Conversations: Feature request for exporting/importing OMEMO keys

Created on 4 Jun 2016 · 9Comments · Source: iNPUTmice/Conversations

It would be a nice feature to be able to export and import the OMEMO keys for backup and transferring to a new device. So it should be possible to get the old history via MAM on a new device back.

Since this feature could also be dangerous in case of key leaking this maybe should be hidden in the expert settings.

Source

fuesschen

👍4

Most helpful comment

What? That's a workaround, but a very poor one, that no ordinary User will ever be able to use.

And it produces unencrypted Backups (containing links to downloaded files that might not be there on the next phone and similar stuff), not i.e. just a key - encrypted with a keyphrase you had to choose while exporting.

So this is poor workflow, will result in more bugs/problems AND is less secure.

DrAzraelTod on 11 Oct 2016

👍8

All 9 comments

https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/blob/master/README.md#how-do-i-backup--move-conversations-to-a-new-device

iNPUTmice on 4 Jun 2016

What? That's a workaround, but a very poor one, that no ordinary User will ever be able to use.

So this is poor workflow, will result in more bugs/problems AND is less secure.

DrAzraelTod on 11 Oct 2016

👍8

I've just been complaining about this again, and yes it's a very cumbersome workflow which isn't particularly secure. I admit that I am not the average user and occasionally completely change Android images, so losing keys each time is irritating. What I'd like is a backup/restore keys option with a passphrase so that the exported file isn't in plain text. I could plug in an external USB drive and save it there, then keep the drive offline.

It's sufficient of an itch that I might try to implement this myself at some point.

ghost on 6 Jul 2017

👍2

Same here with adb backup, basically exporting went ok, got an encrypted file (since the device was encrypted) that one can unpack (not sure if it had what it needed though) and then trying to restore nothing happens, no error or anything, but files are not actually restored.

I'll try a backup/restore soon, but it's a pain to deal with it failing :(

@iNPUTmice Was this tested before ? Did it work at some point?

licaon-kter on 6 Jul 2017

👍1

Please reconsider reopening this, @iNPUTmice. :-)

Manual use of adb is hardly a user-friendly workaround.

How about passphrase-protected backup onto a storage access framework-selected location, or using a share button? This would allow storing passphrase-protected keys onto something like Drive, or emailing, or onto a self-hosted SFTP location, or whatever the user considers secure enough.

ivucica on 12 Sep 2018

👍3

This is an absolute must have. In my family we're 6 people and everyone is getting a new phone every year, so I have always the situation where I cannot see my old messages, because they were not encrypted for my current device and moreover I have to greenlight the new key in all my gajim installations for carbons and tell the other people that I have a new key and they have to accept it in their gajims. This is totally crazy to get a new key with every new phone! This is the main flaw that drew my friends to telegram and whatsapp, and it is really hard to sustain on the good side...
I've just looked over the curent pull requests and nothings seems to be so substantial like this closed(!) request ... you are the developer and you decide what to do with your time, but this seems to be wrong.