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Signal WhatsApp Chats Import

796 points by janisz 6y ago

tsjq 6y ago
but . . . what about WhatsApp's End-to-End Encryption ? :(
- evgen 6y ago
  The person doing the import is one of the ends in that E2E chain...
- pmlnr 6y ago
  Heh? Your - your device - is one of the "End" in End-to-End Encryption.
FreakyT 6y ago
The issue with Signal that annoys me most is the complete lack of any meaningful backup/export on iOS. I lost my entire chat history when I got a new phone because their bizarre "proximity based" solution failed.
- sjaak 6y ago
  Why is keeping a chat history important? I don't take notes of IRL conversation I have, they're ephemeral. Not trolling, honestly curious :-)
  - FreakyT 6y ago
    I see it like more like email history (I don't really delete emails either) -- if someone sent me something, I like to be able to reference it later. It's not something I do super often, but it's nice to be able to do.
  - smarx007 6y ago
    I actually try to take paper notes of almost all IRL/online meetings I take part in :)
    - godelski 6y ago
      Serious question, really? Like when you're just having beers with your friends? Why? Does it make your friends feel uncomfortable? What's the benefit to you?
      - smarx007 6y ago
        I mean work/project meetings, not "social gatherings". Essentially, when an encounter serves more that just a social purpose and information is shared, I either want a record of that meeting (information) to be kept or for that meeting not to take place at all if there is nothing noteworthy (again, does not apply to meetings that have a predominantly social function).
        godelski 6y ago
        Okay that I get, but I don't understand recording every text since that's more akin to recording social gatherings and private conversations.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Accountability and history. I have decades of email history, I’d like the same for my chats.
  - karakanb 6y ago
    For me, they literally mean "history". Some conversation with a friend who passed away, chats with an ex-lover, remembering school years, tons of memories. I believe at this point those messages are an important part of my past. In other words, if I had a chance to record, search and navigate through real life conversations, I would have done that too; it is way better to have records than to try to remember things.
    - costsNall 6y ago
      As someone who has saved no chat logs, and just deleted pics, letters, and such from a long gone marriage; IMO, they’re not that important. In fact, shedding that memory shed cognitive distraction I did not know I had. If I want to connect to people I do it here and now. Talking to the past in my head is unhealthy.
      - Forbo 6y ago
        I vouched for your comment, because your experience is still a valid data point. As a counter to that, I lost a close friend to suicide. It was really good to be able to reflect back on the conversations we had and relive the lighter moments we shared together. I agree that dwelling on those things can be unhealthy, but they can also be a valuable part of the healing process.
        costsNall 6y ago
        Sorry to hear that. I went through the same in my 20s, grieved and moved on. For what ever reason, reconnecting to it just makes me mad and depressed now. He’s not dealing with environmental collapse, political unrest, economic inequality, racism... I find leaning into my anger over reality now leads me to be more productive than ennui over people no longer around to concern themselves with those issues.
      - Daniel_sk 6y ago
        Same here. Emails are much more important to keep.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    I just saved an hour or more of work by looking up a conversation I had in Oct 2020.
  - nelsonenzo 6y ago
    a ton of useful conversations and media from my wife while we were waiting for her US Visa, and other family matters.
  - qznc 6y ago
    Still annoying is that all groups disappear. Only once someone else writes something, they are available again.
    - colordrops 6y ago
      I believe it's because they are not stored on a server. They only disappear if you delete all the messages. I suppose it could keep an index of groups locally to the phone though.
  - eat_veggies 6y ago
    They're different mediums with different expectations of ephemerality. Chat history sits somewhere between speaking IRL and sending letters (but to be clear, is not a simple combination; it's its own thing) and nobody burns their letters when they move to a new house. People do burn their letters for valid reasons (or use more naturally ephemeral media like phone calls, talking IRL, or Signal's disappearing messages) but those reasons are orthogonal to moving house or getting a new phone. In any case, if people want to save chat history, the appropriate response is to support that requirement rather than to tell users that no, we've decided that they actually do not want to do that.
    - officeplant 6y ago
      >nobody burns their letters when they move to a new house Actually that's usually when I finally make the effort to burn old mail that I can't just throw away. (insurance payment paperwork, credit card bills, etc) Maybe I should invest in a shredder.
    - saurik 6y ago
      ... particularly given that Signal does have this feature--maybe not as smooth or easy as it should be, but still totally functional--on Android; so it isn't even a consistent argument that "we've decided they actually do not want to do that"!
  - Lutger 6y ago
    Some people use chat software for more than just chitchatting and want the history as a memory. This is the reason why mattermost exists - the devs lost their chat history of some enterprise solution and thought: never again. So they created mattermost.
    - beezle 6y ago
      This. Signal devs should understand that different people have different use cases as well as different tolerances for (theoretical) secrecy/privacy. Some convos/groups are worth keeping history for, others probably not. Signal does not have anyway to know which so should let the user decide and allow for an easy(ier) backup/restore option.
      - solstice 6y ago
        You imply that they don't understand this. Are you sure this is the case? It could be that their priorities are simply elsewhere. Things will take time, even with funding because any crypto/security mistake will be so incredibly more damaging for them than for any other software shop. This goes especially for conversation backups.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - grishka 6y ago
    I just never delete messages. Chat histories are an integral part of my past, and my past is what makes me, me. That said, I deleted my WhatsApp account today just because some organizations assumed that this was an acceptable and convenient way of reaching me if I gave them my phone number. Didn't use it much anyway.
  - jonahx 6y ago
    > I don't take notes of IRL conversation I have, they're ephemeral. Fairer analogy: If you could search transcripts of your IRL conversations at no additional cost (no notetaking), would you? I think most people would say yes.
    - tonyztan 6y ago
      That is a liability. Imagine if every word you have ever uttered to anyone is permanently recorded and can be used against you any time in the future, forever.
      - godelski 6y ago
        Take Twitter and remove even more context from a 10 year old comment.
  - AnonC 6y ago
    Do you take photos and keep those around or you just don’t use cameras? If you do preserve photos, why? Before cameras were invented, most people (who couldn’t paint or pay a painter) had experiences and events only in their memories. You could follow that for photos and videos too. Or get a camera that shows the photo you took for a few seconds and then erase it permanently. I’m not trolling either. The point is not whether you value something to look back on in the future or not. It’s that a lot of people value that and would use a service that aligns with those needs. Chats can also have photos and videos that someone else shared. It’s not easy or clear to many people that they should save or offload those from an (unreliable) chat app if they want to look back at those later.
