WhatsApp - continuity of account - messages? What messages??.

[David]

There has been a lot of chuntering about not being able to lose WhatsApp messages however hard you try. However I am not 100% convinced.

If you start with WhatsApp on a phone, you can then change SIM cards and still see your messages. After that you can change phones and keep the same SIM card and still see your messages.

Through that there are 2 things - phone and SIM card - and as long as you have one the other part can be authenticated.

However I am not sure that there is an independent ID (such as a Gmail account) which can be used to re-establish your identity if, for example, you lose the phone in the sea.

You would, I assume, have to get a new SIM card with the same number to re- establish the chain. [Although what happens if the number is re-issued after your contract lapses?]

Otherwise your phone and SIM card are just strangers with no access rights.

Anyone know otherwise?

I assume that not many on here have made a determined effort to lose WhatsApp messages (assuming you even use this).

Cheers

Dave R

[Tim Streater]

[snip]

Can't see why anyone would bother backing up WhatsApp or indeed any text messages. If the content is anything useful and not just chit-chat, I'd expect it to be sent to me by email so it *can* be properly saved. AFAIAC, WhatsApp etc messages are just like someone scribbling you a note on a bit of paper. After reading/acting on it, chuck the scrap into the fire. It's worth no more than that.

[Joe]

You'd think so, wouldn't you?

And yet we find that cabinet ministers, including the PM, have been using it for government business.

Business records, including emails containing business discussions, have to be kept for seven years. Why is the government not required to do at least the same?

But apparently some of the highest policy in the land has been discussed on this childrens' toy.

[AnthonyL]

The SIM card is not needed once the account is set up. It is not used for WhatsApp communication which solely requires an internet connection of some sort. My wife when going overseas with her dual sim card takes out the sim, used for data in the uk and registered with WhatsApp and puts in a local sim. Her friend gets into all sorts of muddles trying to change the sim and re-establish WhatsApp.

But I've also changed my second sim card which was used to register WhatsApp and there is a clear procedure on how to do that. I can't recall it offhand, just google whatsapp change sim. You don't have to have the same number, as I said, the communication is not done over the SIM and the number is merely an identifier, but one that can be validated when you originally register.

I'll be doing it again soon as I will be ditching Three, though for convenience I might try and save my number as a few people now use it rather than my SIM1 as they can see what it is/should/was be when looking at my WhatsApp profile.

[AnthonyL]

That's fine if you only get tittle tattle. Remember also that WhatsApp is end to end encrypted, which I doubt your emails are.

Finally if I want to have a clean up but retain history I email the chats to my email account.

So just because it is "AFAIAC" other people's mileage may vary and lots of folk, particularly overseas with mobile only do not do email.

[Tim Streater]

Oh, instead of calling each other on the phone or having a quick word in the bar, you mean. Gosh, it's the end of civilisation as we know it.

For the same reason that if someone passes me a note with some info on it (say while we're both in a meeting), why should I keep the scrap of paper after I've digested its contents and possibly acted on them? The same applies to bollocks on Twitter etc, which is nothing more than pub chat.

If chummy had passed me a formal memo in that meeting, that would be different.

People are attaching too much importance to what is in fact trivially unimportant. And the covid enquiry is risking going the same way - becoming a blame game and a chance by those who didn't have the repsonsibility scoring political points against those who did, instead of a serious attempt by all, to LEARN LESSONS.

[Joe]

That's already under way.

I did say 'government (i.e. *our*) business'. If they're just talking about their grandchildren, fine.

If it's work-related (i.e. government of the UK) it needs to be on record, exactly the same as in any business. Secrecy begets tyranny. If it's just personal, they can shout at each other from rooftops for all I care.

'Blame' goes hand-in-hand with 'what went wrong'. If we don't know what went wrong (and why) then there's no point in even pretending to try to do better next time. We need to know who made the bad decisions and why, and the 'who' may not be a minister, but someone entirely unelected who advised by means of What's App. We meed to know that.

Blame is less important. We already know that nobody will ever be sanctioned in any way, no matter how many deaths they were responsible for. But we, the public who pay their wages, need to know who did what wrong, in order to know how much faith to place in their future pontifications. Some people are already discredited, the names 'Johnson' and 'Ferguson' spring effortlessly to mind, but there are others. We need to know who, because in future we need to do the opposite of whatever they say.

[SteveW]

But it never has been all on record - a quick phonecall, a chat in the bar, a few words when passing, a talk over lunch. That is how ideas are raised, probed and maybe just dropped or raised for official consideration.

If all such conversations were logged, it would stifle brainstorming ideas, probing the oppositions thoughts, etc.

[Tim Streater]

Hmmm, sounds like we'd better wire up (with mike and tape recorder) anyone working for the central and local government, any nationalised industry, and any outsider who has any sort of meeting with any such person. Oh, and I see you say "same as in any business". You mean anyone working in the private sector is already wired up in this manner? Gosh.

No, that is NOT why we might need to know it. You're talking total bollocks. We need to know it so that future politicians can do a better job. See, we elect politicians to take decisions for us and manage how things are done. And you appear to expect perfection in this process, something which has never happened anywhere at any time on the planet. People necessarily have incomplete knowledge, and yet you expect them to be able to predict the future with 100% accuracy and get it right 100% of the time. You should have been alive in the 17th and 18th centuries. You'd have no doubt had fun hunting out witches.

[Tim Streater]

Exactly. Joe is just a fool, seems never to have lived in the real world.

[Vir Campestris]

I have a window over there on the other side of my screen with whatsapp in it. You can run it from anything with a web browser.

It's quite easy to copy things into it and out of it, just as you can with email or twi.. err.. X or farcebook.

Andy