To do so would be making a security concession to
| the other members of the chat in that they no longer verify
| every destination of their message. If you are unwilling to
| make a security concession everything in this area becomes
| magnitudes more difficult. I wouldn't say it is impossible,
| but it's definitely not trivial.
|
| My gut reaction is also that it is difficult to _guarantee_
| history in this type of security first mindset. If you add a
| new device and someone doesn't approve/verify/trade
| encryption keys with the additional client then there isn't
| much you can do besides not make that data available no? So I
| don't think it unreasonable for developers to hold the
| mindset that history is not a priority for a security first
| application.
| verytrivial wrote:
| It's a bit of a cart before the horse issue, no?
|
| I mean what is the _point_ of obsessing about the security
| of the messages if you don 't _value_ the messages
| themselves?
|
| Some people[1] clearly value message history far beyond the
| transfer point to chat itself, and making people choose
| between being spied upon and not having message history, I
| think many people will choose trusting that they won't lose
| their messages.
|
| [1] Myself included. I check with Signal[2] every six
| months to see if they have a backup option, then switch
| back to WhatsApp when I see they don't. Phones die. My
| messages are more important than my phone.
|
| [2] https://support.signal.org/hc/en-
| us/articles/360007059752-Ba...
| skinkestek wrote:
| Signal isn't meant to be a mainstream one-size-fits-all,
| even tptacek admits as much:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22371316
|
| He actually seemed annoyed that everyone insisted on
| using it for everything :-)
|
| If you need bulletproof cryptographically verifiable
| encryption - use Signal.
|
| If one wants to plan dinner, use whatever fits your bill.
|
| (And if in addition to the same supposedly bulletproof
| encryption as Signal you also want NSA^HGoogle to back up
| your messages and Facebook to know who you talk to and
| when so they might better customize their ads^H^H^H your
| experience you can also use WhatsApp :-)
| Yeroc wrote:
| The downside of that attitude is that if a chat program
| is only used for what governments consider subversive
| activities then it will be targeted to be shutdown. It is
| much better to have a general-purpose, secure chat
| program that IS mainstream making it more difficult for
| oppressive regimes to target.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Or we can use a number of different programs for
| different purposes like I do:
|
| - exchanging passwords? encrypted mail, Signal or
| something else E2E-encrypted
|
| - work: whatever work says. Mostly slack.
|
| - discussions with friends and family: Telegram
|
| - online shouting competitions: twitter
|
| - showing off: Instagram
|
| - telling Facebook who my friends are and how often I
| talk to them: WhatsApp ;-)
| mandelbrotwurst wrote:
| There is still value in being able to securely
| communicate in the present even if you are not able to
| maintain a permanently searchable log of all activity.
| tinco wrote:
| Yes, but less value. And most would say not enough value.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| There's value, that's why some niches migrated to Signal.
|
| But the general population seems to think they are losing
| features, instead of gaining, that's why they don't
| migrate/are upset and surprised when they lose history
| vinay_ys wrote:
| I think it is fair to expect Signal to support a solid
| encrypted backup/sync mechanism. They can allow users to
| manage the encryption keys out of band. Users can use a
| password manager (or a piece of paper) to save the
| encryption key.
|
| Anyone who is security/privacy conscious to use Signal is
| also using a solid password manager and not reusing
| passwords as well as following good secure data backup
| practice, I hope.
| k1t wrote:
| > For example, in the classic case when a user adds a new
| device and wants history to be available on both you can't
| let the devices controlled by one person simply sync with
| one another.
|
| > To do so would be making a security concession to the
| other members of the chat in that they no longer verify
| every destination of their message.
|
| You can't "verify every destination" with Signal anyway.
| Maybe the message is going to my phone, maybe it's going to
| my phone and my desktop - the sender can't tell.
|
| Sure, if you are trying to add an entirely _new recipient_
| to a conversation, then of course you can 't send them the
| entire conversation history - but nobody is asking for
| that.
|
| What people want is the ability to add a _new device_ for
| an _existing recipient_ , and have the history sync across.
|
| With Signal I can already add a new device and continue
| existing conversations without the other participants being
| notified that I've added a new device. Adding conversation
| history doesn't diminish anything from a security
| perspective.
| gshulegaard wrote:
| Are you sure about this?
|
| > With Signal I can already add a new device and continue
| existing conversations without the other participants
| being notified that I've added a new device.
|
| Just today I had a group chat notification that said:
|
| "More than one member of this group is no longer marked
| as verified. Tap for options"
|
| Tapping brought me to a menu that said:
|
| "Safety Number Changes -- The following people many have
| reinstalled or changed devices. Verify your safety number
| with them to ensure privacy"
|
| At which point I was given the option to re-verify (e.g.
| via a provided QR code), but also the option to manually
| mark "verified". That is to say _something_ does notify
| participants of changes to recipient devices.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| I also use Signal but the thing that kills me about it is the
| lack of RCS support. I love everything on the Signal side but
| there just is not a realistic way to get people to migrate to
| it unless they can seamlessly transfer over from Google
| Messages or the other OEM message apps.
