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End-to-end encryption question

I have a quick question regarding end-to-end encryption. Facebook is looking to introduce E2EE as the default across all of its messaging platforms in the next year or so. My question is this:

Say I exchange messages with a friend over the new E2EE Facebook Messenger (or if we have historic messages that exist prior to the update to E2EE). We both then get new laptops, new smartphones, tablets, etc.

Will the new devices still be able to access our historic chat logs (that either pre-date E2EE or occurred afterwards), or will it be as if those chats never existed, as E2EE relies on the specific *device* to decrypt them, and thus aren’t stored?

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Re: end-to-end encryption

In reply to End-to-end encryption question

I never heard complaints about old Whatsapp messages and pictures being unreadable if you moved them from your old phone to your new phone. That shows that Facebook (that owns Whatsapp) knows the trick.

In fact, I’ve never heard that things you enter your PC via a VPN (be it cookies or pictures) aren’t readable later. That shows that, while the transmission is encrypted, everything is stored on your PC in an unencrypted form.

Response to Kees_B

In reply to Re: end-to-end encryption

Hi! Thanks for your reply!

Sorry, I didn’t mean physically moving them from one device to another. Say you got rid of your old devices and got a new device and had to re-download all the apps, but didn’t move over any of the data through SD cards etc?

What about in that instance?

Re: reinstall

In reply to Response to Kees_B

Re-installing the app only puts the app on the phone, not the data.

Re: reinstall

In reply to Re: reinstall

Ah ok, so if it was end-to-end encrypted, and you re-download the app on another device, it will not port the conversation threads over?

I’m sure you’ve heard folk complain about this.

In reply to Re: reinstall

This is why we backup and check we can restore what we can’t lose. We can’t rely on Whatsapp to do this for us.

We only lose what we don’t backup.

In reply to End-to-end encryption question

Don’t have backups? It’s a sure bet you’ll lose those messages and more.

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