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Comment by _Microft | Hacker News Reader

And we still can’t backup our chats on iOS [0]. Does that mean that we might lose the history of all our messages?

Signal developers really seem to have some misconceptions about the priorities of their users…

[0] It‘s not a limitation of iOS itself but that Signal doesn‘t want to allow to store data and keys in a way that would ‚leak’ them to Apple - not even if I, the user, wouldn’t mind that.

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perhaps, backups, even encrypted, hosted at Apple or Google doesn't fit the values of Signal and many if not most of their users?

Not being able to back up app data to another device that I own because its encrypted with a hardware-tied key that I can't access is a terrible design that plagues modern mobile devices. It's my device; I should be able to access any data on it.

There are plenty of viable security models where the app data could be securely protected from Apple or Google by using a key that I own and can use on other devices.

That sort of feature is dangerous, and very likely to cause at least one vulnerability. If I were running signal, I would be very reluctant to, and careful in implementing it.

Anytime you use a device you need to trust the manufacturer itself is not malicious. The difference between storing and decrypting a database on an internet-connected Apple device and storing it in Apple’s iCloud is minuscule.

Then it doesn't respect the users enough to be considered free software. The user must be free to do whatever he wants, even sending a plaintext copy to Google.

Signal is primarily used by people sensitive to privacy concerns, so I’m not sure they are misconceptions.

Signal without the privacy obsession has no reason to exist. If you don’t value privacy, it is just a niche, hard to use messenger.

What do you mean, "hard to use"?

I daily drive a Linux phone. I use Signal because there is no iMessage or WhatsApp client for Linux that works for me.

How is it "hard to use"? It's really as simple as WhatsApp or Telegram.

No web interface and constant need to link to other devices.

There is a desktop application that works really well you only need to link it once. Exactly like the WhatsApp web app.

Might be something with my system them. I keep having to link every month or two.

Not a serious WhatsApp user either, so my comparison is FB messenger.

Just use WhatsApp then…

Maybe he doesn't want Meta/government having a full map of all his contacts and messaging metadata?

Maybe he is tired of enabling the secure checkbox for each messages under WhatsApp.

Seems like you are talking about Telegram, not WhatsApp?

I would have to trust Meta on top of Apple for that (and there is no way that you do not have to trust the manufacturers of your devices anyways, imo).

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