| carderne wrote:
| It's super hacky but this [0] bit of code I adapted from some
| other hacky code will let you export to MarkDown/HTML. No hope
| of getting the messages back on my phone, but at least I have
| an archive of messages and media.
|
| [0] https://github.com/carderne/signal-export
| fencepost wrote:
| Are any of the other third party apps worth looking at? I'm
| thinking specifically of Threema which I have but haven't really
| ever used since nobody else I know is using it.
| fsflover wrote:
| Matrix is distributed and listens to what users actually want.
| actuator wrote:
| This is blowing up quite big now and I have managed to shift a
| lot of my friends to Signal now, I wonder if WhatsApp will go
| back on its decision.
|
| As we stand now even Signal is not safe because of the business
| model.
|
| I wonder what's the model on messaging apps that will work. I
| don't want the OS creators to own the messaging platforms as well
| by virtue of subsidising it through OS/hardware.
| josh2600 wrote:
| Punchline: Whatsapp can't go back on their decision for a
| variety of reasons that are so much bigger than Whatsapp.
|
| The revenue pressure from Apple cutting FB ad revenue due to
| nerfing tracking has forced FB's hand. They have to monetize
| Whatsapp.
| jariel wrote:
| "As we stand now even Signal is not safe because of the
| business model."
|
| ?
|
| Ok, good, but you do realize that this is the most existential
| concern of them all?
|
| Why does FB so aggressively pursue personal data?
|
| For advertising. Because 'that's the business model'.
|
| Do you think that any entity would be in that position if say,
| people were willing to actually pay $3/month for what seems to
| be very obviously a highly useful service?
|
| Maybe, but probably not.
|
| If people would pay for value, there at least would be
| considerably less incentive to have personal data.
|
| People seem to be willing to pay Apple and AT&T through the
| nose, oddly, not for those creating the services themselves.
|
| "We get what we pay for".
| actuator wrote:
| Yeah, and that's the major issue with Signal/Telegram. They
| also have to pay the operational costs at the end of the day.
|
| Apple's services can be ad free because they hide the cost in
| the cost of phone but that is extremely anti competitive.
|
| A user on an iPhone will have a hard time rationalizing for
| Signal which says $3 per month when he looks at iMessage and
| that is free
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Telegram has infinite history while Signal has PFS. So the
| costs are not the same at all.
| tapia wrote:
| But that is the thing. WhatsApp used to be a payed app, and
| the promise was that they would never sell our use your data
| for adds. Then they sold to Facebook and broke that promise.
| I used to pay for WhatsApp because I believed them then. And
| it got big because of many people did that too. That is the
| thing that I found the most insulting about WhatsApp now.
| jariel wrote:
| "Then they sold to Facebook and broke that promise."
|
| This is really a false narrative.
|
| The 'sell out' was the 'sale to Facebook'.
|
| A business is not really going to necessarily keep that
| kind of promise, they are going to do what's best for them
| - that's why they made the acquisition.
|
| This idea that the WA founders could somehow hold Zuck to
| that 'promise' is fantasty. They are not naive, they knew
| what they were doing.
|
| Not only did they know there was nothing they could do
| otherwise, but that there would be an existential pull from
| FB to push for data sharing that would be unavoidable.
|
| The 'moral high ground' that the founders tried to take in
| public is really kind of despicable, because they knew
| exactly the cards in play when they sold.
|
| If the 'promise' was to do with branding, or something
| secondary, but fine. But you don't sell drugs to a drug
| dealer with the promise that the dealer won't deal drugs.
|
| Anyhow, we are where we are. People should fork over $1
| month for chat. It would make a big difference.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| You seem to be contradicting yourself - that is was never
| a good idea to believe their promise and pay for their
| chat service, but that also this problem would be solved
| if everyone paid for a chat service.
| jariel wrote:
| Those are not contradictions.
|
| 1) A sale to an advertising company will result in WA
| data being used for Ad sales, there's no reason to
| believe otherwise.
|
| 2) Paid apps would be ideal for privacy, but I didn't
| imply that people were necessarily willing to pay for it.
|
| The problem frankly is not 'Facebook' it's us.
|
| We want 'all the privacy' for 'free'. If we paid a small
| amount, we could have privacy because there'd be an
| underlying supportable business model.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| Right but WhatsApp _was_ a paid app. There is no reason
| to believe that paid apps are ideal for privacy -
| WhatsApp is the perfect counterexample. So we need a
| different solution, or direct payment at leasts needs to
| be one part of a larger solution.
| peruvian wrote:
| Moving a few close friends to another app is easy. Moving
| acquaintances, people you just met, businesses, organizations,
| etc. is another thing entirely.
| upofadown wrote:
| >I wonder what's the model on messaging apps that will work.
|
| Federated. History has shown that any system that puts control
| in the hands of one entity eventually ends up bad.
| fsflover wrote:
| And sadly Matrix was only third in the recent HN poll, but
| it's the only sustainable solution.
| [deleted]
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