4 ms·

I used to do this but these days I’m petrified of the restore being imperfect in some way. I use the he.net app for TOTP. Will I get those back in working ord

I used to do this but these days I’m petrified of the restore being imperfect in some way. I use the he.net app for TOTP. Will I get those back in working order? I have a billion photos I want to keep — were they properly backed up to iCloud? My mail settings are a pita to recreate. Will those come back? Are passwords stored in the Secure Enclave? Could I lose those? When I sign back into iCloud am I going to be able to use a username and password, or is it going to require me to approve the login on my laptop — which I left at home — as a second factor? WhatsApp, Signal — how much is tied to my physical phone and/or any key material unique to the OS — material that is irretrievably lost, by design, when it is wiped. I think really the long term answer is to stop using an opaque, closed source iPhone. Maybe some time in the next five years one will emerge that competes with Apple’s quality? Until then, every border crossing is going to risk handing over a huge part of my life to ICE because I can’t risk losing anything in a backup/restore hysteresis loop. Post.: Another future direction would be for iOS and apps to recognise this as a common use case and provide guarantees about what is and what isn’t restorable after a wipe. There’s also a conflict here between wiping data so that it is irretrievable and wiping data to later retrieve it. If you wipe with the intent to retrieve I can believe that immigration will just detain you until you restore your phone so that it can be searched.

shepherdjerred 2y ago
This is like sticking your head in the sand. Okay, maybe the backup is imperfect? What’s your plan if you phone is lost, damaged, or stolen?
IncandescentGas 2y ago
Your phone could become damaged and inoperable every day. From dropping it in the toilet, being stolen, a house fire, etc. If you're "petrified" of losing your data, it's worth the work to ensure your data backup procedures are adequate.
- gorgoiler 2y ago
  You’re right, but also I know I have enough backed up to survive a catastrophe. What I don’t want to do is to test my backup in a non catastrophe situation and invalidate all my TOTP, WhatsApp history, mail settings etc. just because I wanted to test disaster recovery. It feels like buying a fire safe (phone and app backups) without any kind of understanding if it works then burning your house down to see if it works. I want a fire safe (phone and app backups) that is up-front with guarantees it works! I should have said this by the way: for a long time I did wipe my phone when crossing borders, learning the hard way all the little details that don’t quite work properly when doing a restore from backups.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    Analogies only go so far. Going to the store, buying gasoline and rags and a lighter and then committing arson and burning my house down is maybe a little bit different from sitting down for a few hours with my laptop connected to my phone.
    - IncandescentGas 2y ago
      Right! Backup planning is not black magic. And neither is testing icloud backups. It's quite easy to restore an icloud backup to a different phone or even ipad for testing purposes, if one were reliant on icloud to hold their data.
  - Izikiel43 2y ago
    > What I don’t want to do is to test my backup in a non catastrophe situation Isn't that actually one of the things you want to do to validate the backup process? Better to figure out in a non disaster scenario where you have alternatives.
- ta1243 2y ago
  Is it even possible to test a backup of a typical phone without first wiping the phone? It's not like my backup of my ~/Photos directory where I can copy to a USB and md5sum the files on a separate computer and check the match.
  - IncandescentGas 2y ago
    Yes. You can restore your icloud backup to another target iphone without wiping the source iphone, as long as the target iphone has enough storage capacity.
- gausswho 2y ago
  I've spent the last month and a half building an encyrpted backup system I could sleep peacefully with, independent of tech giants that secretly compromise you. I'm almost there but it's not easy for a lot of reasons you mention and more. Ultimately it's not enough for individuals to spend this effort for themselves. We need a self-managed option that is nearly as turnkey as iCloud. A distro with it built from the outset.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    tarsnap?
  - Gud 2y ago
    rsync to rsync.net?
mmmlinux 2y ago
If you're worried about your backup data being correct, you don't have a backup.
- batch12 2y ago
  This is true. A backup that can't be restored is worthless.
mystifyingpoi 2y ago
IMO if you are so concerned about it, then just buy a second phone, and leave the "first" phone at a family member, or at least someone that you trust. If something fails to restore, just call them to read you the OTP code or whatever.
squigz 2y ago
This is why testing recovery is a critical part of any backup plan.
LWIRVoltage 2y ago
I am in a similar pickle. This is an issue I face- I have a collection of thermal cameras that use apps to control them- after every install onto a phone, they then reach out t oa server to authenticate. Here's the issue- though I have a few older phones- these apps are 32 bit ones, so no modern phone after Android 13 will run them. And they are all now not on the app store anymore,as they all came out about around 2016. i did use a APK extractor to pull the APKs to store them - but the native backup functionality wouldn't capture that authorization in the future, I might rob myself of my ability to use some extremely expensive, and long-term invested capable hardware, by backing up and restoring- I suspect a full image would solve this problem, but I don't think one can do that outside of things like TWRP- but that requires unlocking the bootloader, and if you do that it wipes your device- AND is more vulnerable to Custom's usage of Cellebrite and etc, to my undertanding. I don't have this issue with laptops ,as I can fully image them and wipe and restore ahavend have a perfect replica/ no issues. But my thermal cameras do not run off of PC and th eform factor wouldn't work if they did
jjav 2y ago
> I’m petrified of the restore being imperfect in some way. A lot of this is from anchoring important things to your phone. I practice, and strong recommend, avoiding that as much as possible. Your phone should be entirely disposable. If you drop it in the ocean, would you care (other than the monetary loss)? If yes, find way to detach those things from the phone. There should be nothing important on a phone.