  - m463 6y ago
    It depends on what type of person you are. Some people are nostalgic and find great comfort in something like a chat history or a photo album (sometimes they're almost one and the same) Nobody really needs it. Arguably it might be a burden or an impediment to growth.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    From time to time, I stumble across some old message; typically an email, photo, chat or even a physical object, and I'm profoundly reminded of some part of my past I had completely forgotten about. People I have lived with, adventures I've been on, jobs I've done, projects I've engaged with, academic papers I'm an author on, and especially special moments and times with loved ones. Intimate conversations. Photos with great stories behind them. Bear in mind also that some special photos, long personal messages and even videos and voice recordings only exist in chat platforms these days. Although I find it is mainly text that has the most profound triggering of memories. I can't make a long enough list of the kinds of things I don't realise are in my memory until it's jogged, and I can't emphasise enough how rich the tapestry of past life parts seems to be. I simply forget how rich my life has been. How much I've done with other people (despite the fact I don't spend much time with people). How many places I've been, how many wonderful people I've been with. When reminded, by accident, it's an amazing feeling, like having a whole past self come to life for a few minutes. I'm, like, "wow, I'd completely forgotten", and enjoying the full VR-in-my-head experience while myriad connections are activated. It's an immensely touching and pleasurable thing to have things like that brought back, and it's completely different from ordinary remembering. It's much more vivid, accompanied by wow feelings, and just does not happen with ordinary recall. In an interesting comparison to day to day thinking, it tends to be very consistently good feeling too. Most things day to day feel like a grind. There are many awful past experiences. But the kinds of memory activation I'm talking about tend to be associated with immensely positive, glad feelings - it's as if those feelings need years to pass and change to happen to "brew" into something that is felt in a different way. Dwelling in the past excessively is unhealthy. But occasionally stumbling across something that awakens a completely forgotten and yet cherished long-lost memory-network is like getting to know myself, who I am now and who I was then, and be amazed at how much larger my life has been than I normally think of it day to day, no matter what I'm doing each day. It only happens about twice a year I guess, if that. When it does I'm also reminded how much larger must the set of other things be that are not being remembered, that would completely and vividly transform my view of my life, and feelings about my life, if they were to be activated. I feel a sense of awe to recognise that my perception of myself in the present is, in some sense, tiny, blinkered and mundane compared to my actual real life, and not at all representative of the fullness of who I am, have been, and therefore will probably be in future. I'm trying to say that, for me, some kinds of accidentally prompted memory-networks are incredibly valuable for obtaining perspective on life; my life, and life of people in general. For me that helps me to connect better to people here and now, and I think it makes me a better person to others, in the now, to be reminded of such things.
- prophesi 6y ago
  What went wrong with their local device transfer solution? Asking as I'm on iOS and have yet to get a new phone.
  - FreakyT 6y ago
    Their solution (as documented here: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Backup-and-Restore-Messages#ios_restore https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Ba...) requires that you place the devices "nearby" and wait for them to detect one another. For whatever reason, neither phone ever "saw" the other one (despite them being on the same network and physically next to one another). I tried this about 10 times before I finally gave up. (iPhone SE / iPhone 12 Pro) What made it more irritating was that you only get one "phone detection" attempt per account transfer process, and you're rate-limited on the server side, so I got soft-banned for 24 hours after several attempts.
    - tricolon 6y ago
      Have you contacted their support? I did, and they informed me they'd fixed the bug in the app update that was published the next day. It might have been a coincidence, but at the very least they were responsive and knowledgeable. (I had the same issue migrating from an iPhone SE to an iPhone 12 mini.)
    - moxie 6y ago
      Yeah, bummer. There were some iOS 14 changes that made this stop working as reliably, which was unfortunately right around the time people were getting new devices. It should be better now, and we're working on more stuff in this area.
      - pgalvin 6y ago
        With respect, as I otherwise feel you’ve made an amazing app on Android and iOS, why do you allow local backups to internal storage on Android but not iOS? Enabling a backup on iOS, even if buried in advanced settings, that lets me export an encrypted .zip (for example, similar to Android) to my internal storage via the Files app would be tremendous. As it stands, I lost a very large amount of message history when an old iPhone broke. I totally understand your reasons for not enabling iCloud backup, but why not a local encrypted backup via the Files app, just like Android? Even if you feel this goes against your ethos, though I do not understand why that would only apply to iOS, it would be far better to go through a few warning messages and back up my messages than to lose years of conversations with a friend or partner who passed away. There’s hundreds upon hundreds of anecdotal stories where people value this or were burned by Signal on iOS, so clearly it is important to a large part of your existing and also potential userbase.
- gaius_baltar 6y ago
  I'm just curious why this feature exists in Android, but not iOS. Maybe due to some stupid Apple Store rule?
  - saurik 6y ago
    There definitely isn't an App Store rule against making your content backup-able: almost all other apps--and notably WhatsApp--have support for this in some way (if not the standard way). (If anything, I am surprised that Apple doesn't make "backup and restore via at least an iTunes encrypted backup correctly replicates your data" a requirement, given how it hurts their ability to sell new phones and undermines their own work making this seamless.)
  - proactivesvcs 6y ago
    From what I've read on the forums, by the developers, is that the backup and restore process on Android has been a technical nightmare for them and it's fragile as it is. I presume that since they have limited resources they can only put so much effort into adding the feature to iOS (and improving it on Android) and have been concentrating on improved groups, group calling, Desktop calling, user name support, etc.
- alerighi 6y ago
  Really, this. And this is the problem that I have also with WhatsApp: i lost all my messages when transitioning between Android to iOS since the backup of Android (that is just a dump of the database) is not compatible to the one of iOS. At the other side there is Telegram, where the conversation are saved on the cloud, which is great, but everyone can delete or edit a message even years after it was sent! And thus even on Telegram you need backups (with is inconvenient, but can be avoided with a script that exports all your conversation scheduled to run every once in a while) I would actually use Signal (or whatever other application) if they would have a simple way to export and also import messages. Best thing would obviously be to make a standard interoperable, at least shared by open source applications, like is done with the mailbox format for emails, so you can take your chat, export them, and import them on another system if you want to migrate from one to another.
