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Signal Secure Backups
- rogerkirkness 1y agoThe main way I specialize messages at this point is basically 'Am I going to want this later'? If the answer is yes, I use email. If not I use Signal. It's interesting this was the most requested feature... it wouldn't be for me even though I love Signal.
- noman-land 1y agoYou can imagine even the same person having some conversations they would want to keep and some they wouldn't.
- Marsymars 1y agoI like this idea, but I don't think I'd ever be able to convince my wife to run that analysis on any particular message before she decides whether to email or to message me on Signal.
- tkel 1y agoIt's important for Signal groups, because on a new device without a backup the groups you were in don't show up until someone sends a message in the group. Say if you were the only admin in an announcement-only group, no one else can send a message in the group, so that group is now lost to you.
- ectospheno 1y agoThis is the only backup feature I’m interested in. I use signal for the expiring chats.
- sudahtigabulan 1y agoThe contact list on a linked desktop client will show all groups you're in, even though your main device doesn't. On Android, if you know the group's name, you can search in the contact list, and the group will "magically" show up, even though it wasn't in the list. Not the greatest UX.
- prmoustache 1y agoso do you email yourself messages/conversations you want to keep? Also unless everyone use gpg, email isn't very secure nor confidential. I tend to use notes on my smartphone for information I want to keep that are encrypted and synchronized on my desktop when reaching home. Having said that I often forget to copy a message to a note because it is a manual process and it is sometimes not trivial to anticipate that an info will be important enough in the future that you need it again.
- rconti 1y agoAre they still refusing to do anything about their painful 30 day device unlinking policy? If they can support full backups, surely they can accomplish this. https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-unlink-devices-after-30-days/37414 https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-unlink-devices-afte...
- ectospheno 1y agoDevice queues need to expire at some point. At that point you aren’t “linked” anymore. What do you want them to do instead?
- swores 1y agoWell if somebody has a year of messages backed up on Signal's servers (with this new feature), and one of their linked devices gets turned on after two months of being turned off, they could surely pull the messages from the backup rather than from the normal queue but do it seemlessly so that from a user point of view the device just never got unlinked? Without backups it makes sense to have a limit, like you said (though I join the person you replied to in wishing there was an option for it yo be more than 30 days), but their point is that once backups contain more than the last 30 days of messages that reason is no longer a blocker.
- greysonp 1y agoHi there, Signal dev here. While we won't do this for you automatically, any time you link a new secondary device, we give the user the option to transfer their message history. It follows the same rules as backups: last 45 days of media for free, or all of it if you're a paid user. And even if you're not a paid user, you can request individual attachments be transferred from your primary device. One caveat is that we don't offer this if you're re-linking an install that already has data but became unlinked. This is because we don't currently handle merging message histories. But if you cleared the data from the secondary install first, it would work. We're thinking of ways to make this smoother!
- 1y ago
- akkartik 1y agoThis looks brilliant. I just hope they make it easy to do test restores. In particular, I want to test restore without perturbing my main device. Let me restore using the secret key on a new device. When I install Signal on a computer it won't show me message history. Will backups allow me to view _all_ my message history on a computer? A big screen is very helpful for browsing lots of messages.
- greysonp 1y agoHi there, Signal dev here. You can sort of do this! You can restore on your new device, and while you will be unregistered on your old device, all of the data is still there. So if you see that something is amiss on the new device, you could re-register on your old device and you'd be right back where you started. This is actually one of the ways we test the feature with our own personal data.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- oezi 1y agoMulti-device would be a nice feature. And question: Will a backup taken today on Androis be able to be restored on iOS once released?
- winterqt 1y agoSee https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45171576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45171576.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- eigenspace 1y agoHey, i have a related question about this: I have an old iPhone that has all my old Signal messages still on it that I wasnt able to move with me when I switched to Android. Is there any way that I can use these new tools to move the old conversations on my iPhone over to my android phone without losing all the new messages that are on my android now? That is, I want to merge the two histories.
- y7 1y agoWithout paying for remote backups, can I just manage my own backup on my own hard drive, and restore it when I want to?
- navigate8310 1y ago>The technology that underpins this initial version of secure backups will also serve as the foundation for more secure backup options in the near future. Our future plans include letting you save a secure backup archive to the location of your choosing, alongside features that let you transfer your encrypted message history between Android, iOS, and Desktop devices.
- jewel 1y agoYes! That has been supported for a long while. At least on Android, go to Settings -> Chats -> Chat Backups. Set up a schedule and a passphrase and a folder, and it will export your chats every day. I do that and then sync that folder with another computer using SyncThing.
- joshjob42 1y agoOnly on Android, not iOS.
- cherryteastain 1y agoIt's not Signal's fault that Apple does not let you access the most basic feature of an operating system - the filesystem.
- joshjob42 1y agoThey do and have done for years now. There’s been a files app since 2017. They’ve had Advanced Data Protection available for iOS backups since 2022. Signal has just been lazy and found maintaining the Android backups to be a pain, so they refused to implement it for iOS.
- elvisloops 1y agoI can't believe Signal is doing this. Signal is known for its cutting-edge cryptographic protocol, but this feature has the effect of throwing that out the window and replacing it with a single static key. If a device with this enabled goes through the whole advanced protocol to receive a message (double ratcheting etc), then turns around and uploads it back to Signal’s servers with a static key, isn't that a roundabout way of replacing all of signal's protocol and its forward secrecy with a static key that has no forward secrecy? They’re calling it "opt-in," but it doesn't look like that's actually true? You can’t know whether someone you’re talking to -- who may not understand the implications -- has enabled it. In group chats, it looks like a single person turning it on eliminates signal protocol for everyone in the chat. Based on this post, the only way to actually opt out of this is to force disappearing messages to be enabled for a time under 24 hours for every chat, which is pretty frustrating. Signal already lags other messengers in reliability, speed, and features. The reason people use it is for its uncompromising security. Shipping something that weakens that foundation undermines the reason people use Signal.
- chimeracoder 1y ago> They’re calling it "opt-in," but it doesn't look like that's actually true? You can’t know whether someone you’re talking to -- who may not understand the implications -- has enabled it. In group chats, it looks like a single person turning it on eliminates signal protocol for everyone in the chat. People already can export backups of the messages they receive, in plain text, and publish those on the Internet if they way. Signal's threat model has never included "you are directly messaging an adversarial party and expect to retain control over redistribution of those messages".
- elvisloops 1y agoI think the difference is that this is all happening in the app as a supported flow. If simply enabling a toggle in Signal (likely without understanding the implications) is now considered "adversarial," then I think that's a problem
- 3np 1y ago> Signal's threat model has never included "you are directly messaging an adversarial party and expect to retain control over redistribution of those messages". On the contrary. https://signal.org/blog/signal-doesnt-recall/?pubDate=20250809 https://signal.org/blog/signal-doesnt-recall/?pubDate=202508...