shepherdjerred 2y ago

This is like sticking your head in the sand. Okay, maybe the backup is imperfect? What’s your plan if you phone is lost, damaged, or stolen?

IncandescentGas 2y ago

Your phone could become damaged and inoperable every day. From dropping it in the toilet, being stolen, a house fire, etc. If you're "petrified" of losing your data, it's worth the work to ensure your data backup procedures are adequate.

gorgoiler 2y ago
You’re right, but also I know I have enough backed up to survive a catastrophe. What I don’t want to do is to test my backup in a non catastrophe situation and invalidate all my TOTP, WhatsApp history, mail settings etc. just because I wanted to test disaster recovery. It feels like buying a fire safe (phone and app backups) without any kind of understanding if it works then burning your house down to see if it works. I want a fire safe (phone and app backups) that is up-front with guarantees it works! I should have said this by the way: for a long time I did wipe my phone when crossing borders, learning the hard way all the little details that don’t quite work properly when doing a restore from backups.
- fragmede 2y ago
  Analogies only go so far. Going to the store, buying gasoline and rags and a lighter and then committing arson and burning my house down is maybe a little bit different from sitting down for a few hours with my laptop connected to my phone.
  - IncandescentGas 2y ago
    Right! Backup planning is not black magic. And neither is testing icloud backups. It's quite easy to restore an icloud backup to a different phone or even ipad for testing purposes, if one were reliant on icloud to hold their data.
- Izikiel43 2y ago
  > What I don’t want to do is to test my backup in a non catastrophe situation Isn't that actually one of the things you want to do to validate the backup process? Better to figure out in a non disaster scenario where you have alternatives.
ta1243 2y ago
Is it even possible to test a backup of a typical phone without first wiping the phone? It's not like my backup of my ~/Photos directory where I can copy to a USB and md5sum the files on a separate computer and check the match.
- IncandescentGas 2y ago
  Yes. You can restore your icloud backup to another target iphone without wiping the source iphone, as long as the target iphone has enough storage capacity.
gausswho 2y ago
I've spent the last month and a half building an encyrpted backup system I could sleep peacefully with, independent of tech giants that secretly compromise you. I'm almost there but it's not easy for a lot of reasons you mention and more. Ultimately it's not enough for individuals to spend this effort for themselves. We need a self-managed option that is nearly as turnkey as iCloud. A distro with it built from the outset.
- fragmede 2y ago
  tarsnap?
- Gud 2y ago
  rsync to rsync.net?

mmmlinux 2y ago

If you're worried about your backup data being correct, you don't have a backup.

batch12 2y ago
This is true. A backup that can't be restored is worthless.

mystifyingpoi 2y ago

IMO if you are so concerned about it, then just buy a second phone, and leave the "first" phone at a family member, or at least someone that you trust. If something fails to restore, just call them to read you the OTP code or whatever.

squigz 2y ago

This is why testing recovery is a critical part of any backup plan.

LWIRVoltage 2y ago

I am in a similar pickle. This is an issue I face- I have a collection of thermal cameras that use apps to control them- after every install onto a phone, they then reach out t oa server to authenticate. Here's the issue- though I have a few older phones- these apps are 32 bit ones, so no modern phone after Android 13 will run them. And they are all now not on the app store anymore,as they all came out about around 2016. i did use a APK extractor to pull the APKs to store them - but the native backup functionality wouldn't capture that authorization in the future, I might rob myself of my ability to use some extremely expensive, and long-term invested capable hardware, by backing up and restoring- I suspect a full image would solve this problem, but I don't think one can do that outside of things like TWRP- but that requires unlocking the bootloader, and if you do that it wipes your device- AND is more vulnerable to Custom's usage of Cellebrite and etc, to my undertanding. I don't have this issue with laptops ,as I can fully image them and wipe and restore ahavend have a perfect replica/ no issues. But my thermal cameras do not run off of PC and th eform factor wouldn't work if they did

jjav 2y ago

> I’m petrified of the restore being imperfect in some way. A lot of this is from anchoring important things to your phone. I practice, and strong recommend, avoiding that as much as possible. Your phone should be entirely disposable. If you drop it in the ocean, would you care (other than the monetary loss)? If yes, find way to detach those things from the phone. There should be nothing important on a phone.