Hacker News Reader

> To my knowledge, that's not true. But even if true, that doesn't mean e2e encryption isn't in effect.

It's not true. I just recently switched phones. If you activate your phone on the app, you can't use the app on your previous phone without authenticating again, and it only shows your local history. I lost all my history when moving phones, as I chose not to back up my messages (who would?).

> I lost all my history when moving phones, as I chose not to back up my messages (who would?).

The trick is to use the local backup option (it's encrypted with a key from the whatsapp servers, but all the files are kept on your device), and use syncthing to copy the whole folder structure (containing the backup and the media) to the new phone before installing whatsapp. When first run, the whatsapp client detects the presence of that backup, asks whether you want to use it, gets the key from the whatsapp servers (after you authenticate your account), and restores the backup.

(By the way, Signal can do the same trick, but it's slightly less user-friendly: the encryption key does not come from the signal servers, it's a sequence of numbers you have to write down and type on the new phone.)

> The web interface is completely driven by your phone, acting as a remote control and WhatsApp still doesn't have access to your conversations.

> https://signal.org uses the exact same model and it's open source, so you can review it.

To be clear, Signal's desktop interface does not work like WhatsApp's web interface: Signal is not completely driven by your phone. Signal Desktop can still send and receive messages even if the phone it is tied to is completely off.

I might have misunderstood what you're trying to say, but wanted to clarify this.

You can review for Signal, but you can't for WhatsApp. which is VERY concerning.