- amluto 1y agoWow, maybe as a side effect users will be able to migrate between Android and iOS without losing their message history. Seriously, why is the migration protocol completely different on the two platforms?
- crystaln 1y agoThis is mentioned as a future feature.
- antris 1y ago> Seriously, why is the migration protocol completely different on the two platforms? Because they don't want to make jumping to the competitor too easy.
- cosmic_cheese 1y agoThis is the result of differing storage implementations in the app between platforms and has nothing to do with the platform itself. Painless cross-platform migration is possible but simply wasn’t factored into the original design. IIRC WhatsApp also has this problem.
- greysonp 1y agoHi there, Signal dev here. The new backup format is indeed cross-platform. I've successfully restored backups on an iPhone, we're just stabilizing things :) If you're curious, the reason that Android's current local backups aren't cross platform is because it was made a long time ago, and it's literally a dump of all the sqlite statements that can be used to recreate Android's sqlite database (encrypted with a strong, random, local key). So not the most portable! But this new thing is all cross-platform, and in the near future we'll even be making our local backups cross-platform.
- V__ 1y agoAre there any plans to allow backups to a custom server or another folder?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- growse 1y agoFull message content seems to be free, with the option to pay £1.59pm for all media included (45 days of media included in the free tier). Seems pretty reasonable?
- georgeck 1y agoIt would be really useful to have more client-side control over media storage. That way, I could better manage storage growth without wiping entire threads. For example, being able to see all media across chats, sort by file size, and optionally group by conversation would make it much easier to clean things up.
- chimeracoder 1y ago> It would be really useful to have more client-side control over media storage. That way, I could better manage storage growth without wiping entire threads. > For example, being able to see all media across chats, sort by file size, and optionally group by conversation would make it much easier to clean things up. I have good news for you: this already exists. On Android: Settings >> Data and Storage >> Manage Storage >> Review Storage This allows you to view all of your media, files, and audio across all chats, sorted by the amount of storage used. You can also delete those files individually without affecting the rest of the chat. You can also do the same thing within a conversation.
- georgeck 1y agoThanks, that’s helpful. I’m also hoping similar media management options are available on iOS and desktop, since I use Signal across devices. By the way, does Signal treat synced devices (like desktop or a second phone) as “replicas” vs a “primary”? If so, does this affect how storage or message history is handled between them? Would appreciate any insight from folks familiar with the technical side of this!
- wpollock 1y agoOn my Samsung: Settings >> Device Care >> Storage
- ThePowerOfFuet 1y agoDoes that give you per-attachment insight?
- codethief 1y ago
- komali2 1y agoI'm confused, I've restored Signal from encrypted backups before. I did it like 4 months ago. What's this feature?
- Marsymars 1y agoCloud storage for your backup.
- chimeracoder 1y ago> I'm confused, I've restored Signal from encrypted backups before. I did it like 4 months ago. What's this feature? Those backups are stored locally, are platform-specific (Android-only), and there is no feasible way to automate their transfer to any other device, which means that either you have to manually manage them regularly, or you risk losing your entire message history if your phone suddenly dies (or is stolen, or broken beyond repair, etc.). This is a true automated, off-site backup feature.
- chimeracoder 1y agoI know plenty of people who have inadvertently lost their entire messaging history because their phone broke or was lots and they couldn't transfer messages directly from the old phone to the new one. Signal allows you to export backups of messages to a file, but only on Android - the iOS version does not. This is a great feature not only for users who are less technically inclined than the average HN reader, but for any user who doesn't want to go through the tedious process of manually backing up their messages periodically but doesn't want to risk losing their message history if their phone has one unfortunate encounter with gravity. My only concern reading this is that I hope they don't remove the manual export feature once this is rolled out. I know that that feature has been technically complicated to support, but it's important for users to preserve the option to maintain control over their backups, if they want to manage backups themselves, alongside the option of having a more convenient, automated approach.
- greysonp 1y agoHi there, Signal dev here. We are absolutely keeping the local backup feature. More than that -- we'll be improving it to also be cross-platform and incremental, meaning it'll be much faster to both create the backup as well as sync it if you use a third-party folder-syncing solution (like syncthing or something).
- bdzr 1y agoWill the secure backups also be incremental? I've gotten to the point where the backup takes quite a while to generate.
- palata 1y agoIsn't it what they mean with "we'll be improving it to also be [...] incremental"?
- john01dav 1y agoPlease add some way to send it over FTP/FTPS/SFTP/SCP/WebDav/SMB/whatever so I can automatically backup to my own server that isn't on my phone. I need something fully automated or I won't often do it. This is also really important if the free space on my phone is less than the size of the Signal archive, and even more so if the Signal archive is more than 50% of the total space on my phone.
- jwr 1y agoThis is so incredibly important! I am very happy to see this, the fact that you could not do a backup on iOS and you would lose everything in case your device dies is the biggest drawback of Signal. I still do not quite understand why I can't have the option to just back things up to iCloud (I do understand the security implications and I'm fine with it), but ANY backup solution is better than "your data is gone, tough". Oh, now having reread the article I do understand why I can't have any other backup options. Paid subscription. Of course.
- 3np 1y ago> This is so incredibly important! I am very happy to see this, the fact that you could not do a backup on iOS and you would lose everything in case your device dies is the biggest drawback of iOS. FTFY. It's originally Apple preventing its users from easily controlling their own data.
- saurik 1y agoApple 100% supports this, and has since day one, backing up securely to your local computer with no cloud in sight--and, in fact, has always been an industry leader on this, as they understand backups directly help their hardware sales--but Signal goes out of their way to block it.
- jwr 1y ago> Apple preventing its users from easily controlling their own data Could you please elaborate? iOS has secure encrypted backups, and secure encrypted cloud backups using end-to-end encryption. Signal specifically disables these mechanisms.
- jemiluv8 1y agoFeels like a really good way to finally get Signal to start working towards sustainability. I see myself paying just to help this incredible product continue serving its mission
- lencastre 1y agomeasuring the temperature of hell… … … nope, still hot
- joshjob42 1y agoIt's a real shame they aren't implementing this on iOS in beta before the new iPhone launch. Android has had backups for a long time, just locally. iOS users have been SOL so if anything goes wrong with the transfer and sync on your new phone, you're screwed.
- Klonoar 1y agoSignal has done a very poor job of calling out that you can optionally connect your old and new phone via cable; the transfer will be much more stable and quick. (No, this does not really help if you're one of the TouchID holdouts on an older SE)
- AnonC 1y agoWow! I didn’t know this! So you’re saying that instead of using slower and potentially unreliable WiFi, I could just use the iPhone charging cable to connect two iPhones and start the Signal transfer feature? Is this documented anywhere? Thanks.
- Klonoar 1y agoI only ever learned about it from an issue about shitty backups on the Signal repo(s). I'm out at a bar so not about to dig up the link but it's probably easy to find on GitHub.
- antirez 1y agoGreat article not mentioning local backups were already available and what this is about. The state of affairs in iOS vs Android of the past feature and the next one. Details of all the kind are missing. WTF.