- charwalker 6y ago
  Yes, I'll just backup our chat and send it over to the HK police. At worst a backup from Signal should only be your messages and at best it should not exist. Signal is designed for secure communication not archiving communications you wish to be secure. If you want a texting app try Telegram or something more focused on user experience vs secure communication.
amelius 6y ago
They could use Whatsapp's Web interface to extract the data (including images/videos). A browser extension or a bookmarklet could do the actual work.
elaus 6y ago
It's really annoying that WhatsApp chat export isn't available in Germany. I used to export my chats as backup and for creating fun stats for group chats with friends, but that feature got removed about a year ago. I haven't found a way to circumvent this restriction. There were some tricks like installing a modified Russion WhatsApp APK but that risk didn't seem worth it.
- plibither8 6y ago
  Was there any reason provided for the removal? I think it should in fact be essential in EU where they must follow. GDPR regulations and allow users to export their data easily.
  - looperhacks 6y ago
    Chat history isn't stored server side, so gdpr doesn't apply here.
    - Aachen 6y ago
      I always wondered about that. If a closed source app keeps my data in their silo, but I own the hardware their software runs on, I can't do anything with GDPR? Aren't they the controller if they run the software?
      - plibither8 6y ago
        Exactly. We're not owners of that data, they are. Should be an extension of the regulations IMHO.
        Aachen 6y ago
        That's also my "HO" but I was more wondering how to interpret this from a legal perspective. I've read large parts of the GDPR law but don't (at least off the top of my head) remember anything that would say either way.
  - 6y ago
soneca 6y ago
It is cool that this exists, but losing WhatsApp chat history is common enough (changing from Android to iOS, failing to keep backup up to date then buying new phone, losing, having it stolen, etc) that I don’t think it is a relevant barrier for changing apps.
- plibither8 6y ago
  I seriously can't understand why a billion dollar company with hundreds of engineers can't and won't prioritize the abilitynto seamlessly transfer messages cross-OS. Its been years since the need for such a "feature", when it shouldn't even be a "feature" in the first place, it should be baked in!
  - soneca 6y ago
    I agree. It should not be that seamless since it needs explicit consent to break end-to-end encryption. But to force you to use iCloud or Google Drive for backup is weird. They should have a proprietary format and hosting for it.
    - plibither8 6y ago
      By making the customers use an external storage they are relieving themselves of whatever regulations (such as GDPR) they might be imposed of.
  - juniperplant 6y ago
    There's even a third-party software that is able to do this: https://www.backuptrans.com/android-whatsapp-to-iphone-transfer.html https://www.backuptrans.com/android-whatsapp-to-iphone-trans... I've used it myself.
    - dddw 6y ago
      That looks pretty dubious
      - 6y ago
dribblecup 6y ago
There are lots of ways to export like this https://github.com/SoftwareArtisan/signal-backup-exporter https://github.com/SoftwareArtisan/signal-backup-exporter
- FreakyT 6y ago
  Seems like that only works on older versions? (The readme notes "55 or prior")
satysin 6y ago
I have been using Signal for two years now and I love it. However I really, really hope they can work on a good backup and restore process as losing my message history because I have to reinstall the app on my desktop[1] or have to reset my phone is a horrible experience. Just build an encrypted blob and zip it up and pop it on my iCloud or Google Drive or leave it local and let me deal with it but I need something. As my Signal use moves from just messages with friends and family to business contacts I need a reliable way to backup my messages! [1] I should state I mean losing the desktop copy as it starts "fresh" and does not import any messages from the phone. Edit: I should probably clarify I am talking about the iOS/macOS applications as these are what I use. iOS does have a migration feature but that doesn't help if your phone is lost/damaged. I need a proper backup and restore process as well as the ability to import messages from the phone to the desktop app.
- unicornporn 6y ago
  Not a solution for the average user, but this works: https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools
  - pgalvin 6y ago
    Unfortunately that’s for the Android app. Signal iOS has no way of backing up your messages, at all.
- FreakyT 6y ago
  Exactly! The lack of this feature is completely baffling.
  - bertmuthalaly 6y ago
    On iOS now, if you’re setting up a new device, Signal will prompt you to transfer your messages from your old device. Not exactly a backup feature but it covers one use case (I don’t want to lose my chat history when I switch devices).
Aissen 6y ago
Since this is a feature request, it would be nice to the project to change the link to their community feature request: https://community.signalusers.org/t/migrate-from-whatsapp/10566 https://community.signalusers.org/t/migrate-from-whatsapp/10...
actuator 6y ago
This is blowing up quite big now and I have managed to shift a lot of my friends to Signal now, I wonder if WhatsApp will go back on its decision. As we stand now even Signal is not safe because of the business model. I wonder what's the model on messaging apps that will work. I don't want the OS creators to own the messaging platforms as well by virtue of subsidising it through OS/hardware.
- jariel 6y ago
  "As we stand now even Signal is not safe because of the business model." ? Ok, good, but you do realize that this is the most existential concern of them all? Why does FB so aggressively pursue personal data? For advertising. Because 'that's the business model'. Do you think that any entity would be in that position if say, people were willing to actually pay $3/month for what seems to be very obviously a highly useful service? Maybe, but probably not. If people would pay for value, there at least would be considerably less incentive to have personal data. People seem to be willing to pay Apple and AT&T through the nose, oddly, not for those creating the services themselves. "We get what we pay for".
  - actuator 6y ago
    Yeah, and that's the major issue with Signal/Telegram. They also have to pay the operational costs at the end of the day. Apple's services can be ad free because they hide the cost in the cost of phone but that is extremely anti competitive. A user on an iPhone will have a hard time rationalizing for Signal which says $3 per month when he looks at iMessage and that is free
    - johnchristopher 6y ago
      Telegram has infinite history while Signal has PFS. So the costs are not the same at all.
  - tapia 6y ago
    But that is the thing. WhatsApp used to be a payed app, and the promise was that they would never sell our use your data for adds. Then they sold to Facebook and broke that promise. I used to pay for WhatsApp because I believed them then. And it got big because of many people did that too. That is the thing that I found the most insulting about WhatsApp now.
alecco 6y ago
I want more features but first I donated. Also they are struggling with the sudden spike so their costs must be climbing. I couldn't add an attachment last night but they managed to fix it later. https://signal.org/donate/ https://signal.org/donate/
antirez 6y ago
