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To be fair (and to summarize for those who come to comments first), this isn't exclusively a WhatsApp issue. Yes, architectural decisions could be made to secur
by spdustin 10y ago
To be fair (and to summarize for those who come to comments first), this isn't exclusively a WhatsApp issue. Yes, architectural decisions could be made to secure on-device data, and they should have, but they're not alone in not doing so.
WhatsApp, like many iOS and Android apps, uses SQLite as their datastore. When a row is deleted from SQLite, the pages used by that row aren't deleted from the physical storage medium. Many databases behave this way; zeroing out physical blocks would be cost prohibitive, and may cause solid state storage to fail prematurely due to the "digital wear" of flipping bits too many times.
So... WhatsApp deletes rows from tables in a SQLite database... which may have an iCloud backup... which is not nearly as secure as the database on the device. This is true for most of the apps that we all run on our phones.
- newman314 10y agoI think it would be fair to have apps advertised as secure messengers be more aggressive about how they handle data given the intended use as long as people understand the tradeoff. I'm willing to trade off wear for security. Also, a reason why I do not use iCloud in it's current incarnation.