- poisonborz 1y agoBacking up Signal on Android for free and offline was ~always possible. The app creates a multi GB backup file on the phone memory under the Signal folder that you can just copy out and back on a new phone. The file is encrypted with the passcode and the database can be extracted. https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools
- growse 1y agoPersonally, I find that having orchestrate and regularly schedule the exporting of that file off my device to somewhere else, and then look after it there to be not "free". The new offering is reasonably priced imo.
- _heimdall 1y agoAgreed. I prefer setting it up myself and have had Signal backing up to my home server for a few years now, but for most users an opt-in with a basic free tier and cheap enough paid plan makes a lot of sense. Glad to see they're finding potential revenue streams that don't compromise their focus on privacy and security.
- dcow 1y agoThey even say they’re committed to offering BYO storage as the feature matures
- Sesse__ 1y agoThere are a couple of problems with the existing backup: 1. It is non-incremental. This means you'll need about as much free space on your phone as your Signal database takes, and it may take many hours to make if your database is large (mine is 18GB). I used to wake up to find my phone had not even fully charged because it had been so busy writing Signal backups. 2. Once you have it on disk, how do you get it away from your phone? Especially after SyncThing disappeared from Play Store (because it was basically a non-Android app behind a thin Android shell that couldn't easily be upgraded to more modern native APIs), there's nothing super-obvious here. I would have loved a better solution for local backups, but realistically, $2/month for cloud backup is really cheap, and a pragmatic solution.
- X-Istence 1y agoI already pay Apple for storage, please just back up my chats/media to iCloud.
- vigilans 1y agoThis BS is why I completely stopped donating to the signal foundation. The messages are mine, not theirs, and yet they refuse to allow me to handle them how I deem fit.
- teiferer 1y agoHave you read the article? They are working on it.
- rPlayer6554 1y agoWhere does it say that?
- layer8 1y ago“Our future plans include letting you save a secure backup archive to the location of your choosing”.
- sambostock 1y ago> Our future plans include letting you save a secure backup archive to the location of your choosing, [...] I also missed this on my first skim of the article though.
- vigilans 1y agoThank you. I should have read to the end, and I'm glad they're planning to support backups stored on their users' media.
- kelnos 1y agoTheir first cut at "working on it" is to require that we pay Signal to store our backups for us (45 days of media and 100MiB total is not a useful free tier; I have more than 1 GiB of messages/media spanning years), when that's an entirely unnecessary restriction.
- ipv6ipv4 1y agoThat Signal data doesn’t just transfer like any other data on iOS when upgrading phones is seriously dumb. Wrap it in whatever security deemed necessary (or make migration/backup opt-in), but just let the blob copy over like every other app on the planet. This cumbersome backup nonsense is a senseless no more secure bandaid for a problem that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
- yapyap 1y agohaha, did they make this for the US gov ;)
- maqp 1y agoMessages: Encrypted on device. Keys stay on device. Server has access to ciphertexts. Backups: Encrypted on device. Key stays on device. Server has access to ciphertext. Yapyaps: Is the backup a backdoor?
- autoexec 1y agoI'm glad that this is opt-in (at least for now). I wish they'd done that for all the other data they collect and permanently store in the cloud (name, photo, phone number, signal contacts, etc.) since you can't even opt-out of that data collection. I wonder if now signal will finally update their privacy policy which still opens with the outright lie: "Signal is designed to never collect or store any sensitive information."
- withinrafael 1y agoDo backups get pruned over time? Is there an expiration? I don't think folks want old lost-key backups sitting around forever for quantum to catch up, right?
- blintz 1y agoIt’s symmetric keys, so quantum doesn’t matter.
- FergusArgyll 1y ago<pedantry> "On the other hand, symmetric algorithms such as AES are believed to be immune to Shor. In most cases, the best-known quantum key recovery attack uses Grover’s algorithm which provides a generic square-root speed-up over classical exhaustion in terms of the number of queries to the symmetric algorithm. In other words, Grover would recover the 256-bit key for AES-256 with around 2^128 quantum queries to AES compared to around 2^256 classical queries for exhaustion. " - https://csrc.nist.gov/csrc/media/Events/2024/fifth-pqc-standardization-conference/documents/papers/on-practical-cost-of-grover.pdf https://csrc.nist.gov/csrc/media/Events/2024/fifth-pqc-stand... </pedantry> the paper itself concludes "the practical security impact of Grover with existing techniques on plausible near-term quantum hardware is limited."
- mtzaldo 1y agoI would like to have the option to have chats without encrypting the media. It will nice to backup the media directly to a NAS.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- netule 1y agoDo I get this for free if I’m a monthly donator?
- paxys 1y agoHiding relevant info behind "..." all over the post is annoying. Instead of reading through it like normal one has to read and click those little dots a dozen times. I'll save you the trouble: - Even if you choose not to back up your chats, someone you are talking to can do it, and your messages to them will be saved in their backup. - 100 MiB of message storage is free. - Last 45 days of media storage is free. - Beyond that you have to pay $1.99 per month, and get 100 GB of storage. - Backups happen once a day.
- AnonC 1y agoI found those bits useful, but also realized that this crude interface could be an accessibility issue. People would’ve been better served with these points directly inline.
- gardnr 1y agoI am happy to see Signal charging for premium features. From a product perspective, being able to switch between two iOS devices without a 3rd iOS device shouldn’t be a premium feature. Please consider enabling local backup and restore for a single Signal instance on iOS.
- palata 1y ago> being able to switch between two iOS devices without a 3rd iOS device I have moved Signal from an iOS device to a new iOS device multiple times. Why do you need a 3rd one?
- gardnr 1y agoI have two phone numbers.
- palata 1y agoOn the same iOS device? I didn't know that iPhones supported multiple SIMs!
- Y-bar 1y agoIt's eSIM: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/119606 https://support.apple.com/en-gb/119606
- palata 1y agoStill, didn't know it was possible to have multiple numbers on the same iPhone :D
- gardnr 1y agoIt's been a very pro-user development. You can buy an eSIM using an app these days. So when you travel, you can just download an eSIM for the country you are visiting if your home provider doesn't offer competitive international packages.
- declan_roberts 1y agoAm I still required to add a phone number to use signal? What's the point of that. Every single person in the USA (and probably world) is quickly and trivially de-anonymized with a phone number.
