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We're trying to add support for identifiers that aren't phone numbers, since that's what we've heard from users. If we do that, your signal contacts can't live in your address book anymore. Every other app just stores that in plaintext on their servers, which we don't want to do.
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Problem is there won't be anything to "add" to your address book anymore, which is the only non-app storage space. There's no OS concept of "back up locally" on iOS, and won't be for long on Android. And if we did it now on Android it'd require something much longer than a PIN.
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Backing up locally via SAF works fine. No need for the deprecated Storage permission. The app can request persistent access to a directory for backups and the user just chooses the backup directory via SAF and the app. Can't something similar be done on iOS via their equivalent?
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For many years, it has been possible to take an approach to shared storage access respectful of user consent and control over their files. It's sad even security/privacy apps need to be forced to do better. It makes it a better feature too: they can use other storage providers.
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So, in the case of backups, the user can choose to use a directory provided by a file sync service, etc. to have encrypted cloud backups with the provider of their choice or their own self-hosted service. Apps just have to implement this via the proper API giving users a choice.
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