So it is not only Facebook that has complete access to the message history, but also Google.
The funny thing is that I cannot find a way to access that backup myself, is anyone aware of a method to download that backup as a data dump and inspect it?
The funny thing is that I cannot find a way to access that backup myself, is anyone aware of a method to download that backup as a data dump and inspect it?
98% of users enable that option. The fact that whatsapp is e2ee is a complete lie.
Use Signal for true e2ee, or if you don't like it, Telegram. Telegram stores everything in the cloud tho. (they haven't disclosed any private messages, and are much more trustworthy than Whatsapp). They just wanted to back up messages without giving it to Google/Apple
It has a good UX which is rare for open source apps. It seems to be based around a decent community. But I don't know why I don't use it.
Even the e2ee thing is not audited properly.
They are just more trustworthy, have open source apps, better usability [ and unlimited storage :) ] .
Signal > Telegram > Whatsapp
IIRC it is stored in your Google Drive under an API key that is dedicated to whatsapp (in some kind of per-app storage). I don't really know much about Google Drive API.
However, I am fairly sure that the key is in the binary on your phone, so it shouldn't be much of a challenge to get access.
I think there was something like this on Github once, that no longer works (due to trivial changes, likely).
Update: https://github.com/YuriCosta/WhatsApp-GD-Extractor-Multithre...
Looks recent, didn't try myself.
I got an iPhone SE and turns out I can't really import the Android backup on an iPhone, and there's no way to access it either.
Some backup.
Damnit why is everything related to mobile so needlessly fecking difficult. I just want to read some damn plain text files that are right there but it doesn't allow me to access for no reason in particular. I hate everything about mobile so much.
The main problem here is that like everything FB related, you are the product, not the customer At least, I haven't found any reasonable explanation about why Google and Apple get an unencrypted copy of your chat history but you can't. (And not for lack of trying - there are always ridiculous answers on Reddit and HN about "but if you could read your messages, so can the bad guys")