Signal will finally let you transfer your encrypted chat history to new linked devices

[noisefree@lemmy.world]

This may be out of date, since it's been a while since I last tested this, but: will Signal on desktop still store media in an easily accessible folder where the only security is the use of random strings to identify each individual media file with the file type extension deleted? So, for example, if you've had the desktop Signal client synced with your account for a period of time and have running conversations that include sensitive media, that media can be accessed and viewed without even opening the desktop app (which also, last I tested it, lacks most of the locking/security mechanisms found in the phone versions of Signal).

Most media viewers can open the files without the need for adding the file extension to the end of the filename, albeit you would be browsing the files in a pseudorandom fashion if you didn't try to sort by date or size.

[treadful@lemmy.zip]

And why would you not be looking that up months or years down the line?

I use signal for real time communication. Which is mostly casual bullshit or organizing. What exactly would I want to look up beyond say a week's time? In-person and phone conversations fade away all the same.

Why would you want to trash it?

Because I don't want someone going over long-term records of my chats if my devices are ever compromised. I consider those conversations private and would rather they were forgotten than leaked.

[hogmomma@lemmy.world]

in this context?
haha

[pineapplelover@lemm.ee]

Yeah I've been doing this

[macros@discuss.tchncs.de]

It is quite a bit out of date luckily. Signal-Desktop already stores data encrypted for quite a while. However it used to store the decryption key right alongside it. Recently (a few month ago) Signal switched to storing the key within the systems keystore, greatly improving security. Also causing a flood of users complaining that the can't just copy their .config to a new desktop and retain their chat history. This may have prompted the release of this new feature

[laintrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

What exactly would I want to look up beyond say a week's time?

Uhm, anything and everything? Like what "casual bullshit" you were up to or what you were "organising"?

In-person and phone conversations fade away all the same.

So you don't even wish you could preserve those?

That's crazy to me how different some people's idea of social relations is. Well you do you! Thanks for explaining!

[petter1@lemm.ee]

and 98% do upvote this old news, it is crazy

[petter1@lemm.ee]

A good time

[petter1@lemm.ee]

I heard signal dislikes forks using its server, did molly get approval to do so, or is this based on generosity until signal can ban them?

[petter1@lemm.ee]

I still wait for an option to officially use signal without having to have a proprietary operating system running 🥲

[treadful@lemmy.zip]

Uhm, anything and everything? Like what “casual bullshit” you were up to or what you were “organising”?

I'm honestly curious and your answer just parroted what I said without explanation. Are you just sitting around reading conversations from months ago for entertainment or something? What value are you getting out of keeping chats from years ago?

So you don’t even wish you could preserve those?

Not in the slightest. For what purpose would I want that? I'm not making a This American Life podcast using my inane conversations.

[mutilationwave@lemmy.world]

Wrong thread! Oops.

[mutilationwave@lemmy.world]

Wrong thread! Oops.

[toynbee@lemmy.world]

That's why "in this context"!

[toynbee@lemmy.world]

See the other response to justify that part, heh.

[laintrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

Are you just sitting around reading conversations from months ago for entertainment or something?

No not really, not outside of if I'm reminiscing with the person the convo was with, but I will ctrl+f and find info that way of something they said to me for sure.

What value are you getting out of keeping chats from years ago?

Access to information? Not deleting things I might need or that might be useful later?

What value are you getting out of deleting them? Are you low on storage or something? Or some sort of minimal living life-in-my-backpack type?

Not in the slightest. For what purpose would I want that? I'm not making a This American Life podcast using my inane conversations.

Monetary value isn't the only kind of value to me I guess. Different strokes.

[supernova1051@sh.itjust.works]

You're right! not sure why I thought SimpleX was a fork, it's definitely just using the Signal protocol. Thanks for the clarification. That said, I would objectively state the UX needs some work to get to where Signal is at. SimpleX is oddly both easy to use but confusing and unreliable. I've been using it for a little over a year now and very often messages just stop getting delivered or received, forcing a fall back to Signal.

SimpleX is still very promising and more secure than Signal if your threat model necessitates it, but I continue to champion Signal for its ease of use, reliability, and security compared to more mainstream messengers.

[engineergaming@feddit.nl]

And I am waiting for a way to use Signal without it ever touching a smartphone) Right now I have a Graphene phone so I can trust it (so Molly works), but before that my phone (like most phones) did not support any degoogled OS. While the laptop (like most laptops can) was running Linux easily. Yet, you have to either use an Android VM or a frustrating command-line client to register!

[supernova1051@sh.itjust.works]

Privacy and security is all about threat modeling. Signal meets 100% of the security needs of everyone I communicate with in my region of the world. There's no need (especially now that you can hide phone numbers) for the added security benefits of SimpleX.

Additionally, my experience in using SimpleX over the last year+ is that message delivery is not reliable yet. This has forced me and the few people I've been testing it with to fall back to Signal multiple times. Because of these reliability issues and lacking UX, I don't feel comfortable pushing it on others, knowing the tolerance level is low for message delivery failures and UX that isn't yet up to par with other messaging apps.

[supernova1051@sh.itjust.works]

XMPP only does message encryption. Signal has spent tons of engineering time and effort to minimize the collection of metadata, not just encryption of message content.