News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Multiple Russia-aligned threat actors actively targeting Signal Messenger. Parent comment

Re:Multiple Russia-aligned threat actors actively targeting ... by subjectsigma on Wednesday February 19, 2025 @02:11PM (#43106097)
My Signal experience: ex gf in college asks what app I’m using to text. Tell her it’s Signal, E2EE, messages are only stored on her phone and nobody else can read them. She says cool and downloads the app. Four months later her phone breaks.

“Hey subjectsigma I got my new phone today. Where are all my messages?”

“… Do you have your old phone? That’s the only place they are.”

“No? Last time I got a new phone WhatsApp moved my messages over, and WA is E2EE so I thought it worked the same way.”

“Nope if you don’t have a backup or your old phone they’re gone. Sorry.”

“This is bullshit. Why does anyone use Signal. I can’t believe it deleted all my messages. I’m uninstalling it. Etc etc.”

We have a long way to go, my friend.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Multiple Russia-aligned threat actors actively targeting ... by noAnswer on Wednesday February 19, 2025 @02:53PM (#43106684)
It only works for WhatsApp if you have Backup to Google activated[1]. I once tried to work with backuped files from my old phone and it didn't work. (Older tutorials indicated that it once worked, though.)

[1] There was a time WhatsApp had a nag-screen if you hadn't Backup to Google activated. So I guess most people would have eventually caved.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Multiple Russia-aligned threat actors actively targeting ... by tremon on Wednesday February 19, 2025 @04:08PM (#43107709)
That nag-screen is still there, it pops up roughly every three months for me (though not on my primary phone, Whatsapp won't get anywhere near that one).
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Multiple Russia-aligned threat actors actively targeting ... by Mistletoe on Friday February 21, 2025 @10:26PM (#43135798)
I don’t understand why people need old messages so badly. If they disappeared it would be fine with me. I set my iPhone messages to auto delete after a few months to save space and it works fine. A text is ephemeral, if I need to save something I use email.
[ Parent | on HN ]