Add “Missing Messages” to Imessage Today – Some Cryptographic Engineering Minds

This is a cryptography blog and I always feel necessary to apologize for any post that is not “straight cryptography.” I actually get a little tired of asking for it (even if you want some hard-core cryptography content, there are many HERE and HERE.)

Sometimes I need to remind my fellows in the real world, our job is not to solve interesting math problems: This is to help people communicate safely. And the people, in this case, need a lot of help. Many of my friends are federal or work employees for contractors, and they fear to lose their work based on language they posted online. Unfortunately, “online” in many people include thoughts Sent to private text messages – Thus even private conversations become chilled. And while it’s hard the worst thing that happened to people in the world, it’s something that happened to my friends and neighbors.

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So let me reach the point of this relatively short post.

Apple iMessage is encrypted, but is it “safe”?

A majority of my friends “Norie” are iPhone users, and while some start downloading the signal app (and you also need a lot of them a communication protocol: Apple iMessage. Most of this because iMessage is the only built app used by Apple phones. If you don’t know branding, all you need to know is that imonage is “blue bubbles” you get when talking to other Apple users.

apple boasted that the iMessage app Encrypts your messages ending in the end, and it has done it since 2011. This means all your messages and attachments are encrypted under the keys that Apple doesn’t know. The company is more consistent about it, discussing it in their Guide to the platform insuranceand in recent years they raised their protocol to give Post-Quantum Security. (A few years ago my students and I found a bug in protocolBut Apple is getting better – so I personally confident in their encryption.)

It’s great. And it’s all true.

But encryption in transit only one side of the story. After your messages can be delivered with unrestricted post-quackum security, apple permits two things that are not very good:

1. Imessages stick to your phone forever Unless you ruin it (a process that needs to happen on both sides, and is ill be annoying.)
2. Imasags automatically support Apple backup to Apple’s iCloud, if there is that part – and because Apple sets as default on iPhone setup, most ordinary people.

The combination of these two parts replaces the imontage in a star logging style of your life. Looking for today, I can find messages from 2015. Even if my brain tells me it’s three years ago, I trust it’s a Full decade in the past.

Now, while the above messages are harmless, I want to convince you that it is always a bad thing. People like private conversations. they It is appropriate to have private conversations. And their technology should feel they are safe to do it. That means they need to know that their messaging software has their back and make sure those who shame or political or risque text messages are not stored on a person or a backup.

We know how to fix it, and every other messenger has long been

If you have installed whatsapp,, Facebook messenger,, Signal,, Snob or even wire (please not!) You will meet a simple feature mentioning this problem. This is usually called “Missing messages“, But sometimes go to other names.

I’m about to shamefully explain what this feature is, because it’s like explaining how a steering wheel moves. However. If you start a chat, you can decide how long the messages should be together around. If your answer is foreverYou don’t have to do anything. However, if this is a sensitive conversation and you want it ephemeral in the same way a phone call is, you can pick up one hour, usually from 5 minutes in 90 days. If time is running out, your messages have been erased – your phone and phones to the people you talk to.

A separate side of instability messages is that some platforms leave these conversations from device backups, or even as they make sure expired messages cannot be restored. It has meaning because Those conversations should be ephemeral: People clearly don’t expect text messages to go around the future, so they don’t get angry when they lose a few days.

Beyond the basic technical functionality, a lost side messages something said. It informs your users that a conversation is truly fastened privately and soon, that the explosion of radius containing. You don’t have to think about it years or months in line when shameless. It’s valuable not for what it does technical But for the trust given by users, which are more insecure after years of abuse of tech companies.

Why does Apple don’t look like a lost messages with messages?

I don’t know. I honestly can’t tell you. It opens and odd and wrong, and no moves with the industry they attach. It’s more strange for a company that forms all things like this:

To recap, almost each other other modeling product that people used in large numbers (at least here in the US) There are some kind of loss of messages with messages. Apple’s disappearance begins very rare.

I have some friends who work for Apple Security and I try to talk to them. They usually try to avoid me when I do things like this – sometimes they talk about the lawyers – but when I’m annoyed with situations) I’m impossible to answer my questions. For example, if I ask “Why don’t you turn Ending the final encryption of iCloud backup By default“They gave me thoughtful answers. They tell me how to fear to lose the data, and they tell me the sad stories how hard to make the parts available as unused backup. (I half believe them.)

If I ask about the disappearance of the messages, I am ashamed of mildews and crickets. No one can explain why Apple is farther away from this basic part though As an optionThen it becomes the pattern of every other messenger. So the best I can do is own. Probably Apple executives are afraid to Press the governments of them when they activate a security feature as it? Perhaps message messages are written in some an unusable language and they cannot update it? Perhaps iMessage servers become sending and now controlled Tim Cook like a puppet? These are not good answers, but it’s better than anything that the company offers – And all of the Apple Security Security knows it.

In a monument of wrong priorities, Apple spent time add Post-Quantum Encryption to Isessage Protocol – It means Apple users now safe from Quantum Computers who do not exist. And yet the most private secrets of users can be read on their phone or from a backup to anyone who can imagine their passcode and use a search box. This is not a good place to be 2025, and the apple needs to do good.

A couple of technical notes

Because it’s a technical blog I feel forced to say some things only one tad is more detailed than the prayer of the above.

First, Hofe Hoffman I’m point at a small portion of your phone settings called “Continue messages” (Buried under “Message” forever “it’s a great decision for some people to make, though, because it’s a great decision for any old messages you think.

More importantly (as mentioned in comments) it only affects yours phone. Messages that have been erased by this process remain on the phones of your conversation colleagues.

Second, if you want to secure your IMAS You must turn on Advanced Data Protection to Apple data. Activate this end-to-end encryption for your iCloud backups, and ensure no one but you can access messages.

It’s not the same thing that fades messages, because all protection is backups. Your messages are still on your phone and your encrypted backup. But at least protect your backups better.

Third, Apple announces a part called ICloud messagesdesigned to back up and sync your messages between devices. Apple even announced that this feature End-to-end encrypt!

I hate this talk because it CAN wrong. ICloud messages can be encrypted, however, if you use iCloud Backup without the ADP (which is default for new iPhones) Messages of iCloud Encryption Yawe itself Back up to Apple servers in a form that the apple itself can access. And so the content of the ICloud Database messages can be fully applied to Apple, or anyone can think of your Apple account password.

None of this is associated with the omission of messages. However: that part, with accurate anti-backup protections, go higher way to make it backup concerns.