That's funny. People use Whatsapp because outside US and Asia is the worldwide de facto standard for messaging. The new TOS does not state that Whatsapp is going to read your messages, actually even the non-techo-savvy population in Europe knows that Whatsapp uses end-to-end encryption (they just know that "it cannot be intercepted"), so they use it for good reasons, and will continue to do so, because 99% of people don't give a shit about Facebook sealing your profile image and list of contacts or stuff like that. So it's not going to happen that there is a mass move outside of Whatsapp anytime soon. I also find very curious that people are concerned with that, but not with the fact that Facebook and Twitter can decide who can talk and who not, to te extend that one person can be the president of US but not writing his thoughts on social networks. You will hardly find somebody more against Trump than me, but that's not the point, the point is that is a lot more concerning that social network owners can decide what "free speech" is.
- actuator 6y ago
  Regarding your other point, while you are theoretically right that this is a dangerous precedent. But I think this week's events were extraordinary. At the end of the day humans are running these platforms and it becomes very hard to ignore developments like these. As much as I love free speech we have seen throughout the world that there is a real human cost to not censoring these things.
  - antirez 6y ago
    I agree that it was extraordinary and extremely worrying, but: + Trump is not running out of channels to speak, just who supports him will believe he is censored and will develop a deeper attachment to him. Democracy works when you are able to understand somebody is fool even if you can read what they write. + Twitter censored his tweets partially even before what happened recently. When he claimed he didn't lost elections. + This time we believe it was acceptable because our political views here in HN, mostly are aligned with the ones of folks running social platforms. Next time it may be different.
    - actuator 6y ago
moxie 6y ago
A lot has changed since 2014, and this might actually be possible now. It could be tough to do this right and figure out what to do with the edge cases like importing a WA conversation that overlaps with an existing Signal conversation, or handling things like quoted replies, but this could be a fun project if anyone here wants to take a shot at coding it up.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sim_card_map 6y ago
Signal is not an open alternative. It's not federated, but most importantly, they don't allow 3rd party clients: https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165 https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco... So you are stuck with their Electron junk without any options. Matrix should be promoted as an open alternative instead.
- dopu 6y ago
  Are these things so important that we should give up the easier maintainability (and potentially, security) that comes from centralization and the standardization of user clients? I absolutely think projects like Matrix are worthwhile, but it seems foolish to me to argue that there are no benefits that come from doing things the way Signal does. Besides, as sexy as decentralization is, in the wild it is not really practiced. Mastodon is decentralized, but last I heard ~50% of users were on 3 nodes [0]. I'm assuming it's a similar situation for Matrix. [0]: https://rosenzweig.io/blog/the-federation-fallacy.html https://rosenzweig.io/blog/the-federation-fallacy.html
  - Asraelite 6y ago
    In my opinion an ideal position is somewhere between the two extremes - promote the use of a single official client and server and let 99% of users use just that, but allow the development of alternatives for those that want them. There are more possible stances than just "we disallow third party clients" and "we strongly encourage third party clients".
    - juniperplant 6y ago
      Which is what Telegram does. Still, I would like to see proper use of encryption by Telegram. Secret chats have no meaning if no one uses them.
    - fsflover 6y ago
      Federation is not an extreme, it’s the only choice sustainable in the long term. Where will Signal get money to support, say, 1 billion people? It’s just another walled garden. Telegram is already starting to show ads for this reason.
huangc10 6y ago
Can this import my friends as well?
beefee 6y ago
Why does Signal require a phone number, after all these years? It's a gigantic red flag that they unnecessarily require a tie-in to the primary governmental communication surveillance system. I've seen multiple attempted explanations, but nothing convincing.
- twobitshifter 6y ago
  I think it’s for contact discovery. I agree that it would be better to have it not be tied to another system. However, sharing your new ID is a source of friction for messaging apps and everyone wants to grow their app as quickly as possible.
angry_octet 6y ago
Spending the weekend building Signal for iOS so I can try to dump message contents before I send an iPhone in to Apple. Just astounding that there is deliberately no way to backup messages (which has be available on Android for some time). Definite love-hate relationship with users, which I fully reciprocate. So great job getting WhatsApp import working. But too bad you can't export anything from Signal. Dark patterns ahoy.
- faitswulff 6y ago
  It’s not working. This is just a link to renewed discussion on a closed issue.
fencepost 6y ago
Are any of the other third party apps worth looking at? I'm thinking specifically of Threema which I have but haven't really ever used since nobody else I know is using it.
- fsflover 6y ago
  Matrix is distributed and listens to what users actually want.
princevegeta89 6y ago
I have a UI issue with signal, but other than that I think the app is rock solid. I openly write and send passwords and credit card numbers to my wife from time to time. The interface can look better, and it would be great if it can automatically backup all messages and media to the cloud and encrypt it. There is also this annoying "verify pin" popup that shows up once in a while.
- jakub_g 6y ago
  > There is also this annoying "verify pin" popup that shows up once in a while. Settings > Privacy > PIN reminders and you can disable that (at your own risk)
golemiprague 6y ago
What if companies like apple take signal out of their store like they plan to do now with parler? I'd rather use whatsapp because it belongs to facebook and since them and twitter are the new leaders of the world and decide what speech is deemed worthy, there is less chance they will cancel it
dave_sid 6y ago
Not being funny, but when Signal gets enough users, what’s stopping them relenting on their promises of privacy and punting the company to Facebook just like what happened with WhatsApp? It would almost be a good business plan.
- 7v3x3n3sem9vv 6y ago
  Great question! Signal is owned by a nonprofit organization that cannot legally be sold to a for-profit organization.
  - dave_sid 6y ago
    Aha
gerash 6y ago
I believe users should demand the old payment option back from Whatsapp where they can pay for the service if they don't want their data to be used. Obviously users aren't entitled to a service free of charge. in addition, even though the wikipedia has been operating with donations but would it also be a sustainable way to run a chat service too?
zikani_03 6y ago
I haven't used Signal before but this and the discussion on GitHub issues reminded me about a toy project that contains a WhatsApp chat to JSON/CSV "converter/exporter" that someone may find mildly interesting: https://github.com/zikani03/pakadali https://github.com/zikani03/pakadali Heroku dyno here: https://pakadali.herokuapp.com/wa2json.html https://pakadali.herokuapp.com/wa2json.html
neop1x 6y ago
My issue with Signal is inability to send SMS to short codes (premium/service codes). There is a very old issue [1] which was closed by an automated cleanup bot. Every other SMS app can send SMS to short codes, Signal cannot. [1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/5866 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/5866
raakinroll 6y ago
So a new privacy app called The Social App (Social) entered the domain for privacy apps and they actually allow you to directly import your WhatsApp chat into their military grade encryption backed by Virgil Security (www.thesocialapp.net). Would this help @satysin

