this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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Thats a feature...
The inability to backup your own data is a feature now? That’s some Stockholm Syndrome bullshit.
No, there is no backups because you shouldn't have secure information laying around unsecured as a backup. Stockholm syndrome is WhatsApp or Apple Message where its not secured at all.
Who said the backup needs to be insecure?
You can literally encrypt the backup itself and use a pass phrase for unlocks. WhatsApp already does just that. Also WhatsApp uses Signals encryption and last time it was audited it passed with flying colours.
It’s possible they can push an update that would do client side scanning of messages while typed or that have been sent but this would be trivial to find out about and has never been reported on.
The issue isn't the data directly, it's the metadata.
Also, if a recipient decides to flag a message on Whatsapp, that message gets copied and sent to Facebook.
Backups can and should be encrypted.
I would agree, IF Signal also wouldn't allow backups on Android and wouldn't store images on desktop completely unencrypted... At this point it's just hypocrisy
IMO it's a user's choice whether or not to backup their data. Wire handled this quite well where you could backup your chat history etc but you were required to set an encryption password for the backup.
For reference, Signal is my main chat platform and my main point of contact. Having 2GB of chat histories that could just be lost at any moment is quite unnerving and a major reason for me to look at other platforms...
Yep, got 4 GB of history myself. When my wife updated her phone we made a mistake and had to transfer Signal twice, I didn't even notice that the first transfer wiped her whole history. What a stupid feature it's like the Signal devs treat us like children. Unfortunately I haven't found a replacement that is as popular and I'm happy with yet.