- throawayonthe 1y agonobody has access to your phone number from your account, and when subpoenad they are unable to provide it:https://signal.org/bigbrother/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/ 'the point' is spam protection, alas
- autoexec 1y agoThat article is out of date. It says things like "Signal still knows nothing about you", but Signal collects every user's name, phone number, photo, and a list of their contacts and permanently stores that data in the cloud. That data is only protected by a pin (which can be brute forced) and SGX which has a history of being leaky. Researchers even demonstrated that data could be collected from Signal at one point. There are very likely side channel attacks that would allow Signal, or the government to collect the data stored in the cloud. https://web.archive.org/web/20250117232443/https://www.vice.com/en/article/signal-new-pin-feature-worries-cybersecurity-experts/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250117232443/https://www.vice.... https://web.archive.org/web/20230519115856/https://community.signalusers.org/t/sgx-cacheout-sgaxe-attack-signals-cloud-storage-and-contact-discovery-vulnerable/14892 https://web.archive.org/web/20230519115856/https://community...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- seany 1y agoThis is the number one thing that is missing IMHO. I would gladly take it over back up options
- IshKebab 1y ago> Losing it means losing access to your backup permanently, and Signal cannot help you recover it. Oof... That's going to be tough to explain to normal users. "Sorry you've been paying for backups all this time, but you should have written down this code that you will only ever use once somewhere safe and remembered where it is. All your data is gone." Not the right security trade-off for most people.
- iamtheworstdev 1y agothere are more than a few backup providers that do this security trade off with user acceptance of the risk. if this trade off isn't good for the user, they can use any other number of insecure backups.
- staplers 1y agoIt's this way, or it's not encrypted. The whole premise of their privacy model requires this. Signal opens themselves up to government coercion and ruined reputation otherwise.
- elvisloops 1y agoThe implementation feels uncharacteristically crude for Signal. Instead of seamless protections, you just get handed 64 characters you’re told to “store securely.” That’s not realistic: most people will screenshot it, and those screenshots will end up in unencrypted cloud backups.
- fastest963 1y agoSure but the key is still in a separate location from the backup. Signal can't decrypt the backup and if Signal is hacked someone would still need to get your screenshot to decrypt the backup. Not perfect but far better than an unencrypted backup.
- 0x457 1y agoIf they were able to recover backups for you, then it wouldn't be secure. Right trade-off.
- 1y ago
- kayson 1y agoI would love to switch over to Signal, but the video call quality pales in comparison to WhatsApp and FaceTime. Add to that issues with even sending pictures or videos on Android, and it's a really hard sell.
- pxeboot 1y agoI agree the video call quality needs improvement, but sending photos and videos has always been flawless on Android for me.
- kayson 1y agoLucky you! I pretty much can never send videos. I'm guessing it's something format / compression / transcoding related. Pictures are hit or miss; I think it's an infrastructure thing.
- mhitza 1y ago> Add to that issues with even sending pictures or videos on Android, and it's a really hard sell. What issues? The only issue I've seen with Signal and media files, was on iOS, where users aren't able to download them (copy them outside the signal app).
- kayson 1y agoThere are a lot of GitHub issues about this (mine being similar to the last one) https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/10135 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/10135 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/13098 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/13098 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/11263 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/11263 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/14293 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/14293
- swores 1y agoAnecdotally, I've not had any issues on iOS (not that I'm needing to download media files often, but I have saved quite a few photos and the occasional video over the years and don't recall any failures). Not that my experience invalidates that of people who have had problems, just sharing to say that the problems haven't been universal.
- ktosobcy 1y ago> In the past, if you broke or lost your phone, your Signal message history was gone. this and completly useless multi-device support is the reason I don't use Signal... Telegram is not fully e2ee but it's way more convenient here. Even XMPP with PGP would be lightyears ahead.
- maqp 1y ago>"Telegram is not fully e2ee but it's way more convenient here." Yeah convenient way to hand your data to a Russian oligarch. PGP has no forward secrecy and OTR in XMPP lacks future secrecy, multi-device support etc. Signal introducing end-to-end encrypted backups is exactly how Telegram should've done it decade ago.
- upofadown 1y agoFuture secrecy? PGP does multirecipients natively, so any restrictions there would be in the XMPP client. I have actually tried out PGP over XMPP and is was nice once it was set up. Absolutely no state. If the message somehow gets to you it just works. Sucked when the keys expired though: * https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:expire https://articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgpfan:expire PGP support on XMPP isn't really that great. Forward secrecy might be a nice addition, even if it was semi-manual. There are compatibility problems between clients for encrypted media. You don't end up with an always encrypted archive like you do with email, but that could be considered an inherent weakness of instant messaging...
- maqp 1y ago>Future secrecy? Meaning --if-- when your keys get compromised the system recovers. PGP lacks even forward secrecy, meaning key compromise alone allows retrospective decryption of every message you've ever sent. OTR fixed that in... ...2004 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1029179.1029200 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1029179.1029200 Using PGP for secure communication in 2025 when you have option to use stateful E2EE over stuff like Signal is just bonkers.
- adastra22 1y agoI have unfortunately lost signal history on various devices. Most recently I lost my iOS history when I restored from a backup without following the right procedure to keep Signal history. I have the full history on my desktop macOS signal though. Can I use this to restore my macOS signal backup to my iOS phone, so I once again have access to all my old messages on the phone?
- arusahni 1y agoFrom the tail end of the blog post: > The technology that underpins this initial version of secure backups will also serve as the foundation for more secure backup options in the near future. Our future plans include letting you save a secure backup archive to the location of your choosing, alongside features that let you transfer your encrypted message history between Android, iOS, and Desktop devices.
- Ericson2314 1y agoThat's great they are doing a paid feature, but I really just want my desktop to back up my phone. They clearly think people have bad desktop security, and still don't want this to happen. Patronizing... Edit on > Our future plans include letting you save a secure backup archive to the location of your choosing, alongside features that let you transfer your encrypted message history between Android, iOS, and Desktop devices. That's good, but they've said that before. I feel a bit burnt on this.
- ngrilly 1y agoWhat is the reason for saving the end-to-end encrypted backup files on Signal backup servers instead of iCloud or Google backup service, as most of us are already paying for this storage?
- drnick1 1y agoBesides the obvious (they want/need the revenue from selling their own solution), many people using Signal do so in an effort to move away from Big Tech and/or on devices with custom ROMs.
- ngrilly 1y agoYes, but Signal mission is also to popularize E2E secure communication for normal users, whi usually don’t use a custom ROM.
- bsimpson 1y agoThe "Signal should exist" part of me is happy to donate $2/mo to help them keep the lights on, but I really did expect that to be an option alongside Drive/Dropbox/et al, not the only option.
- Dunedan 1y agoFYI: "Signal backup servers" currently seems to mean either Google Cloud Storage or CloudFlare R2 according to https://github.com/signalapp/storage-manager/blob/e45aaf5bd13c0eac8f1f2333d3da0d26c3658d52/workers/src/index.ts#L212-L241 https://github.com/signalapp/storage-manager/blob/e45aaf5bd1...
