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Signal Secure Backups

signal.org

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141–150 of 460 posts

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#141

Post by Klonoar »

joshjob42 wrote: post #35

It's a real shame they aren't implementing this on iOS in beta before the new iPhone launch. Android has had backups for a long time, just locally. iOS users have been SOL so if anything goes wrong with the transfer and sync on your new phone, you're screwed.

Signal has done a very poor job of calling out that you can optionally connect your old and new phone via cable; the transfer will be much more stable and quick.

(No, this does not really help if you're one of the TouchID holdouts on an older SE)

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#142

Post by maqp »

ktosobcy wrote: post #113

> In the past, if you broke or lost your phone, your Signal message history was gone. this and completly useless multi-device support is the reason I don't use Signal... Telegram is not fully e2ee but it's way more convenient here. Even XMPP with PGP would be lightyears ahead.

>"Telegram is not fully e2ee but it's way more convenient here."

Yeah convenient way to hand your data to a Russian oligarch.

PGP has no forward secrecy and OTR in XMPP lacks future secrecy, multi-device support etc.

Signal introducing end-to-end encrypted backups is exactly how Telegram should've done it decade ago.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#143

Post by izacus »

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?

Give users control over expiration and allow longer timeout.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#145

Post by taylortbb »

andrepd wrote: post #110
whatevaa wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Linux KDE connect can mount your phones filesystem as FUSE filesystem and then you can use desktop file explorer like dolphin. It's even integrated and automatically apears as an option. Quite convenient, I would say. Performance is pretty good too.

Any Linux desktop can do that via MTP (Google doesn't allow access as mass storage anymore)

Doesn't MTP require plugging in a USB cable? KDE Connect works wirelessly as long as your phone and computer are on the same network.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#146

Post by graemep »

dns_snek wrote: post #105
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…

> Especially after SyncThing disappeared from Play Store (because it was basically a non-Android app behind a thin Android shell that couldn't easily be upgraded to more modern native APIs), there's nothing super-obvious here. That's not what happened, it was Google who started rejecting their updates on Play store. I believe the original Android app maintainer quit after that but there's a fork on on F-droid which w…

fork that will work perfectly until year after next.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#147

Post by jp191919 »

Sesse__ wrote: post #48
poisonborz wrote: post #39

Backing up Signal on Android for free and offline was ~always possible. The app creates a multi GB backup file on the phone memory under the Signal folder that you can just copy out and back on a new phone. The file is encrypted with the passcode and the database can be extracted. https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools

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…

>2. Once you have it on disk, how do you get it away from your phone? I've been using Nextcloud for my backups for the past couple years.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#148

Post by maqp »

yapyap wrote: post #56

haha, did they make this for the US gov ;)

Messages: Encrypted on device. Keys stay on device. Server has access to ciphertexts.

Backups: Encrypted on device. Key stays on device. Server has access to ciphertext.

Yapyaps: Is the backup a backdoor?

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#150

Post by drnick1 »

ngrilly wrote: post #125

What is the reason for saving the end-to-end encrypted backup files on Signal backup servers instead of iCloud or Google backup service, as most of us are already paying for this storage?

Besides the obvious (they want/need the revenue from selling their own solution), many people using Signal do so in an effort to move away from Big Tech and/or on devices with custom ROMs.
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