Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks! I was still thinking that Line and Wechat entirely dominated the Asian market.
You were partially correct: wechat is big in China, Whatsapp is big in the Indian subcontinent
And really big in SE Asia, AFAIR.
Signal WhatsApp Chats Import
201–210 of 283 posts
Re: Signal WhatsApp Chats Import
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
Pretty confusing to edit your post like that.
Re: Signal WhatsApp Chats Import
#203I 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 .…
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 rec…
that's why I love Matrix
Re: Signal WhatsApp Chats Import
#204I 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 .…
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.
Re: Signal WhatsApp Chats Import
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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?
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 messagi…
> 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.
Re: Signal WhatsApp Chats Import
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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.
Re: Signal WhatsApp Chats Import
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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 r…
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.
Re: Signal WhatsApp Chats Import
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Sure, conversations. But honestly I feel like saving everything just generates more noise and makes it difficult to find the signal.
See my reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25690699.
Re: Signal WhatsApp Chats Import
#209I 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 .…
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.
Re: Signal WhatsApp Chats Import
#210I 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 .…
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.
Telegram solves it and at least the client is open source. Matrix is less developed, but it’s distributed, so I choose it.