The part of the patriot act giving the cia etc warrantless phone search powers on Americans expired and wasn't renewed. It's why the CIA and NSA fight really hard every time Congress renews the part that allows them to surveil foreign/international phone calls.

Additionally, governments want security and privacy too. The navy invented TOR, for example.

On linux you can access your Signal messages in db.sqlite.

once you delete a message from signal, either through disappearing messages or manually, all those messages are deleted from the db.sqlite.

They are stored in an encrypted db.sqlite here:

/home/user/.config/Signal/sql/db.sqlite

you can also extract it from you phone:

only the messages that you can see when you open the Signal app are visible there.

to access the messages:

install:

signal-bakcup-tools-git

https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools

and

DB browser for sqlite

https://sqlitebrowser.org/

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The most straight forward way is to create an output file to html.

copy the db.sqlite to a new directory

open a terminal and run

signalbackup-tools --exportdesktophtml signal.html

this will create folders of all your contacts and messages and media.

easily acessible. open the signal.html files in your browser

=+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

To open db.sqlite as a Sqlite database;

first you need to get the key:

copy the db.sqlite to a new directory

then run in terminal:

signalbackup-tools db.sqlite --showdesktopkey

OpenSSL 3.3.2 3 Sep 2024)

Signal Desktop key (hex):

58bfa167bb66b2b13b2ca6eadc33f4bf7275c254006d17ae5e3de5356c60f0b7

copy the key to a text editor

===========================

you must now add 0x to the beginning of that line:

0x58bfa167bb66b2b13b2ca6eadc33f4bf7275c254006d17ae5e3de5356c60f0b7

then open db.sqlite with the sqlitebrowser

right click db.sqlite, select open with DB Browser for sqlite

select RAW from the dropdown menu

input the passphrase from above. make sure you added the 0x to the beginning.

The entire database opens.

you can view all the information that signal collects. phone numbers, messages, images, media etc

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

this is the difference between Molly and signal.

In Molly you can password protect db.sqlite, Signal removed this a while ago

That's also the lovely thing with AI assistants like Gemini and Recall. Instead of having to deal with the PR fallout of client-side scanning, they just let the AI hoover up your data while it's in plain view on your phone or computer.

Lets be real the US govt effectively controls the certificate authority that almost everyone uses and therefore could mitm most connections anyway

Signal is open source, right? Though that wouldn't stop a bugdoor, it might at least make one harder. As you say, I think getting in through the OS itself is much more likely. Signal would put up much more of an ideological fight than Google, I imagine.