And if so, why exactly? It says it’s end-to-end encrypted. The metadata isn’t. But what is metadata and is it bad that it’s not? Are there any other problematic things?
I think I have a few answers for these questions, but I was wondering if anyone else has good answers/explanations/links to share where I can inform myself more.
…if someone reports them
That means if they want to see your messages they do it anytime, not only when someone report it.
If a government want access to the messages they can access.
but how can they read them when its encrypted?
Unlike other messaging apps, they have access to encryption keys, when you change devices you only need to fill the phone number and all of your messages are available.
On other apps like Signal or matrix, you need to backup or export your keys to other devices, otherwise you can access previous messages.
It’s like you own an apartment and the doorman have keys to all apartments, if you lose the key the doorman can give you a copy, but also have access to your apartment when it pleases.
Don’t you need to have backed up your messages in Google drive to be able to restore them when changing devices? And up until the multi device update when someone changed their phone you’d get a text saying your encryption keys with them has changed.
And I remember talks in matrix about the need for a single password solution to appeal to masses.