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Signal Secure Backups

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Re: Signal Secure Backups

#131

Post by jimkleiber »

derefr wrote: post #128

@Signal devs: any reason that the only two options for backup are now "locally" (flexible, but only solves for some use-cases) or "to Signal's special servers" ( not flexible; might be legally impossible for many users to enable)? Because it seems to me that, for much of Signal's (often paranoid) audience, they'd much rather use one of the backup/sync providers they've already verified trust of, than have to addition…

Perhaps they will?

> Our future plans include letting you save a secure backup archive to the location of your choosing

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#132

Post by swores »

mhitza wrote: post #111
kayson wrote: post #104

I would love to switch over to Signal, but the video call quality pales in comparison to WhatsApp and FaceTime. Add to that issues with even sending pictures or videos on Android, and it's a really hard sell.

> 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.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#133

Post by x0x0 »

3np wrote: post #61
chimeracoder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re calling it "opt-in," but it doesn't look like that's actually true? You can’t know whether someone you’re talking to -- who may not understand the implications -- has enabled it. In group chats, it looks like a single person turning it on eliminates signal protocol for everyone in the chat. People already can export backups of the messages they receive, in plain text, and publish those on the Internet if th…

> Signal's threat model has never included "you are directly messaging an adversarial party and expect to retain control over redistribution of those messages". On the contrary. https://signal.org/blog/signal-doesnt-recall/?pubDate=202508...

Huh? That is very explicitly about preventing the migration of your signal messages into Windows Recall. Not the threat model you discuss.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#134

Post by swores »

ls612 wrote: post #126
cherryteastain wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Signal's fault that Apple does not let you access the most basic feature of an operating system - the filesystem.

Can Signal on iOS not save in the Files app like any other app that uses documents?

From the point of view of iOS, yes it can (the person you're replying to is wrong, as explained by the other person who replied to them). But no, the Signal iOS app does not currently have that functionality.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#135

Post by zamadatix »

andrepd wrote: post #112
zamadatix wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Explicitly, from TFA: > But secure backups aren’t the end of the road. The technology that underpins this initial version of secure backups will also serve as the foundation for more secure backup options in the near future. Our future plans include letting you save a secure backup archive to the location of your choosing, alongside features that let you transfer your encrypted message history between Android, iOS, a…

Yeah, they're definitely fully aware. If they ever do actually get cross device local backup I'll be particularly pleased, several years back the stance was basically "working as intended".

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#136

Post by Sanzig »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #129

perhaps said too much on a whim, but why should I backup my Signal... or WhatsApp, or any other communications. live in the moment. let things pass. there is probably no fortune hidden in it anyway...

IIRC, that used to be the opinion of the Signal project as well, but backups are such a requested feature it looks like they've finally decided to offer it.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#138

Post by chimeracoder »

3np wrote: post #61
chimeracoder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re calling it "opt-in," but it doesn't look like that's actually true? You can’t know whether someone you’re talking to -- who may not understand the implications -- has enabled it. In group chats, it looks like a single person turning it on eliminates signal protocol for everyone in the chat. People already can export backups of the messages they receive, in plain text, and publish those on the Internet if th…

> Signal's threat model has never included "you are directly messaging an adversarial party and expect to retain control over redistribution of those messages". On the contrary. https://signal.org/blog/signal-doesnt-recall/?pubDate=202508...

> On the contrary

Well, no, that doesn't contradict what I said at all. That link isn't about treating the recipient of your messages as an adversarial actor. The recipient can still choose to enable it, if they want to provide Microsoft access to the messages they receive.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#139

Post by swores »

ectospheno wrote: post #78
rconti wrote: post #3

Are they still refusing to do anything about their painful 30 day device unlinking policy? If they can support full backups, surely they can accomplish this. https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-unlink-devices-afte...

Device queues need to expire at some point. At that point you aren’t “linked” anymore. What do you want them to do instead?

Well if somebody has a year of messages backed up on Signal's servers (with this new feature), and one of their linked devices gets turned on after two months of being turned off, they could surely pull the messages from the backup rather than from the normal queue but do it seemlessly so that from a user point of view the device just never got unlinked?

Without backups it makes sense to have a limit, like you said (though I join the person you replied to in wishing there was an option for it yo be more than 30 days), but their point is that once backups contain more than the last 30 days of messages that reason is no longer a blocker.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#140

Post by maqp »

WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #137

Whenever the US promises you that your data are "secure" with their tech, remind yourself of this story: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/after-nsa-backdoors-se... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

Ok smarty-pants. Explain exactly how the encrypted cloud backup leaks to NSA when the key to decrypt it sits on your device and safe alone?
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