796 points by janisz 6y ago

tsjq 6y ago

but . . . what about WhatsApp's End-to-End Encryption ? :(

evgen 6y ago
The person doing the import is one of the ends in that E2E chain...
pmlnr 6y ago
Heh? Your - your device - is one of the "End" in End-to-End Encryption.

FreakyT 6y ago

The issue with Signal that annoys me most is the complete lack of any meaningful backup/export on iOS. I lost my entire chat history when I got a new phone because their bizarre "proximity based" solution failed.

sjaak 6y ago
Why is keeping a chat history important? I don't take notes of IRL conversation I have, they're ephemeral. Not trolling, honestly curious :-)
- FreakyT 6y ago
  I see it like more like email history (I don't really delete emails either) -- if someone sent me something, I like to be able to reference it later. It's not something I do super often, but it's nice to be able to do.
- smarx007 6y ago
  I actually try to take paper notes of almost all IRL/online meetings I take part in :)
  - godelski 6y ago
    Serious question, really? Like when you're just having beers with your friends? Why? Does it make your friends feel uncomfortable? What's the benefit to you?
    - smarx007 6y ago
      I mean work/project meetings, not "social gatherings". Essentially, when an encounter serves more that just a social purpose and information is shared, I either want a record of that meeting (information) to be kept or for that meeting not to take place at all if there is nothing noteworthy (again, does not apply to meetings that have a predominantly social function).
      - godelski 6y ago
        Okay that I get, but I don't understand recording every text since that's more akin to recording social gatherings and private conversations.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Accountability and history. I have decades of email history, I’d like the same for my chats.
- karakanb 6y ago
  For me, they literally mean "history". Some conversation with a friend who passed away, chats with an ex-lover, remembering school years, tons of memories. I believe at this point those messages are an important part of my past. In other words, if I had a chance to record, search and navigate through real life conversations, I would have done that too; it is way better to have records than to try to remember things.
  - costsNall 6y ago
    As someone who has saved no chat logs, and just deleted pics, letters, and such from a long gone marriage; IMO, they’re not that important. In fact, shedding that memory shed cognitive distraction I did not know I had. If I want to connect to people I do it here and now. Talking to the past in my head is unhealthy.
    - Forbo 6y ago
      I vouched for your comment, because your experience is still a valid data point. As a counter to that, I lost a close friend to suicide. It was really good to be able to reflect back on the conversations we had and relive the lighter moments we shared together. I agree that dwelling on those things can be unhealthy, but they can also be a valuable part of the healing process.
      - costsNall 6y ago
        Sorry to hear that. I went through the same in my 20s, grieved and moved on. For what ever reason, reconnecting to it just makes me mad and depressed now. He’s not dealing with environmental collapse, political unrest, economic inequality, racism... I find leaning into my anger over reality now leads me to be more productive than ennui over people no longer around to concern themselves with those issues.
    - Daniel_sk 6y ago
      Same here. Emails are much more important to keep.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I just saved an hour or more of work by looking up a conversation I had in Oct 2020.
- nelsonenzo 6y ago
  a ton of useful conversations and media from my wife while we were waiting for her US Visa, and other family matters.
- qznc 6y ago
  Still annoying is that all groups disappear. Only once someone else writes something, they are available again.
  - colordrops 6y ago
    I believe it's because they are not stored on a server. They only disappear if you delete all the messages. I suppose it could keep an index of groups locally to the phone though.
- eat_veggies 6y ago
  They're different mediums with different expectations of ephemerality. Chat history sits somewhere between speaking IRL and sending letters (but to be clear, is not a simple combination; it's its own thing) and nobody burns their letters when they move to a new house. People do burn their letters for valid reasons (or use more naturally ephemeral media like phone calls, talking IRL, or Signal's disappearing messages) but those reasons are orthogonal to moving house or getting a new phone. In any case, if people want to save chat history, the appropriate response is to support that requirement rather than to tell users that no, we've decided that they actually do not want to do that.
  - officeplant 6y ago
    >nobody burns their letters when they move to a new house Actually that's usually when I finally make the effort to burn old mail that I can't just throw away. (insurance payment paperwork, credit card bills, etc) Maybe I should invest in a shredder.
  - saurik 6y ago
    ... particularly given that Signal does have this feature--maybe not as smooth or easy as it should be, but still totally functional--on Android; so it isn't even a consistent argument that "we've decided they actually do not want to do that"!
- Lutger 6y ago
  Some people use chat software for more than just chitchatting and want the history as a memory. This is the reason why mattermost exists - the devs lost their chat history of some enterprise solution and thought: never again. So they created mattermost.
  - beezle 6y ago
    This. Signal devs should understand that different people have different use cases as well as different tolerances for (theoretical) secrecy/privacy. Some convos/groups are worth keeping history for, others probably not. Signal does not have anyway to know which so should let the user decide and allow for an easy(ier) backup/restore option.
    - solstice 6y ago
      You imply that they don't understand this. Are you sure this is the case? It could be that their priorities are simply elsewhere. Things will take time, even with funding because any crypto/security mistake will be so incredibly more damaging for them than for any other software shop. This goes especially for conversation backups.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- grishka 6y ago
  I just never delete messages. Chat histories are an integral part of my past, and my past is what makes me, me. That said, I deleted my WhatsApp account today just because some organizations assumed that this was an acceptable and convenient way of reaching me if I gave them my phone number. Didn't use it much anyway.
- jonahx 6y ago
  > I don't take notes of IRL conversation I have, they're ephemeral. Fairer analogy: If you could search transcripts of your IRL conversations at no additional cost (no notetaking), would you? I think most people would say yes.
  - tonyztan 6y ago
    That is a liability. Imagine if every word you have ever uttered to anyone is permanently recorded and can be used against you any time in the future, forever.
    - godelski 6y ago
      Take Twitter and remove even more context from a 10 year old comment.
- AnonC 6y ago
  Do you take photos and keep those around or you just don’t use cameras? If you do preserve photos, why? Before cameras were invented, most people (who couldn’t paint or pay a painter) had experiences and events only in their memories. You could follow that for photos and videos too. Or get a camera that shows the photo you took for a few seconds and then erase it permanently. I’m not trolling either. The point is not whether you value something to look back on in the future or not. It’s that a lot of people value that and would use a service that aligns with those needs. Chats can also have photos and videos that someone else shared. It’s not easy or clear to many people that they should save or offload those from an (unreliable) chat app if they want to look back at those later.
- m463 6y ago
