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Signal Secure Backups

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Re: Signal Secure Backups

#161

Post by Nathan2055 »

oezi wrote: post #124
greysonp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi there, Signal dev here. The new backup format is indeed cross-platform. I've successfully restored backups on an iPhone, we're just stabilizing things :) If you're curious, the reason that Android's current local backups aren't cross platform is because it was made a long time ago, and it's literally a dump of all the sqlite statements that can be used to recreate Android's sqlite database (encrypted with a strong…

Will the new backup format support also conversion of filetypes between Android and iOS? In the past Voice Memos from Android couldn't be opened on iOS if they weren't sent directly between participants.

That's really surprising to me.

iOS has had pretty decent audio format support for a few years now: even though you can't directly import FLAC files to iTunes/Music, they are supported in the OS itself since 2017 and play fine both in Files and in Safari. The other big mainstream formats (WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC, and ALAC) have been supported for years, and even Opus finally got picked up in 2021.

About the only non-niche audio format that isn't supported natively on Apple platforms at this point is Vorbis, which was fully superseded by Opus well over a decade ago. Even then, I believe it's possible to get Vorbis support in iOS apps using various media libraries, although I'm sure Apple frowns upon it.

I'd really love to know what's causing that incompatibility.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#163

Post by maqp »

Shoutout to Signal team for another fantastic achievement!

As a fun evening read I'd like to remind everyone of Pavel Durov's gaslighting on how their approach of everything-leaks-to-server was the right way to implement "cloud backups" for Telegram.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200226124508/https://tgraph.io...

Nice to finally see someone competent show how it's actually done :)

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#164

Post by mimischi »

drnick1 wrote: post #157

Are backups really necessary? I have always regarded texts (over Signal or SMS) as ephemeral. No one is or should be sending valuable information over Signal, and if you happen to receive something you want to keep, you can always do so manually.

Why do you think our should not? Sincerely asking.

And while I’m here, if you’re implying that Signal is Blut trustworthy, you should step out of the HN bubble and have a look around what everyone and their dog shares through less secure means

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#165

Post by godelski »

zamadatix wrote: post #66
Sesse__ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a couple of problems with the existing backup: 1. It is non-incremental. This means you'll need about as much free space on your phone as your Signal database takes, and it may take many hours to make if your database is large (mine is 18GB). I used to wake up to find my phone had not even fully charged because it had been so busy writing Signal backups. 2. Once you have it on disk, how do you get it away f…

The $1.99/m is not for the up front work of fixing what sucks about current backups though, it's just bundling those fixes in with YACSS (Yet Another Cloud Storage Subscription) is the only way to get people to pay their "reasonable" recurring fee. People here seem to want to answer the question of how to copy data most directly, but only because that's how the problem was phrased. I'm not convinced "users had no way…

Not to mention that this is a pretty good way to fund Signal. That's always been a challenge with Open Source projects as not enough people want to donate. On that note, a lot of companies will do donation matching and just saying, that's one way you could go about it if you feel inclined. For an app I use every day, I don't mind throwing them some beer money (and having work pitch in too). I get more utility out of it than my Spotify subscription

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#166

Post by 3form »

drnick1 wrote: post #157

Are backups really necessary? I have always regarded texts (over Signal or SMS) as ephemeral. No one is or should be sending valuable information over Signal, and if you happen to receive something you want to keep, you can always do so manually.

For many people the messages are meaningful long term (including myself), and I consider ability to preserve your personal data as a base electronic right.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#167

Post by rlpb »

drnick1 wrote: post #157

Are backups really necessary? I have always regarded texts (over Signal or SMS) as ephemeral. No one is or should be sending valuable information over Signal, and if you happen to receive something you want to keep, you can always do so manually.

How should users send valuable information then, if they require E2E encryption?

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#168

Post by mhitza »

swores wrote: post #132
mhitza wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Add to that issues with even sending pictures or videos on Android, and it's a really hard sell. What issues? The only issue I've seen with Signal and media files, was on iOS, where users aren't able to download them (copy them outside the signal app).

Anecdotally, I've not had any issues on iOS (not that I'm needing to download media files often, but I have saved quite a few photos and the occasional video over the years and don't recall any failures). Not that my experience invalidates that of people who have had problems, just sharing to say that the problems haven't been universal.

Thanks for calling this out. Apparently on iOS it's complicated, for some reason https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007317471-Vi...

On Android I tap on the image in chat, 3 dots and save. Way more involved on iOS. But at least I'll be able to point this out to my iOS peers.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#169

Post by dcow »

_heimdall wrote: post #50
growse wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I find that having orchestrate and regularly schedule the exporting of that file off my device to somewhere else, and then look after it there to be not "free". The new offering is reasonably priced imo.

Agreed. I prefer setting it up myself and have had Signal backing up to my home server for a few years now, but for most users an opt-in with a basic free tier and cheap enough paid plan makes a lot of sense. Glad to see they're finding potential revenue streams that don't compromise their focus on privacy and security.

They even say they’re committed to offering BYO storage as the feature matures

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#170

Post by hiq »

nine_k wrote: post #101
nottorp wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thought people are talking about backups without a "cloud" involved. So you'd need to manually connect your phone to something...

Wireguard + syncthing (from F-Droid) work fine. Triggering it when the phone is on the charger makes it very easy to sync things from a computer to the phone, while next to the computer.

To be clear, Signal + Syncthing also works fine, that's what I have.
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