- derefr 1y ago@Signal devs: any reason that the only two options for backup are now "locally" (flexible, but only solves for some use-cases) or "to Signal's special servers" (not flexible; might be legally impossible for many users to enable)? Because it seems to me that, for much of Signal's (often paranoid) audience, they'd much rather use one of the backup/sync providers they've already verified trust of, than have to additionally trust some new backup service provider. And it also seems to me that, now that Signal has the architecture to support this, it'd be pretty easy to add additional backup-sync providers. E.g. in the codebase for the iOS Signal client, you could implement a provider that does incremental backup sync against iCloud (i.e. CloudKit for messages + iCloud Drive for attachments) — allowing the user to use their (perhaps already paid-tier) iCloud account storage. Same with Android and Google Drive (though Google Drive doesn't have an equivalent to CloudKit, so this might be fiddly; to get good amortized write costs, you might have to e.g. buffer row-like writes in a local replication journal, and then flush them through bulk local key inserts in a locally-partial-fetch-cached set of LevelDB files, where the updated files in the set then get flushed as single whole-file overwrites to GDrive.) --- Note that in all cases, Signal could/should still fully encrypt this data before pushing it to the provider; the backup wouldn't be expected to be "legible" to the user. But where, with backups synced to Signal's servers, users need to trust that Signal's E2E backups encryption works perfectly to be able to believe that Signal themselves can't then have access to your backed-up data; it's much less scary to sync to literally any other provider, who won't specifically know that they've got chat data on their hands / won't have any potential to (perhaps after a bad acquisition by a PE firm) begin thinking of themselves as a "data company" who would love to have "chat data" as an asset.
- jimkleiber 1y agoPerhaps they will? > Our future plans include letting you save a secure backup archive to the location of your choosing
- _aavaa_ 1y agoA backup option has been missing for years. Future plans on this particular topic seem to take forever.
- jdthedisciple 1y agoperhaps said too much on a whim, but why should I backup my Signal... or WhatsApp, or any other communications. live in the moment. let things pass. there is probably no fortune hidden in it anyway...
- Sanzig 1y agoIIRC, that used to be the opinion of the Signal project as well, but backups are such a requested feature it looks like they've finally decided to offer it.
- mihaaly 1y agoperhaps others see it differently
- john01dav 1y agoAs an example that I experienced, I wanted a picture that someone took 2 years ago and sent to me on Signal. Since I am a data hoarder, I was able to retrieve it.
- JoshTriplett 1y agoIf you don't want to back it up, don't back it up. I'd like to replace all my SMS usage with Signal. I have every text message and photo I've ever sent/received. I want to do the same with Signal.
- 6thbit 1y agoI'm glad they're opening up a new revenue stream tied to something that provides real value to customers, like backups. Hope they also may it easy to pay for family/friends, maybe similar to the "donate for a friend" they have already.
- WhereIsTheTruth 1y agoWhenever the US promises you that your data are "secure" with their tech, remind yourself of this story: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/after-nsa-backdoors-security-experts-leave-rsa-conference-they-can-trust https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/after-nsa-backdoors-se... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act
- maqp 1y agoOk smarty-pants. Explain exactly how the encrypted cloud backup leaks to NSA when the key to decrypt it sits on your device and safe alone?
- drnick1 1y agoAre backups really necessary? I have always regarded texts (over Signal or SMS) as ephemeral. No one is or should be sending valuable information over Signal, and if you happen to receive something you want to keep, you can always do so manually.
- justapassenger 1y ago[dead]
- mimischi 1y agoWhy do you think our should not? Sincerely asking. And while I’m here, if you’re implying that Signal is Blut trustworthy, you should step out of the HN bubble and have a look around what everyone and their dog shares through less secure means
- drnick1 1y agoI did not mean to say that there are better options for encrypted communication. My point was that my use case is texts like "I'll be in the gym at 6:00 bro", not things that I really want to keep or backup. If someone sends a picture or a file that I want to keep, I can already do so manually.
- kelnos 1y agoMy use case is everything from yours, up to deep personal conversations, and photos and videos that I'd like not to lose. I don't feel like backing these up manually; it's a computer, and its job is to do tedious, repetitive, easy-to-forget tasks so I don't have to.
- 3form 1y agoFor many people the messages are meaningful long term (including myself), and I consider ability to preserve your personal data as a base electronic right.
- rlpb 1y agoHow should users send valuable information then, if they require E2E encryption?
- maqp 1y agoShoutout to Signal team for another fantastic achievement! As a fun evening read I'd like to remind everyone of Pavel Durov's gaslighting on how their approach of everything-leaks-to-server was the right way to implement "cloud backups" for Telegram. https://web.archive.org/web/20200226124508/https://tgraph.io/Why-Isnt-Telegram-End-to-End-Encrypted-by-Default-08-14 https://web.archive.org/web/20200226124508/https://tgraph.io... Nice to finally see someone competent show how it's actually done :)
- nout 1y agoWhat is the UX for the 64 characters key? Does it at least use a wordlist (e.g. like BIP 39)?
- fastest963 1y agoJust 64 characters but they do integrate with a password manager and have a 1-click button to add it. The integration was pretty seamless and saved it in 1Password.
- kelnos 1y agoI don't get this. The local-only backup option is already encrypted. Why can't they include an option for me to upload it somewhere of my choosing, like Google Drive, or even using Android's built-in backup system, so I can do it for free (my current backup file is well over a GB)? I already donate $5/mo to Signal Foundation; building a paid-only backup solution gives me a bad taste. I even wrote a small Android app to do GDrive uploads of the encrypted backup file, watching the local backup directory for new files. (It broke with an Android version update and I haven't gotten around to fixing it.)
- itscrush 1y agoMonetize first is their strategy given this included statement: > Our future plans include letting you save a secure backup archive to the location of your choosing
- palata 1y agoKind of answered by a Signal dev here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45171576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45171576 The existing local-only option is legacy. I guess they haven't built on top of it because of that. The new option is better, and they say in the article that it should offer an option to do exactly what you ask for.
- siva7 1y agoSo it's stored on their server? I don't get why they can't simply store it safely on the apple or google user cloud like every other messaging app
- djrj477dhsnv 1y agoI'd much rather be able to simply rsync the data folder for all apps on my phone without having the hardware KeyStore breaking backups installed on another device.
- prism56 1y agoFinally installed signal. I have 220 phone contacts and 1 had it installed. Uphill battle here. WhatsApp and imessage are so prevalent in the UK
- ThePowerOfFuet 1y agoBe the change you want to see in this world.
- prism56 1y agoYup. That's my plan from now.
- internet_points 1y agoMeanwhile in Norway, of 520 phone contacts (of which many are things like cabs, restaurants, realtor from way back when) – 83 are on signal. And it's not like I have particularly privacy-conscious friends, that I know of.
- prism56 1y agoThat is an interesting datapoint. I'm going to keep it installed, hopefully then if somebody I know does install it they will see i'm a user.
