4 ms·

Right, I'm not familiar with their data model or even features, since I don't use it, but bottom line is that users are probably not in control of the data, and

by proc0 5y ago

Right, I'm not familiar with their data model or even features, since I don't use it, but bottom line is that users are probably not in control of the data, and what you see in the app is just a client app reconstruction based on your actions and preferences. It sounds that's what you're alluding to. > but if they "actually delete it"--which I imagine you want--then they might also forget any unique identifier stored with the message, which likely makes it hard to know that this message was both already received and deleted in the past. I would expect any messaging app to work like email, where you're also in control of the email server. Once you receive someone else's message, it's in your inbox, and you can delete it forever as well. The email message model is more intuitive, and I would love for modern instant messaging clients to work the same way except in real time. Of course when you have that level of control, you would need to make it paywalled or subscription of some kind.

tharkun__ 5y ago
I think you might be mixing up two features here. One is deleting a message from your own inbox (this part about your email example makes sense). The other is deleting a message that was sent to someone else from _their_ inbox. Which email does not allow you to do. Except some clever people tried to implement this (notably Outlook and/or Microsoft Exchange has such a feature IIRC) where it sends another email to "recall" the earlier message. It's funny when you receive those recall messages in a non-Microsoft email client and on a different server than the Exchange sever they're using. I.e. you just ignore their request to recall and now you _really_ go read the message they're trying to recall, because it makes it _more_ interesting. Also googling this quickly it seems even if you stay completely within the Microsoft ecosystem it only works if the recipients didn't open the original email yet: With message recall, a message that you sent is retrieved from the mailboxes of the recipients who haven’t yet opened it. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/recall-or-replace-an-email-message-that-you-sent-35027f88-d655-4554-b4f8-6c0729a723a0 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/recall-or-replace...
- proc0 5y ago
  Right, well in concept that feature is silly. It would be like paying USPS to remove some letter from a physical mailbox. At some point you need to commit to the message. Regardless what I'm really saying is that it's all probably smoke and mirrors on the client server (plus client UI). The server is probably configured to keep all messages anyway, and it gets "tombstoned" and not sent by the middle tier server. I don't know of course, but I was talking about how users are not really in control as they think they are.
saurik 5y ago
To map this to e-mail: if you receive an e-mail from me, and you delete it, but my e-mail infrastructure--the part on my end, not on your end--isn't sure I really sent it because the servers are flaking out and having tons of errors, and it retries the delivery, what would normally be an idempotent operation (because of how the e-mail you received twice will have the same message identifier) will cause the e-mail to re-appear... specifically because you have no record of having received it; and to make this even "cooler": if you use one of those dishonest "recall e-mail" features that people keep wishing existed (but not only can not should not), and the other side has already received both the e-mail and the recall, but the sender's SMTP server is still attempting to retry the messages, you will receive the e-mail, see it deleted, and then later see the e-mail again and see it deleted again. Is this really so hard to understanding? WhatsApp is nothing but an e2e event queue: it isn't a server that is storing data on your behalf... all of your messages are local to your phone, and with the exception of the shitty "delete for everyone" feature that WhatsApp implemented, your data is your data and the server knows nothing because it is just trying to deliver encrypted events on behalf of other people (who would, of course, own those queues, just like e-mail... but it is encrypted, so whatever weird mental model you have where this is somehow a bad thing terrifies me as to fix the weird issue you have would involve removing the encryption by adding permanent identifiers to queue objects that were visible to WhatsApp and then exposing to their server all of your otherwise-local message storage intentions).
- proc0 5y ago
  > your data is your data and the server knows nothing because it is just trying to deliver encrypted events on behalf of other people Yes I'm sure that is the feature on paper. There's no way to know (unless there's a leak or something) but I'm willing to bet this isn't really the case and there are backdoor keys to this encryption, if anything to comply with whatever government wants, as has been the case with Apple and iPhone encryption in the past already. The email model was just an example of how, in my opinion, it should be simple and straight forward. We're just talking about people sending text to other people, just like email. The only difference is on the client side, so how fast it happens and what kind of interface is presented with features to interact with the data. Ideally like owning your own email server, you would control not just the interface but the database with the data as well. This could mean some redundant messaging if the other server decides to send it again, but that isn't really a problem.

by proc0 5y ago

tharkun__ 5y ago

I think you might be mixing up two features here. One is deleting a message from your own inbox (this part about your email example makes sense). The other is deleting a message that was sent to someone else from _their_ inbox. Which email does not allow you to do. Except some clever people tried to implement this (notably Outlook and/or Microsoft Exchange has such a feature IIRC) where it sends another email to "recall" the earlier message. It's funny when you receive those recall messages in a non-Microsoft email client and on a different server than the Exchange sever they're using. I.e. you just ignore their request to recall and now you _really_ go read the message they're trying to recall, because it makes it _more_ interesting. Also googling this quickly it seems even if you stay completely within the Microsoft ecosystem it only works if the recipients didn't open the original email yet: With message recall, a message that you sent is retrieved from the mailboxes of the recipients who haven’t yet opened it. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/recall-or-replace-an-email-message-that-you-sent-35027f88-d655-4554-b4f8-6c0729a723a0 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/recall-or-replace...

proc0 5y ago
Right, well in concept that feature is silly. It would be like paying USPS to remove some letter from a physical mailbox. At some point you need to commit to the message. Regardless what I'm really saying is that it's all probably smoke and mirrors on the client server (plus client UI). The server is probably configured to keep all messages anyway, and it gets "tombstoned" and not sent by the middle tier server. I don't know of course, but I was talking about how users are not really in control as they think they are.

saurik 5y ago

To map this to e-mail: if you receive an e-mail from me, and you delete it, but my e-mail infrastructure--the part on my end, not on your end--isn't sure I really sent it because the servers are flaking out and having tons of errors, and it retries the delivery, what would normally be an idempotent operation (because of how the e-mail you received twice will have the same message identifier) will cause the e-mail to re-appear... specifically because you have no record of having received it; and to make this even "cooler": if you use one of those dishonest "recall e-mail" features that people keep wishing existed (but not only can not should not), and the other side has already received both the e-mail and the recall, but the sender's SMTP server is still attempting to retry the messages, you will receive the e-mail, see it deleted, and then later see the e-mail again and see it deleted again. Is this really so hard to understanding? WhatsApp is nothing but an e2e event queue: it isn't a server that is storing data on your behalf... all of your messages are local to your phone, and with the exception of the shitty "delete for everyone" feature that WhatsApp implemented, your data is your data and the server knows nothing because it is just trying to deliver encrypted events on behalf of other people (who would, of course, own those queues, just like e-mail... but it is encrypted, so whatever weird mental model you have where this is somehow a bad thing terrifies me as to fix the weird issue you have would involve removing the encryption by adding permanent identifiers to queue objects that were visible to WhatsApp and then exposing to their server all of your otherwise-local message storage intentions).

proc0 5y ago
> your data is your data and the server knows nothing because it is just trying to deliver encrypted events on behalf of other people Yes I'm sure that is the feature on paper. There's no way to know (unless there's a leak or something) but I'm willing to bet this isn't really the case and there are backdoor keys to this encryption, if anything to comply with whatever government wants, as has been the case with Apple and iPhone encryption in the past already. The email model was just an example of how, in my opinion, it should be simple and straight forward. We're just talking about people sending text to other people, just like email. The only difference is on the client side, so how fast it happens and what kind of interface is presented with features to interact with the data. Ideally like owning your own email server, you would control not just the interface but the database with the data as well. This could mean some redundant messaging if the other server decides to send it again, but that isn't really a problem.