Signal has announced new functionality in its upcoming beta releases, allowing users to transfer messages and media when linking their primary Signal device to a new desktop or iPad. This feature offers the choice to carry over chats and the last 45 days of media, or to start fresh with only new messages.
The transfer process is end-to-end encrypted, ensuring privacy. It involves creating a compressed, encrypted archive of your Signal data, which is then sent to the new device via Signal’s servers. Despite handling the transfer, the servers cannot access the message content due to the encryption.
With the introduction of a cross-platform archive format, Signal is also exploring additional tools for message transfer to new devices or restoration in case of device loss or damage. Users can begin testing this feature soon, with a wider rollout expected in the coming weeks.
I see. I just don’t have adversaries, and if they got hold of the memes and inane conversations I have about whose turn it is to pick up the kid from school then good luck to them.
Ehhh, that’s an easy thought.
But what about when your memes point to you being in a group that is now illegal, or oppressed? What if something you said a year ago is now being looked for as a sign of possible opposition?
It’s nice to think “I have nothing to hide”, and for the most part, most people don’t.
But that conversation about who’s picking the kids up from school is enough to help pin down where you’ll be at a given time, when you’ll be apart from your family, it gives an insight into family dynamics, it gives hints as to your personality, and your partner’s.
You stack that with exchanges about groceries, errands, etc, and now anyone who can get access to your measures messages can predict a lot more about you
Since fascism in particular is coming back with a vengeance, your can’t even predict what you’ll be targeted for.
Now, take all of that info, combine it with location data that’s even easier for a government to get, and you’re fucked.
Don’t forget that a woman was arrested because she helped her daughter obtain abortion pills. They got the info via Facebook, but with the messages being gone would have prevented that, or made it much harder.
This is the world we live in now. None of us are safe, none of us can rely on the rule of law. It’s rolling the dice as to what can be used against you.
Same topics here, which is exactly why I have no use for archiving chats.
Why? That stuff is literally your life, it’s absurd to toss it in the void.
If you don’t have adversaries then why not use SMS? Though this just ends up with the tired old “if you have nothing to hide” argument that I’m not really interested in repeating.
Those examples also don’t sound like things you’ll need to look up months or years down the line, either. So why not just let them fade away?
SMS is inconvenient and expensive and I can’t really send SMS messages from desktop. I use IM because it’s more convenient, not because it’s more secure, though it’s a neat bonus.
And why would you not be looking that up months or years down the line? Why would you want to trash it?
I use signal for real time communication. Which is mostly casual bullshit or organizing. What exactly would I want to look up beyond say a week’s time? In-person and phone conversations fade away all the same.
Because I don’t want someone going over long-term records of my chats if my devices are ever compromised. I consider those conversations private and would rather they were forgotten than leaked.
Uhm, anything and everything? Like what “casual bullshit” you were up to or what you were “organising”?
So you don’t even wish you could preserve those?
That’s crazy to me how different some people’s idea of social relations is. Well you do you! Thanks for explaining!
I’m honestly curious and your answer just parroted what I said without explanation. Are you just sitting around reading conversations from months ago for entertainment or something? What value are you getting out of keeping chats from years ago?
Not in the slightest. For what purpose would I want that? I’m not making a This American Life podcast using my inane conversations.
No not really, not outside of if I’m reminiscing with the person the convo was with (see examples in my other comments ITT), but I will ctrl+f and find info that way of something they said to me for sure.
Access to information? Not deleting things I might need or that might be useful later? Memories? Records of things that happened?
Kind of the same reason you’d keep a diary, but without the effort of actually writing anything in one. What’s even the point of writing anything if it’s just gonna be gone in like a week?
What value are you getting out of deleting them? Are you low on storage or something? Or some sort of minimal living life-in-my-backpack type?
Monetary value isn’t the only kind of value to me I guess. Different strokes.
We are all but dust, my friend.
I already gave my reasons. I don’t want a history of my conversations that can be leaked. I enjoy my privacy. And I have no other reasons to keep them. I was just looking for an actual reason to keep these because I just don’t get it. And I guess you’ve got nothing to offer there. Which is fine, I was just trying to understand.
Implying that the only value I recognize is monetary? Don’t be a dick.
That’s very fatalistic. In the end, unfortunately, for now, maybe, but that doesn’t mean the journey doesn’t have memories worth making and things worth keeping, especially when it comes to our bonds with others, and especially when it’s just undeniably useful, or we’d never have invented writing.
I mean I gave the reasons many times over? From personal to purely practical. If they don’t seem to have value to you, that’s on you. I don’t know what else you want?
You’re the one who said you’d keep them for a podcast? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a dick, i was just going off what you said.
I got a few people to switch from SMS to Signal because they’re on iPhones, I’m on Android, and they love sending me videos that end up totally unwatchable via MMS.
The “nothing to hide” thing is a bad argument, IMO. I’ve got nothing to hide, but I lock the bathroom door when I go in there.
Sometimes it’s been useful to go back through a chat history and find something someone said in the past. A group I’m in regularly rings up old references from a year before. I like it.
I’m a bit of a digital hoarder though. I keep blurry photos from years ago, no clue why.