  It depends on what type of person you are. Some people are nostalgic and find great comfort in something like a chat history or a photo album (sometimes they're almost one and the same) Nobody really needs it. Arguably it might be a burden or an impediment to growth.
- jlokier 6y ago
  From time to time, I stumble across some old message; typically an email, photo, chat or even a physical object, and I'm profoundly reminded of some part of my past I had completely forgotten about. People I have lived with, adventures I've been on, jobs I've done, projects I've engaged with, academic papers I'm an author on, and especially special moments and times with loved ones. Intimate conversations. Photos with great stories behind them. Bear in mind also that some special photos, long personal messages and even videos and voice recordings only exist in chat platforms these days. Although I find it is mainly text that has the most profound triggering of memories. I can't make a long enough list of the kinds of things I don't realise are in my memory until it's jogged, and I can't emphasise enough how rich the tapestry of past life parts seems to be. I simply forget how rich my life has been. How much I've done with other people (despite the fact I don't spend much time with people). How many places I've been, how many wonderful people I've been with. When reminded, by accident, it's an amazing feeling, like having a whole past self come to life for a few minutes. I'm, like, "wow, I'd completely forgotten", and enjoying the full VR-in-my-head experience while myriad connections are activated. It's an immensely touching and pleasurable thing to have things like that brought back, and it's completely different from ordinary remembering. It's much more vivid, accompanied by wow feelings, and just does not happen with ordinary recall. In an interesting comparison to day to day thinking, it tends to be very consistently good feeling too. Most things day to day feel like a grind. There are many awful past experiences. But the kinds of memory activation I'm talking about tend to be associated with immensely positive, glad feelings - it's as if those feelings need years to pass and change to happen to "brew" into something that is felt in a different way. Dwelling in the past excessively is unhealthy. But occasionally stumbling across something that awakens a completely forgotten and yet cherished long-lost memory-network is like getting to know myself, who I am now and who I was then, and be amazed at how much larger my life has been than I normally think of it day to day, no matter what I'm doing each day. It only happens about twice a year I guess, if that. When it does I'm also reminded how much larger must the set of other things be that are not being remembered, that would completely and vividly transform my view of my life, and feelings about my life, if they were to be activated. I feel a sense of awe to recognise that my perception of myself in the present is, in some sense, tiny, blinkered and mundane compared to my actual real life, and not at all representative of the fullness of who I am, have been, and therefore will probably be in future. I'm trying to say that, for me, some kinds of accidentally prompted memory-networks are incredibly valuable for obtaining perspective on life; my life, and life of people in general. For me that helps me to connect better to people here and now, and I think it makes me a better person to others, in the now, to be reminded of such things.
prophesi 6y ago
What went wrong with their local device transfer solution? Asking as I'm on iOS and have yet to get a new phone.
- FreakyT 6y ago
  Their solution (as documented here: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Backup-and-Restore-Messages#ios_restore https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Ba...) requires that you place the devices "nearby" and wait for them to detect one another. For whatever reason, neither phone ever "saw" the other one (despite them being on the same network and physically next to one another). I tried this about 10 times before I finally gave up. (iPhone SE / iPhone 12 Pro) What made it more irritating was that you only get one "phone detection" attempt per account transfer process, and you're rate-limited on the server side, so I got soft-banned for 24 hours after several attempts.
  - tricolon 6y ago
    Have you contacted their support? I did, and they informed me they'd fixed the bug in the app update that was published the next day. It might have been a coincidence, but at the very least they were responsive and knowledgeable. (I had the same issue migrating from an iPhone SE to an iPhone 12 mini.)
  - moxie 6y ago
    Yeah, bummer. There were some iOS 14 changes that made this stop working as reliably, which was unfortunately right around the time people were getting new devices. It should be better now, and we're working on more stuff in this area.
    - pgalvin 6y ago
      With respect, as I otherwise feel you’ve made an amazing app on Android and iOS, why do you allow local backups to internal storage on Android but not iOS? Enabling a backup on iOS, even if buried in advanced settings, that lets me export an encrypted .zip (for example, similar to Android) to my internal storage via the Files app would be tremendous. As it stands, I lost a very large amount of message history when an old iPhone broke. I totally understand your reasons for not enabling iCloud backup, but why not a local encrypted backup via the Files app, just like Android? Even if you feel this goes against your ethos, though I do not understand why that would only apply to iOS, it would be far better to go through a few warning messages and back up my messages than to lose years of conversations with a friend or partner who passed away. There’s hundreds upon hundreds of anecdotal stories where people value this or were burned by Signal on iOS, so clearly it is important to a large part of your existing and also potential userbase.
gaius_baltar 6y ago
I'm just curious why this feature exists in Android, but not iOS. Maybe due to some stupid Apple Store rule?
- saurik 6y ago
  There definitely isn't an App Store rule against making your content backup-able: almost all other apps--and notably WhatsApp--have support for this in some way (if not the standard way). (If anything, I am surprised that Apple doesn't make "backup and restore via at least an iTunes encrypted backup correctly replicates your data" a requirement, given how it hurts their ability to sell new phones and undermines their own work making this seamless.)
- proactivesvcs 6y ago
  From what I've read on the forums, by the developers, is that the backup and restore process on Android has been a technical nightmare for them and it's fragile as it is. I presume that since they have limited resources they can only put so much effort into adding the feature to iOS (and improving it on Android) and have been concentrating on improved groups, group calling, Desktop calling, user name support, etc.
alerighi 6y ago
Really, this. And this is the problem that I have also with WhatsApp: i lost all my messages when transitioning between Android to iOS since the backup of Android (that is just a dump of the database) is not compatible to the one of iOS. At the other side there is Telegram, where the conversation are saved on the cloud, which is great, but everyone can delete or edit a message even years after it was sent! And thus even on Telegram you need backups (with is inconvenient, but can be avoided with a script that exports all your conversation scheduled to run every once in a while) I would actually use Signal (or whatever other application) if they would have a simple way to export and also import messages. Best thing would obviously be to make a standard interoperable, at least shared by open source applications, like is done with the mailbox format for emails, so you can take your chat, export them, and import them on another system if you want to migrate from one to another.
charwalker 6y ago
Yes, I'll just backup our chat and send it over to the HK police. At worst a backup from Signal should only be your messages and at best it should not exist. Signal is designed for secure communication not archiving communications you wish to be secure. If you want a texting app try Telegram or something more focused on user experience vs secure communication.