- oxalorg 1y agoCreating signal backups for iPhone users is _really_ hard. The only way to do it is to get a backup from the Signal Desktop app, which is also non-trivial because in recent versions of the desktop the decrypt key is also encrypted and store in keychain. I had to install sqlcipher, find my encrypted key stored locally, find the decrypt key in apple's keychain, decrypt it using Signal's format, etc. This took a lot of trial and error, and reading a lot of existing source (special thanks to https://github.com/bepaald/get_signal_desktop_key_mac https://github.com/bepaald/get_signal_desktop_key_mac but unfortunately it did not work OOTB for me)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- nlitsme 1y agoThis seems to be an unfortunate case where a feature has a misleading name. You already had secure and encrypted backups on your phone, which you could copy and restore, if you remembered to copy them, and write down a very long password. The new feature is apparently a way for signal to sell cloud services. I do think cloud based backups are very useful for less technical people. But it does not really matter if your (properly encrypted) signal backup lives on a google drive/apple cloud, or on a cloud service managed by Signal.
- Analemma_ 1y agoThe encrypted backups do work, but Signal is really, really bad at indicating when and how to make them to use them for restoration. Most non-technical people I know are just resigned to wiping out their Signal history every time they get a new iPhone (and I know two people who abandoned Signal and went back to iMessage because of this), and even I've lost it a couple times. It leaves sort of a gross taste in my mouth that a paid service is the fix for their unhelpful UX.
- wer232essf 1y ago[flagged]
- conradev 1y agoI believe this service works no differently. Lose that passphrase, lose everything.
- aborsy 1y agoCome on, $2/month is nothing, and doubtful would raise much of “revenue “. That’s a coffee a month.
- noja 1y ago> You already had secure and encrypted backups on your phone, which you could copy and restore, if you remembered to copy them, and write down a very long password. Did I? Where? on iOS I don't. Edit: there is a transfer to a new phone thing, but that only works if the old phone still works. Which makes it not a backup (it's a transfer).
- Silhouette 1y agoI appreciate Signal and that the Signal developers provide a very useful service to the community for free. I also know a large number of people who won't use it because it locks your messages up in its own walled garden. People use apps like this precisely because they want to have control over their own communications without any third parties interfering! I have never understood what kind of threat model they think they're protecting against by not letting people take their own backups and store them according to their own preferences. Whatever the reasons it is clearly a deterrent to wider adoption. This announcement might seem like progress but I doubt it will convince any of the people I know who won't use it because at the end of the day it's still a walled garden. If and when the promise of the comments near the end of the announcement is realised and we can back up our own messages and media freely from our own devices to our own (presumably also secure) backup facilities then it will be much more interesting.
- nikeee 1y ago> alongside features that let you transfer your encrypted message history between Android, iOS, and Desktop devices. That's actually the feature I've been looking forward to. As I moved vom Android to iOS, I lost _all_ message histories from all messenger apps that use E2EE (Signal, WhatsApp, Threema, etc). The only one that "just worked" was Telegram due to not being encrypted. WhatsApp had a migration app that has to be done when setting up the iPhone, but it failed due to some bug. Signal had backups, but they didn't seem to be compatible between different OS versions.
- nar001 1y agoYou already can, if you at least set up desktop, you can transfer also message history, though you won't have your media older than 45 days. Maybe it can work as a stopgap before they roll out encrypeted backups everywhere
- zbrozek 1y agoThat's a weird and crappy arbitrary limitation when I could move an arbitrary amount of data between the two devices otherwise. It's the worst part of Signal.
- anilakar 1y agoIt also does not work on Windows clients but errors out. Android and Linux are fine.
- nar001 1y agoIt does for me, sure why it errors out for you
- rjzzleep 1y agoOn top of that you don't have that limitation on Android. It's like enterprise IT, where you put up restrictions everywhere on files and then people can upload files to their personal one drive.
- SwamyM 1y agoWhile we are on the topic of Signal, does anyone know if it's possible to have a lock/PIN to open the Signal app itself that's different than your device lock/PIN? Threema has this feature and it's reassuring to know that people can't open my chats when I hand my phone to someone. Or if I give the device lock/PIN to someone I trust for backup purposes but don't want them to have access to chats themselves. Last I checked this was not possible with Signal (at least on Android).
- yc-kraln 1y agoSounds like you want Molly
- SwamyM 1y agoFor anyone else that's not familiar, this is referring to https://molly.im/ https://molly.im/ which looks like it's a fork of Signal. And looks like it interops with Signal, so you can talk to your regular Signal contacts as well. That's very interesting. My only concern with it would be how sustainable it is in the long term. I am using Threema currently, which has a plan for enterprises, so that seems more reliable but it's lacking in features and usability.
- palata 1y ago> My only concern with it would be how sustainable it is in the long term. Another concern should be: can you trust molly? Cryptographers have been auditing Signal... who is auditing molly?
- SwamyM 1y agoIn addition, it looks like third-party apps (there are a few) that interface with the official Signal client maybe against Signal's TOS. They haven't enforced it yet from what I can see but it's a possibility and that's a fairy large risk IMO.
- JoshTriplett 1y ago
- CobrastanJorji 1y ago> This has been a challenge for people whose most important conversations happen on Signal. Think family photos, sweet messages, important documents-- --or, of course, Joint Chiefs military coordination. I bet that was a fun surprise for the team.
- halyconWays 1y agoAnd in that case it turns out the weakness was the device itself and the rest of the stack
- CobrastanJorji 1y agoThe weakness was carefully going through the menus and manually adding a reporter to your group chat. There's not much the Signal team could have done about that.
- halyconWays 1y agoAKA deliberate or a compromised device
- h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 1y agoThe actual question I have now is: if backup and restore were not working before, why were the keys backed up via Google Play services?
- john01dav 1y agoThey need to add some free way to backup to my own server. I have my own raid array with backups sitting in my basement. I'll back up to that. I do not want to pay them for cloud storage. Right now, theoretically, I can do this by backing up to my phone and then copying the file over. But, this has many issues. Firstly, it is manual, so it will happen way less. Secondly, it is not differential, so the storage requirements will explode. Thirdly, if my signal message archive is bigger than the free space on my phone (especially if it takes more than 50% of total space) then I'm just fucked — there's no way to back it up anywhere else. Fourthly, the backup system is EXTREMELY buggy, to the point that it takes me HOURS babysitting it every time I make a backup. A good solution would be let me put FTP/FTPS/SFTP/SCP/WebDav/SMB/etc. credentials in the Signal app and have it do periodic differential backups to there. Let me decide if I want it to be encrypted or not based on my threat model. Tell my contacts if this is enabled and let me exclude and/or encrypt specific chats if you want to let other people apply their security model too. Only supporting any reasonable (meaning automatic and convenient) backup system with their paid cloud and not supporting my own server smells like a money grab to me. This is utterly unacceptable in a supposedly non-profit app. I have no problem with their paid cloud being an option, to be clear. Another problem with Signal is that they only provide an official Linux package for Debian-based distributions. This forces people using other distributions to either do repeated manual effort to pull it out of their .deb files or build it themself (which is made way harder than it should be), or rely on sketchy third parties for packags. Given how much privatea information goes over Signal, such third party packages are an extremely tempting target for anyone from criminals to national spy agencies. This lapse in security due to not packaging for any Linux except Debian-based Linux (or even providing an ideally auto-updating portable binary!) is a much larger security lapse than letting me backup to my own server conveniently. So, their cries of security concerns relating to backups ring hollow. Overall, it's quite a shitty app. I only use it because the alternatives are worse.
