Hacker News Reader

Comment by zeitg3ist | Hacker News Reader

I didn’t login on Wire for 3 months and “for my security” messages that were sent to me during that time were just... lost. I think my history was deleted too. This happened 2 or 3 years ago, but it made me just switch to something else (Telegram).

View on HN

So you want them to just hold on to your messages on their servers indefinitely? I realize this is the norm nowadays, but is this really what you actually want?

Wire is not for people to leave message unread for 3 months. Most user can deal with that. And once it is read. You can archive your message on to a file (and then put on USB). For most users, why use anything else?

For those who like to leave your message unread on the server for up to a year, then go with signal or telegram.

In a flawed world that deals perfectly with its flaws, infinite storage would be a service you can optionally buy from an open market of third parties, alongside optional identity mediation (for those who definitely don't want their identity bound to a device or SIM or some other PID known to the core network). Bonus points if the technological and organizational interface between third party and core network is paid, I believe that this would be one of the least bad ways imaginable of funding the core network.

I think it should be an option, at least.

Yes? I want them to hold to my messages in am encrypted form for all time. The NSA has probably logged them anyways. I'm done with managing my own backups, my state should be persisted "in the cloud" with no effort from me.

For those who want end-to-end encrypted messages, it's a feature that the server doesn't have a persistent archive of message history. Wire messages are on the server for a few weeks, long enough to relay those messages to transiently offline devices. Telegram is great at what it does, different use case from Wire.

Matrix does have end-to-end encrypted persistent history.

Yes, it's possible. Depending on your threat model, it may or may not be a good idea to have a long-term archive of encrypted data be subject to legal process. Matrix has plans to support IETF MLS, which is a necessary precursor to messenger interoperability.

Matrix lets you configure the history retention on a per-server or per-room basis, fwiw: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/develop/docs/mess.... From a metadata perspective, we're working on P2P to avoid metadata accumulating on servers. In terms of the OP here (address-book based contact discovery), https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/blob/hs/hash-identi... is how Matrix optionally implements it while trying to preserve privacy.

I'm actually fine with the wire approach.

But it would be nice if the sender could be notified that the message was never delivered.

Each Wire message has a user-visible status: Failed, Sent or Delivered.

It's not obvious, but if status never changes from "Sent", then it wasn't "Delivered".

There's a new icon now as well with an "eyeball" that tells you if the message was viewed. The option for this read receipt can be enabled in the options if both parties enable it.

Yeah, I guess it’s just a different use case, but it was a behavior I didn’t expect (maybe I didn’t read the “fine print”) and it turned me off using it for long-term stuff. It’s a pity because I liked the interface and features.

This is one of those replies that should be put in some kind of HN canon. It perfectly shows why there are so few privacy or security respecting options. They did the correct thing for security and you switched.

As I've observed for a long time: UX is more powerful than anything else except maybe cost, and even then one driver for user preference for "free" apps is not having to dig out a card... so cost is also UX.

That’s a bit unfair. I value privacy for some things but for other things I value more not losing my message history. Telegram is not as secure as other options by default, but for me it strikes a good balance between convenience/usability and privacy, as I can optionally open a self-destroying secret chat when I need it.

With Matrix you get privacy with message history.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will try it out.

FWIW Telegram deletes your account if you are away for a year, and you cannot disable it.

Uh, just FYI this is alao a feature on Telegram that can't be disabled (only extended up to a year).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com