this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
179 points (96.4% liked)
Technology
59381 readers
3821 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't have it on desktop anymore, but if I install it now, the desktop app won't have any conversations that I have on my phone. I use a Matrix bridge instead that doesn't forget messages.
Correct, it will only have all future messages. Nothing historic. But it should sync literally everything going forward.
Well, I don't like this. The idea of sacrificing messaging history in favour of illusory security gains doesn't sit well with me. Same goes for Signal backups.
It's not "security" gains, it's privacy gains, and not storing messages in a central location is a privacy feature, not a bug.
That said, it's not for everyone, and I respect that. That said, I don't use Signal for things that need to stick around long-term, it's just an SMS replacement for me, and messages are only relevant for a week, at most.
Whatever, I mean 3rd party access to messages, which includes both security and privacy.
Have you ever heard of Viber? Even though their chats are E2EE, there's an option to sync them from mobile to desktop, and it was available for more than a decade. Messages are not stored in a central location.
Signal just isn't good enough for anything serious. It's a rather simple and not a very convenient app, that is getting too much attention from privacy enthusiasts.
There's no technical reason why they couldn't sync messages, but there is an attack if they do. Basically, someone could set up a new device with your account and grab all of your past messages. Since Signal doesn't sync messages, they'll only get messages going forward.
It should certainly be an option to sync, but I don't think it should be on by default (or at least it should ask on setup).
So just like I said, illusory security gains.
The security gains may be illusory, but the privacy benefits are significant.
Not being able to see my old messages on desktop is a privacy benefit? I don't think you are correct.
Yes it is. If you can set up the app on a new device and access all your old messages, then that means anyone who can get your account creds can do the same. That could be a hacker, an ex, or law enforcement.
To each their own. I get the need to have historical chat and all, and I run a Mattermost server for friends for the last few years and I depend on history there too. But on Signal it's really just what I use with work peeps for after hours non-Teams IT chat in case something breaks and they needs emergency help since we all basically mute notifications for Teams after work.