amelius 6y ago

They could use Whatsapp's Web interface to extract the data (including images/videos). A browser extension or a bookmarklet could do the actual work.

elaus 6y ago

It's really annoying that WhatsApp chat export isn't available in Germany. I used to export my chats as backup and for creating fun stats for group chats with friends, but that feature got removed about a year ago. I haven't found a way to circumvent this restriction. There were some tricks like installing a modified Russion WhatsApp APK but that risk didn't seem worth it.

plibither8 6y ago
Was there any reason provided for the removal? I think it should in fact be essential in EU where they must follow. GDPR regulations and allow users to export their data easily.
- looperhacks 6y ago
  Chat history isn't stored server side, so gdpr doesn't apply here.
  - Aachen 6y ago
    I always wondered about that. If a closed source app keeps my data in their silo, but I own the hardware their software runs on, I can't do anything with GDPR? Aren't they the controller if they run the software?
    - plibither8 6y ago
      Exactly. We're not owners of that data, they are. Should be an extension of the regulations IMHO.
      - Aachen 6y ago
        That's also my "HO" but I was more wondering how to interpret this from a legal perspective. I've read large parts of the GDPR law but don't (at least off the top of my head) remember anything that would say either way.
- 6y ago

soneca 6y ago

It is cool that this exists, but losing WhatsApp chat history is common enough (changing from Android to iOS, failing to keep backup up to date then buying new phone, losing, having it stolen, etc) that I don’t think it is a relevant barrier for changing apps.

plibither8 6y ago
I seriously can't understand why a billion dollar company with hundreds of engineers can't and won't prioritize the abilitynto seamlessly transfer messages cross-OS. Its been years since the need for such a "feature", when it shouldn't even be a "feature" in the first place, it should be baked in!
- soneca 6y ago
  I agree. It should not be that seamless since it needs explicit consent to break end-to-end encryption. But to force you to use iCloud or Google Drive for backup is weird. They should have a proprietary format and hosting for it.
  - plibither8 6y ago
    By making the customers use an external storage they are relieving themselves of whatever regulations (such as GDPR) they might be imposed of.
- juniperplant 6y ago
  There's even a third-party software that is able to do this: https://www.backuptrans.com/android-whatsapp-to-iphone-transfer.html https://www.backuptrans.com/android-whatsapp-to-iphone-trans... I've used it myself.
  - dddw 6y ago
    That looks pretty dubious
    - 6y ago

dribblecup 6y ago

There are lots of ways to export like this https://github.com/SoftwareArtisan/signal-backup-exporter https://github.com/SoftwareArtisan/signal-backup-exporter

FreakyT 6y ago
Seems like that only works on older versions? (The readme notes "55 or prior")

satysin 6y ago

I have been using Signal for two years now and I love it. However I really, really hope they can work on a good backup and restore process as losing my message history because I have to reinstall the app on my desktop[1] or have to reset my phone is a horrible experience. Just build an encrypted blob and zip it up and pop it on my iCloud or Google Drive or leave it local and let me deal with it but I need something. As my Signal use moves from just messages with friends and family to business contacts I need a reliable way to backup my messages! [1] I should state I mean losing the desktop copy as it starts "fresh" and does not import any messages from the phone. Edit: I should probably clarify I am talking about the iOS/macOS applications as these are what I use. iOS does have a migration feature but that doesn't help if your phone is lost/damaged. I need a proper backup and restore process as well as the ability to import messages from the phone to the desktop app.

unicornporn 6y ago
Not a solution for the average user, but this works: https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools
- pgalvin 6y ago
  Unfortunately that’s for the Android app. Signal iOS has no way of backing up your messages, at all.
FreakyT 6y ago
Exactly! The lack of this feature is completely baffling.
- bertmuthalaly 6y ago
  On iOS now, if you’re setting up a new device, Signal will prompt you to transfer your messages from your old device. Not exactly a backup feature but it covers one use case (I don’t want to lose my chat history when I switch devices).

Aissen 6y ago

Since this is a feature request, it would be nice to the project to change the link to their community feature request: https://community.signalusers.org/t/migrate-from-whatsapp/10566 https://community.signalusers.org/t/migrate-from-whatsapp/10...

actuator 6y ago

This is blowing up quite big now and I have managed to shift a lot of my friends to Signal now, I wonder if WhatsApp will go back on its decision. As we stand now even Signal is not safe because of the business model. I wonder what's the model on messaging apps that will work. I don't want the OS creators to own the messaging platforms as well by virtue of subsidising it through OS/hardware.

jariel 6y ago
"As we stand now even Signal is not safe because of the business model." ? Ok, good, but you do realize that this is the most existential concern of them all? Why does FB so aggressively pursue personal data? For advertising. Because 'that's the business model'. Do you think that any entity would be in that position if say, people were willing to actually pay $3/month for what seems to be very obviously a highly useful service? Maybe, but probably not. If people would pay for value, there at least would be considerably less incentive to have personal data. People seem to be willing to pay Apple and AT&T through the nose, oddly, not for those creating the services themselves. "We get what we pay for".
- actuator 6y ago
  Yeah, and that's the major issue with Signal/Telegram. They also have to pay the operational costs at the end of the day. Apple's services can be ad free because they hide the cost in the cost of phone but that is extremely anti competitive. A user on an iPhone will have a hard time rationalizing for Signal which says $3 per month when he looks at iMessage and that is free
  - johnchristopher 6y ago
    Telegram has infinite history while Signal has PFS. So the costs are not the same at all.
- tapia 6y ago
  But that is the thing. WhatsApp used to be a payed app, and the promise was that they would never sell our use your data for adds. Then they sold to Facebook and broke that promise. I used to pay for WhatsApp because I believed them then. And it got big because of many people did that too. That is the thing that I found the most insulting about WhatsApp now.

alecco 6y ago

I want more features but first I donated. Also they are struggling with the sudden spike so their costs must be climbing. I couldn't add an attachment last night but they managed to fix it later. https://signal.org/donate/ https://signal.org/donate/

antirez 6y ago

That's funny. People use Whatsapp because outside US and Asia is the worldwide de facto standard for messaging. The new TOS does not state that Whatsapp is going to read your messages, actually even the non-techo-savvy population in Europe knows that Whatsapp uses end-to-end encryption (they just know that "it cannot be intercepted"), so they use it for good reasons, and will continue to do so, because 99% of people don't give a shit about Facebook sealing your profile image and list of contacts or stuff like that. So it's not going to happen that there is a mass move outside of Whatsapp anytime soon. I also find very curious that people are concerned with that, but not with the fact that Facebook and Twitter can decide who can talk and who not, to te extend that one person can be the president of US but not writing his thoughts on social networks. You will hardly find somebody more against Trump than me, but that's not the point, the point is that is a lot more concerning that social network owners can decide what "free speech" is.

