3 ms·
For starters, signal retains a conversation for the length of time you grant. That can be indefinite. The way it is retained is in a local storage database. It
by cassonmars 4y ago
For starters, signal retains a conversation for the length of time you grant. That can be indefinite. The way it is retained is in a local storage database. It is intentionally guarded against export (although this is somewhat unavoidable with backup features on phones), so as to avoid companies like Cellebrite making it easy for LE to overstep their bounds and pull the message database when they take your phone. If you want some kind of export interface, your best option is a screenshot — signal does not take any action that threatens the mutual security between parties as explicitly agreed.
- anigbrowl 4y agoI don't want to be handcuffed for my own security, thanks. An export facility has little bearing on the integrity of my communications since a counterparty could simply have their phone taken over if they forgot to set a PIN or gave the PIN up to law enforcement. A warning that the exported data can no longer be considered secure (just like when I save a file or photo) is sufficient. Meanwhile if my counterparty and I have communications in Signal that we want to preserve at scale, it's impossible to do so. A simple example would be that I have years' worth of conversations with my wife that I can't easily back up any where. We could export every picture and video by hand and screenshot or copy the text of every message, but that would be extremely time-consuming and tedious. That's the basic problem. The data is already only semi-secure in that it's subject to exfiltration without consent. It's just inconvenient. And where parties do consent, it's very inconvenient because it's many many hours of work; in the end, it's just more security theater.