this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
759 points (98.5% liked)

Technology

61203 readers
4630 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
759
Signal will finally let you transfer your encrypted chat history to new linked devices (mas.to)
submitted 2 days ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
106 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] noisefree@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This may be out of date, since it's been a while since I last tested this, but: will Signal on desktop still store media in an easily accessible folder where the only security is the use of random strings to identify each individual media file with the file type extension deleted? So, for example, if you've had the desktop Signal client synced with your account for a period of time and have running conversations that include sensitive media, that media can be accessed and viewed without even opening the desktop app (which also, last I tested it, lacks most of the locking/security mechanisms found in the phone versions of Signal).

Most media viewers can open the files without the need for adding the file extension to the end of the filename, albeit you would be browsing the files in a pseudorandom fashion if you didn't try to sort by date or size.

[–] Macros@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It is quite a bit out of date luckily. Signal-Desktop already stores data encrypted for quite a while. However it used to store the decryption key right alongside it. Recently (a few month ago) Signal switched to storing the key within the systems keystore, greatly improving security. Also causing a flood of users complaining that the can't just copy their .config to a new desktop and retain their chat history. This may have prompted the release of this new feature :)

[–] Petter1@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago

😂and 98% do upvote this old news, it is crazy

[–] noisefree@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago

Good to know!