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FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

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Re: FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

#141

Post by ethanrutherford »

ryandrake wrote: post #112
pigggg wrote: post #106

Just curious, how come at least once a month signal bugs me to turn on notifications? I said no for a reason, every single time - why does it keep asking? Not implying anything evil but it feels a bit weird esp after this.

> why does it keep asking? Why does any software keep asking you to do things you explicitly told them you don't want to do? Because it's in the software developer's best interest to get you to do them, not yours. We've gotten way past the point in software where we no longer expect the software to serve the user's interest and solve the user's problems. Now, the expectation is that the user gets nagged and coerced i…

It's pretty shortsighted, bordering on intentionally obtuse, to insinuate that the only person that benefits from solving the support problem is the person on support.. Take the example of automatic backups others brought up in this thread. Are you really going to imply that there's zero benefit to the person who didn't lose their data because the app reminded them to turn backups on? I don't disagree that it could be improved with a simple "don't ask me again" style setting, but that doesn't change the fact that every time someone doesn't issue a support ticket, it's because they didn't run into an issue. Any effective solution to a support problem is mutually beneficial for the user as well as the support staff.

Re: FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

#142

Post by opan »

well_ackshually wrote: post #64
rainingmonkey wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> very bad user experience "To use the Signal desktop app, Signal must first be installed on your phone."

thank god whatsapp doesn't do that either. or telegram. or allo back in the day, or every single mobile first messaging app The only one I can think of that doesn't require a mobile login is iMessage, because it's not a chat app, it's lock in and data theft disguised as software

XMPP and Matrix don't require a phone number and have fine mobile apps.

Re: FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

#143

Post by azinman2 »

ryandrake wrote: post #139
greysonp wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We build Signal for everyone, and that includes a lot of people who are not as technologically literate as the average tech worker. For a lot of people, they don't even know they dismissed the notification permission prompt, they were just closing boxes. For them, the reminder is helpful and prevents them from experiencing missing notifications. Striking a balance between helping these people and annoying more techno…

Thanks for the reply. I know it feels noble to do it that way, and I admit I get dogmatic over this one principle: a computer should first and foremost obey the user. It shouldn't have its own agenda. It shouldn't second guess. It shouldn't "did you mean?" I command the computer, and the computer executes that command and then waits for the next command. If I command it to not display a particular output (notificatio…

Have you ever built and distributed communications software? This is a very common problem.

Re: FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

#144

Post by Night_Thastus »

jonpalmisc wrote: post #14

Settings > Notifications > Notification Content > Show: "Name Only" or "No Name or Content" I've had this enabled to prevent sensitive messages from appearing in full whilst showing someone something on my phone, but I guess this is an added benefit as well.

This seems to be the default for me, at least on Android.

Re: FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

#145

Post by peacebeard »

greysonp wrote: post #107
pigggg wrote: post #106

Just curious, how come at least once a month signal bugs me to turn on notifications? I said no for a reason, every single time - why does it keep asking? Not implying anything evil but it feels a bit weird esp after this.

Signal developer here. It's just because notification reliability is always a top support complaint, and a lot of people turn off notifications and don't realize they've done so. Admittedly, once a month is likely too aggressive.

Making the product worse for everybody because a minority can’t manage their own settings is a terrible strategy.

Re: FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

#147

Post by cbg0 »

peacebeard wrote: post #145
greysonp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal developer here. It's just because notification reliability is always a top support complaint, and a lot of people turn off notifications and don't realize they've done so. Admittedly, once a month is likely too aggressive.

Making the product worse for everybody because a minority can’t manage their own settings is a terrible strategy.

Do most people keep the notifications disabled for their messaging apps?

Re: FBI used iPhone notification data to retrieve deleted Signal messages

#148

Post by btown »

gruez wrote: post #73
niek_pas wrote: post #33

I wonder why Apple doesn't 'just' delete the notification data associated with the app from the internal database when the user deletes the app? It seems like asking for problems to just keep old notification content around forever.

If the "database" works like most other databases (eg. postgres or sqlite), deleting a row doesn't immediately cause the data to be wiped from disk, for performance reasons. Then as others mentioned you have filesystem/SSD logic that does something similar on top of that.

But you can do other things to mitigate this. For instance, give each app a set of rolling daily encryption keys, and encrypt new messages at rest. Remove the app, remove all keys. Nightly, remove the oldest key. Perhaps have the entire key database either stored in Secure Enclave, or if there isn't room, have the key database itself encrypted by a rotating single key in Secure Enclave. Now there's nothing that an attacker can do.
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