actuator 6y ago
Regarding your other point, while you are theoretically right that this is a dangerous precedent. But I think this week's events were extraordinary. At the end of the day humans are running these platforms and it becomes very hard to ignore developments like these. As much as I love free speech we have seen throughout the world that there is a real human cost to not censoring these things.
- antirez 6y ago
  I agree that it was extraordinary and extremely worrying, but: + Trump is not running out of channels to speak, just who supports him will believe he is censored and will develop a deeper attachment to him. Democracy works when you are able to understand somebody is fool even if you can read what they write. + Twitter censored his tweets partially even before what happened recently. When he claimed he didn't lost elections. + This time we believe it was acceptable because our political views here in HN, mostly are aligned with the ones of folks running social platforms. Next time it may be different.
  - actuator 6y ago

moxie 6y ago

A lot has changed since 2014, and this might actually be possible now. It could be tough to do this right and figure out what to do with the edge cases like importing a WA conversation that overlaps with an existing Signal conversation, or handling things like quoted replies, but this could be a fun project if anyone here wants to take a shot at coding it up.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sim_card_map 6y ago

Signal is not an open alternative. It's not federated, but most importantly, they don't allow 3rd party clients: https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165 https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco... So you are stuck with their Electron junk without any options. Matrix should be promoted as an open alternative instead.

dopu 6y ago
Are these things so important that we should give up the easier maintainability (and potentially, security) that comes from centralization and the standardization of user clients? I absolutely think projects like Matrix are worthwhile, but it seems foolish to me to argue that there are no benefits that come from doing things the way Signal does. Besides, as sexy as decentralization is, in the wild it is not really practiced. Mastodon is decentralized, but last I heard ~50% of users were on 3 nodes [0]. I'm assuming it's a similar situation for Matrix. [0]: https://rosenzweig.io/blog/the-federation-fallacy.html https://rosenzweig.io/blog/the-federation-fallacy.html
- Asraelite 6y ago
  In my opinion an ideal position is somewhere between the two extremes - promote the use of a single official client and server and let 99% of users use just that, but allow the development of alternatives for those that want them. There are more possible stances than just "we disallow third party clients" and "we strongly encourage third party clients".
  - juniperplant 6y ago
    Which is what Telegram does. Still, I would like to see proper use of encryption by Telegram. Secret chats have no meaning if no one uses them.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    Federation is not an extreme, it’s the only choice sustainable in the long term. Where will Signal get money to support, say, 1 billion people? It’s just another walled garden. Telegram is already starting to show ads for this reason.

huangc10 6y ago

Can this import my friends as well?

beefee 6y ago

Why does Signal require a phone number, after all these years? It's a gigantic red flag that they unnecessarily require a tie-in to the primary governmental communication surveillance system. I've seen multiple attempted explanations, but nothing convincing.

twobitshifter 6y ago
I think it’s for contact discovery. I agree that it would be better to have it not be tied to another system. However, sharing your new ID is a source of friction for messaging apps and everyone wants to grow their app as quickly as possible.

angry_octet 6y ago

Spending the weekend building Signal for iOS so I can try to dump message contents before I send an iPhone in to Apple. Just astounding that there is deliberately no way to backup messages (which has be available on Android for some time). Definite love-hate relationship with users, which I fully reciprocate. So great job getting WhatsApp import working. But too bad you can't export anything from Signal. Dark patterns ahoy.

faitswulff 6y ago
It’s not working. This is just a link to renewed discussion on a closed issue.

fencepost 6y ago

Are any of the other third party apps worth looking at? I'm thinking specifically of Threema which I have but haven't really ever used since nobody else I know is using it.

fsflover 6y ago
Matrix is distributed and listens to what users actually want.

princevegeta89 6y ago

I have a UI issue with signal, but other than that I think the app is rock solid. I openly write and send passwords and credit card numbers to my wife from time to time. The interface can look better, and it would be great if it can automatically backup all messages and media to the cloud and encrypt it. There is also this annoying "verify pin" popup that shows up once in a while.

jakub_g 6y ago
> There is also this annoying "verify pin" popup that shows up once in a while. Settings > Privacy > PIN reminders and you can disable that (at your own risk)

golemiprague 6y ago

What if companies like apple take signal out of their store like they plan to do now with parler? I'd rather use whatsapp because it belongs to facebook and since them and twitter are the new leaders of the world and decide what speech is deemed worthy, there is less chance they will cancel it

dave_sid 6y ago

Not being funny, but when Signal gets enough users, what’s stopping them relenting on their promises of privacy and punting the company to Facebook just like what happened with WhatsApp? It would almost be a good business plan.

7v3x3n3sem9vv 6y ago
Great question! Signal is owned by a nonprofit organization that cannot legally be sold to a for-profit organization.
- dave_sid 6y ago
  Aha

gerash 6y ago

I believe users should demand the old payment option back from Whatsapp where they can pay for the service if they don't want their data to be used. Obviously users aren't entitled to a service free of charge. in addition, even though the wikipedia has been operating with donations but would it also be a sustainable way to run a chat service too?

zikani_03 6y ago

I haven't used Signal before but this and the discussion on GitHub issues reminded me about a toy project that contains a WhatsApp chat to JSON/CSV "converter/exporter" that someone may find mildly interesting: https://github.com/zikani03/pakadali https://github.com/zikani03/pakadali Heroku dyno here: https://pakadali.herokuapp.com/wa2json.html https://pakadali.herokuapp.com/wa2json.html

neop1x 6y ago

My issue with Signal is inability to send SMS to short codes (premium/service codes). There is a very old issue [1] which was closed by an automated cleanup bot. Every other SMS app can send SMS to short codes, Signal cannot. [1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/5866 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/5866

raakinroll 6y ago

So a new privacy app called The Social App (Social) entered the domain for privacy apps and they actually allow you to directly import your WhatsApp chat into their military grade encryption backed by Virgil Security (www.thesocialapp.net). Would this help @satysin