- Tepix 1y agoI agree. > Right now, theoretically, I can do this by backing up to my phone You don't have this option on iOS right now.
- subarctic 1y agoSo close to finally being able to use signal again! I stopped using it when I switched from android to ios and didn't want to lose my message history
- elevation 1y agoI moved phones before Signal backups were available. My old phone has years of Signal chat and photo history. I can scroll through the conversations, but since I activated Signal on my new phone, my old phone will not let me export a backup any longer. Is there a safe sequence of operations to let me recover the data?
- codethief 1y agoCouldn't you re-register your old phone temporarily, just for the purpose of taking the backup¹, and later re-register your current phone? (In fact, once your old phone is registered, turn on airplane mode, and you should be able to re-register your current phone right away without affecting your old phone and the backup you're making there.) Alternatively, would it be an option to get a throwaway number you could register your old phone under? Finally, once you have the backup, use something like https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools to merge your old phone's backup with your current phone's backup, and then reinstall Signal on your current phone from that merged backup. (Disclaimer: I have never actually done this before but signalbackup-tools has been around for a long time and the developer seems to be very responsive.) ¹) I'm talking about the traditional way of backing up Signal conversation data to an encrypted archive here, not the feature discussed in the OP.
- brikym 1y agoHi Signal, can you please add a 'send without sound' feature.
- sneak 1y agoIf Signal is offering pay-for-media-storage, it would be nice to be able to pay to send full-resolution media. I’m a photographer and every image sent via Signal that isn’t zipped first is TOTALLY DESTROYED by silent recompression. https://sneak.berlin/20210425/signal-is-wrecking-your-images-and-videos/ https://sneak.berlin/20210425/signal-is-wrecking-your-images... Also, the donation spam in Signal doesn’t let me donate Mobilecoin from the wallet right inside Signal. What’s the point of having a payments feature if I can’t use it to pay you? Please allow payments to Signal to be done in Signal’s native payment system. I would love to subscribe to Signal in a privacy-preserving way.
- daveoc64 1y agoHave you changed the image quality settings in the app to "High" - I see no mention of that in your blog post.
- sneak 1y agoYes, though IIRC the setting didn’t exist until after I wrote that blog post. Even “High” is still total shit. I frequently contemplate hacking the client app and recompiling it to remove image recompression entirely.
- alance 1y ago> Signal doesn’t let me donate Mobilecoin from the wallet right inside Signal. What’s the point of having a payments feature if I can’t use it to pay you? "Grift for thee, but not for me"
- dmitrygr 1y agoThis is overcomplicated to collect money IMHO. All modern OSs can happily backup app files. It is a well-solved problem. If you find this backup method not secure enough (as Signal authors do), fine, encrypt the backup with a special key, exactly as described in TFA, and leave the resulting archive in a location for my chosen phone OS to back it up as it would. All the goals are accomplished, and without charging me money or limiting how many days of media are stored. Do not get me wrong. Signal is great software and i'd gladly pay for it. Honestly. But not via this underhanded nonsensical way
- tdrz 1y agoIf you would gladly pay for it, maybe you could consider donating for Signal.
- dmitrygr 1y agoDo
- greysonp 1y agoHi there, Signal dev here. The Android app does indeed allow you to export encrypted backups to your local device, which you can sync as you wish. That's not going anywhere, and in fact, we have imminent plans to make it better (cross-platform, faster, etc).
- sneak 1y agoWhy do people want logs of conversations for years and years? All of my Signal chats are set to 4 week expiry. Any media I want to keep, I save to the device. I don’t audio record my conversations with close friends and family; why would I keep chat logs? I don’t understand why people demand this feature. It wasn’t until the iPhone that people got accustomed to keeping every text for all time. I don’t think it’s a healthy approach. For most of human history, you didn’t get a permanent record of private conversations you had with people. It feels like a type of hoarding, given how often people actually use/access their old (>4 weeks) chat logs.
- codethief 1y agoHi @greysonp > Once you’ve enabled secure backups, your device will automatically create a fresh secure backup archive every day, replacing the previous day’s archive. So IIUC backups will not be incremental and I will have to re-upload my 15 GB backup archive every day? Why is that? What's the security risk here? (Obviously I'm not suggesting encrypting & uploading each message & media file individually but splitting things up into same-sized chunks, like e.g. borgbackup does.) > At the core of secure backups is a 64-character recovery key that is generated on your device. This key is yours and yours alone; it is never shared with Signal’s servers. This key is different from your Signal PIN, which serves different purposes. Both recovery key and Signal PIN seem to serve the exact same purpose, though, namely restoring data (conversations, contacts, account, …)? Why not unify them?
- EGreg 1y agoThe PIN is a lot easier to guess on a remote machine storing a backup, the space is small. In the context of your device, they can throttle it.
- codethief 1y agoAh yes, the Signal PIN is backed by Intel SGX to ensure it can't be hacked even if the user has not provided enough entropy. However, why not simply rule out the low-entropy case altogether and use that randomly generated 64-character key throughout? That way, we also wouldn't have to trust Intel SGX… (which I think we shouldn't)
- highwind 1y agoI'm guessing the same reason why my house's front door and back door use different keys.
- tymscar 1y agoMost likely they have different keys for absolutely no other reason than the fact that they were bought/made separately. I honestly would prefer to have a single key to my building.
- prima-facie 1y agoI would love if they implemented a feature to prune media files larger than ~10MiB from the existing backup file. This way the file size would not grow to astronomical proportions so quickly.
- b8 1y agoSince phones have a lot of storage, then why not constantly backup locally and overwrite it for newer versions (opt in of course)? Signal already has large operating cost, so a cloud backup with the very low subscription cost is concerning. It would help Signal to get rid of sms registration and move to something less costy.
- eviks 1y ago> If securely back up all* of your text messages and the last 45 days’ worth of media for free. > If you want to back up your media history beyond 45 days, as well as your message history, we also offer a paid subscription plan for US$1.99 per month. So after so many years of having a serious design flaw this poor substitute of a backup where you can't even save all your text for free is all they've managed to come up with? > The reason we’re doing this is simple: media requires a lot of storage, and storing and transferring large amounts of data is expensive. Easy fix: let the user choose his own local/cloud storage location? (at least it's planned, maybe in just another decade)
- dash2 1y agoI guess the reason WhatsApp lets you save all your text for free is they are making money off sucking up your data. I think ultimately this model will win, but I sympathise with Signal's approach.
- abraham 1y agoWhatsApp offloads the storage to Google/Apple. https://faq.whatsapp.com/481135090640375 https://faq.whatsapp.com/481135090640375
- KingOfCoders 1y agoI know many people are of the opinion, paid features are a guarantee that you're not the product. I fear a slippery slope for money, it's premium features first, then essential features, then money tops security. Or replaces everything else, like with Firefox.
