I've posted this here before.
> It is encrypted with a per user key known to WhatsApp.
This is no longer true! For a few years now. The backup is stored on Google Drive in plain text.
https://faq.whatsapp.com/android/chats/about-google-drive-ba...
> It is encrypted with a per user key known to WhatsApp.
This is no longer true! For a few years now. The backup is stored on Google Drive in plain text.
https://faq.whatsapp.com/android/chats/about-google-drive-ba...
Do you have a better cite or did you check directly recently?
It's now "authenticate via SMS and pin (if enabled), or authenticate via SMS and wait 7 days (if pin enabled)"
I haven't tried this specific tool yet (or others recently) but it was definitely possible in the past without requiring any key from FB/WA.
https://github.com/YuriCosta/WhatsApp-GD-Extractor-Multithre...
I do not vouch for this repo, but it gets the job done.
The only creds required are your Google account creds. No per-user whatsapp keys necessary.
> Media and messages you back up aren't protected by WhatsApp end-to-end encryption while in Google Drive.
That makes sense, why would you re-encrypt the messages with the end-to-end-key which is individual for each chat, if you could simply use a symmetric encryption for backups?
So the statement
> It is encrypted with a per user key known to WhatsApp.
could still hold true, there's no information contrary to that in the FAQ (but no information indicating another kind of encryption either).