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Signal Secure Backups

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Re: Signal Secure Backups

#321

Post by roywiggins »

XorNot wrote: post #187
hiq wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It absolutely does not work fine. Keeping 2x the size of my database in free space on my phone to let backups work it's no solution at all, which is why I stopped doing it. (The backup creates two files - current and previous, and Syncthing can't remove complete files to another location, so you need an actually rather difficult to write script to do it).

I never really grokked Syncthing.

I recently vibe-coded a crappy Windows Go GUI to grab files off my phone via rclone & sshd4a and then optionally delete them, but it's a very manual process since sshd4a has to be running on the phone before I initiate the pull.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#322

Post by jrochkind1 »

greysonp wrote: post #54
chimeracoder wrote: post #20

I know plenty of people who have inadvertently lost their entire messaging history because their phone broke or was lots and they couldn't transfer messages directly from the old phone to the new one. Signal allows you to export backups of messages to a file, but only on Android - the iOS version does not. This is a great feature not only for users who are less technically inclined than the average HN reader, but for…

Hi there, Signal dev here. We are absolutely keeping the local backup feature. More than that -- we'll be improving it to also be cross-platform and incremental, meaning it'll be much faster to both create the backup as well as sync it if you use a third-party folder-syncing solution (like syncthing or something).

This was my question and wasn't clear to me at all from the announcement -- that there was a roadmap for my own (not Signal cloud) cross-platform, incremental, secure encrypted backups as well.

(That presumably would let me store as much as I wanted without a fee).

I wasn't even aware of the existing "local backup feature" making it more confusing -- but reading the announcement I was like, wait, the only backups avail are in Signal cloud? that doesn't seem right, why can't I get my own backup file to do what I want with?

I feel like I now understand, thanks! Personally would recommend the announcement at least reference this future roadmap too, for clarity.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#323

Post by roywiggins »

UltraSane wrote: post #300
codethief wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Ever since Android devices ceased to be regular USB storage devices and switched to MTP, this has never worked well for me. MTP is incredibly slow.

What method do you find to be faster?

MTP is so slow that when I have enough photos and videos on my phone, Windows will crap itself and stall out just trying to list the folder. It's functionally unusable and I don't know how I'd get those files off the phone if I didn't use literally anything else. If it was mass storage I could just rsync it over USB but it isn't so I can't.

I ended up using rclone on Windows with an rsync server running on the phone, I think sshd4a usually.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#324

Post by rjzzleep »

zbrozek wrote: post #299
nar001 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You already can, if you at least set up desktop, you can transfer also message history, though you won't have your media older than 45 days. Maybe it can work as a stopgap before they roll out encrypeted backups everywhere

That's a weird and crappy arbitrary limitation when I could move an arbitrary amount of data between the two devices otherwise. It's the worst part of Signal.

On top of that you don't have that limitation on Android. It's like enterprise IT, where you put up restrictions everywhere on files and then people can upload files to their personal one drive.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#325

Post by SwamyM »

palata wrote: post #277
SwamyM wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone else that's not familiar, this is referring to https://molly.im/ which looks like it's a fork of Signal. And looks like it interops with Signal, so you can talk to your regular Signal contacts as well. That's very interesting. My only concern with it would be how sustainable it is in the long term. I am using Threema currently, which has a plan for enterprises, so that seems more reliable but it's lacking…

> My only concern with it would be how sustainable it is in the long term. Another concern should be: can you trust molly? Cryptographers have been auditing Signal... who is auditing molly?

In addition, it looks like third-party apps (there are a few) that interface with the official Signal client maybe against Signal's TOS. They haven't enforced it yet from what I can see but it's a possibility and that's a fairy large risk IMO.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#326

Post by gardnr »

palata wrote: post #271
gardnr wrote: post #91

I am happy to see Signal charging for premium features. From a product perspective, being able to switch between two iOS devices without a 3rd iOS device shouldn’t be a premium feature. Please consider enabling local backup and restore for a single Signal instance on iOS.

> being able to switch between two iOS devices without a 3rd iOS device I have moved Signal from an iOS device to a new iOS device multiple times. Why do you need a 3rd one?

I have two phone numbers.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#327

Post by itake »

dlgeek wrote: post #307
codethief wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your point but is a large set of dictionary words or 5-digit numbers (see the current backup passphrase) so much better? At the end of the day, recording entropy will always be cumbersome and there is no way around it. > Most people will screenshot it, and those screenshots will end up in unencrypted cloud backups. At least on Android apps can disable screenshots, though, which might be a simple way to deter pe…

I think a large set of dictionary words are likely more user friendly. I think most people will have a lot more confidence on their ability to transcribe words to/from paper more accurately than a bunch of numbers - better built in error correction, etc.

Sanely formed numbers (like 4 digit groups with a checksum) seems like less writing to me, b/c I hate my hand writing.

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#328

Post by akkartik »

aprilnya wrote: post #314
akkartik wrote: post #4

This looks brilliant. I just hope they make it easy to do test restores. In particular, I want to test restore without perturbing my main device. Let me restore using the secret key on a new device. When I install Signal on a computer it won't show me message history. Will backups allow me to view _all_ my message history on a computer? A big screen is very helpful for browsing lots of messages.

As of a few months ago, when setting up Desktop you do actually get an option to copy your message history to it

Thanks for the heads-up! Signal on the Desktop has receded for me in the past year when I moved to an Arch- rather than Debian-based distro (Ubuntu to Manjaro). This might get me to reconsider. (Ugh.)

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#329

Post by cyphar »

eviks wrote: post #315
codethief wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your point but is a large set of dictionary words or 5-digit numbers (see the current backup passphrase) so much better? At the end of the day, recording entropy will always be cumbersome and there is no way around it. > Most people will screenshot it, and those screenshots will end up in unencrypted cloud backups. At least on Android apps can disable screenshots, though, which might be a simple way to deter pe…

> is a large set of dictionary words so much better? Yes, much easier to type

And much easier to copy elsewhere or memorise (not that I would recommend the latter).

Re: Signal Secure Backups

#330

Post by KingOfCoders »

I know many people are of the opinion, paid features are a guarantee that you're not the product. I fear a slippery slope for money, it's premium features first, then essential features, then money tops security. Or replaces everything else, like with Firefox.
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