- dheera 1y agoOr just GPG encrypt your messages and store it on some cheap shitcoin's blockchain for free forever storage.
- alance 1y agoIs that a real thing?
- Tepix 1y agoI want to have local backups and i want to be able to decrypt them myself. It‘s my fucking data! (I‘m on iOS)
- chithanh 1y agoIt's a self inflicted problem. Rather than using some standard message format for backups (like eml / RFC 822), and putting them in a standard encrypted container if so desired, Signal chose to use some proprietary database format. Also they apparently changed encryption formats some time ago, and the current version can no longer decrypt the old messages. After moving devices I can no longer access/decrypt my oldest image/video messages, they failed to import properly.
- MrDresden 1y agoPersonally I've never understood the need some have for keeping chat histories. So this isn't a feature I'll use, but am sure others will. And remember, Signal is a nonprofit. If you use it, and if you can, you should be donating.
- pfix 1y agoI just had a use case the other day: my mom sent me a photo of a handwritten recipe from my great grandmother a year ago. I only remembered asking about asking, not about the response, so I was happy to still have that pic in my history. Had I downloaded the Pic, it would be lost among all the other crap I store all ocer the place. This way it was preserved with the context and even a voice message from my grandmother (not great grandmother) remarking on it.
- paride5745 1y agoSame. Just save the pictures in the camera roll and important messages in your notes app of choice.
- Y-bar 1y agoIt's my "old shoebox" with cherished memories of friends and relatives, some who have passed away.
- max_ 1y agoSignal has over $50m in endowments. But their desktop app is built with electron. It's extremely clunky (over 200 MB) very slow and probably inherits all electron's security issues. I have noticed the same issue with desktop apps from Proton Mail. Why is it that rich corporations with lots of money like shortcuts and don't care about the quality of thier software?
- gadsentz 1y agoat least on android: you use a good old usb-c cable
- kwie 1y ago[dead]
- Someone 1y agoFTA: “This is the first time we’ve offered a paid feature. The reason we’re doing this is simple: media requires a lot of storage, and storing and transferring large amounts of data is expensive” Those costs are for doing backups to their servers. If this supported making encrypted backups to Google drive/OneDrive/iCloud/etc, they wouldn’t have those costs, and, AFAICT, that would not be less secure, given (also FTA): “At the core of secure backups is a 64-character recovery key that is generated on your device. This key is yours and yours alone; it is never shared with Signal’s servers. Your recovery key is the only way to “unlock” your backup when you need to restore access to your messages. Losing it means losing access to your backup permanently, and Signal cannot help you recover it.” ⇒ I think it’s more of “we were looking for a new revenue stream, and picked this as a way to get that” There’s nothing wrong with that, but presenting it as “to get secure backups, we have to make costs” is disingenuous.
- neobrain 1y ago> ⇒ I think it’s more of “we were looking for a new revenue stream, and picked this as a way to get that” This seems highly implausible given the 2 USD/mo pricing, the existence of a free storage plan, and the non-negligible operating costs that obviously do exist. I'd be interested if you have data that supports the idea of the economics working out though.
- Someone 1y agoI do not have data, but I do have arguments. If the economics do not work out, why did they chose to create infrastructure and take on the burden of supporting it instead of implementing backups to the popular cloud providers, and not having that extra operational burden? Also, iCloud gives individuals 2 terabytes of storage for $11 a month. OneDrive and Google Drive are similar. S3 is less than 3 cents/gigabyte (with extra costs for reads and writes) I guesstimate backups will take less than 100GB per user. At Apple’s consumer pricing that is slightly over half a dollar. So, if they buy storage at bulk and get a sufficiently high number of customers, I do not see why they couldn’t make money on $2/month.
- paride5745 1y agoI think the option to pay for more than 45 days backup is a smart way to get some cash. Kudos Signal for this.
- the_gipsy 1y agoA subscription. So the money squeeze starts.
- szszrk 1y agoWhat's your alternative? Keep doing voluntary donations and wait for rich people to throw 50mil at it again?
- the_gipsy 1y agoPersonally, I eat the cost of self hosting a small matrix homeserver. For developing a commercial project, I don't have an alternative, because e.g. being upfront and saying that you will eventually screw over your users eventually, is not an option in this economy.
- dewey 1y agoAsking to users to for a non-free service you are receiving isn't "screw over your users".
- szszrk 1y agoSignal ain't exactly commercial project. They didn't screw over anyone, for the past 8 years Signal was and remains free for everyone. That service is not mandatory and didn't even exist before, so who exactly is screwed over? Also, let me know where me and my friends can sign up on your particular matrix instance. What's your ToS anyway?
- the_gipsy 1y agoOkay, I mistakenly thought that Signal was burning on investor money like any run-of-the mill startup, but apparently they manage to run on donations similar to Wikipedia. I also just learned that you can still backup without a subscription. That's great! > Also, let me know where me and my friends can sign up on your particular matrix instance. What's your ToS anyway? I said that was my personal solution and not an alternative to centralized platforms.
- pSYoniK 1y agoThis is really great. I've managed to convert a few people to talk over Signal and while I am backing up my chats to my home server (I see you will be offering something like this in the future), this wasn't really an option for the people I converted over to Signal, so they were constantly afraid that they might lose the pictures or the chats if something happened to their phone. I know, you can download media and save it through something else, but most people just opt-in whatever is default. I think my only suggestion would be to make it real clear or even maybe have some sort of counter that says something like "39 images are no longer backed up" or "8374 media items are NOT being backed up, 507 are in backup, 29 will be removed tomorrow". This could be directly on the backup page, I'm not currently running the beta build as I installed the apk, but if it's already on there, scratch the feedback! Thank you again for all your hard work on this, it really is appreciated (financially too!)
- j1000 1y agoI was always thinking it was a feature not a bug
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- upofadown 1y agoThe key is 64 characters? Even if that key is made out of decimal digits that works out to 212 bits. That seems quite excessive for a symmetrical key you are hoping to have a user deal with directly. It appears that the usability of this scheme could be significantly improved by simply using a shorter key.
- growse 1y agoWhat's the specific use case that benefits from a shorter key? The only interaction I can ever see having with this key is putting it into and taking it out of my password manager....
- upofadown 1y agoThe article specifically suggests writing the key down in a notebook. A single incorrect digit and the scheme fails much later in a way catastrophic to the user.
- master-lincoln 1y agoWhy would you want to backup chat messages? To me they are worthless at least after a few months.
- syncbehind 1y agoMemories.
- newscracker 1y agoChat messages with some people can hold a lot of value. Nostalgia, recalling past incidents/events, missing someone, etc. Sometimes even the most trivial of messages can be looked at with fondness and longing. I’m personally very glad that Signal finally implemented this. It’s been such a short sighted strategy to promote itself like a mass market messaging platform while not allowing people to keep, move and restore memories. Since it’s opt-in, those who don’t want it don’t have to use it. They’re well served by the self-destructing message timers in chats.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]