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Comment by nh2

Or this case we encountered, where on iOS Signal apparently corrupts its sqlite DB, leading to loss of all messages.

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/5813

Interestingly here, the sqlite DB would be trivially fixable, and messages restorable, with the `sqlite3` CLI.

But there's no way to get at that sqlite DB file. Even if you change Signal's code to add a feature to export the DB, it apparently cannot see your DB, because iOS sandboxes that so that it is only visible to Signal builds signed with the Signal developers' keys.

So that means your messages are all there, on your device, running open-source software, and yet you cannot get them.

This cannot have been the intention of Signal being Free Software. Where is "change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1)"?

(I do not use iOS myself but have friends suffering this issue. Everybody involved is programmers and yet we seem to be able to do nothing about it.)

So it seems that even though the messages are on the user's device, it really is the Signal developers who "own" that data, and have the exclusive and ultimate control over it.

Makes me wonder:

Does this mean users suffering this need to GDPR-request their data out from Signal?

parent nh2 11 hours ago

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