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An analysis of X(Twitter)'s new XChat features shows that X can probably decrypt users' messages, as it holds users' private keys on its servers
(blog.cryptographyengineering.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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To extend this, that includes YOU giving your key to another application to decrypt those messages.
For example if you use an app or browser extension, that app or browser extension has access to that key. Additionally the browser itself or operating system had access to the key.
Now they may be fully audited. They may have a great reputation. You may trust them. But they are part of the decryption (and if sending encryption) process.
It's a chain of trust, you have to trust the whole chain.
Including the entire other side of the conversation. E2EE in a group chat still exposes the group chat if one participant shares their own key (or the chats themselves) with something insecure. Obviously any participant can copy and paste things, archive/log/screenshot things. It can all be automated, too.
Take, for example, iMessage. We have pretty good confidence that Apple can't read your chats when you have configured it correctly: E2EE, no iCloud archiving of the chats, no backups of the keys. But do you trust that the other side of the conversation has done the exact same thing correctly?
Or take for example the stupid case of senior American military officials accidentally adding a prominent journalist to their war plans signal chat. It's not a technical failure of signal's encryption, but a mistake by one of the participants inviting the wrong person, who then published the chat to the world.
Are you so sure Apple doesn't have your keys? How are they migrating the keys to your new device? It's all closed source
The actual key management and encryption protocols are published. Each new device generates a new key and reports their public key to an Apple-maintained directory. When a client wants to send a message, it checks the directory to know which unique devices it should send the message to, and the public key for each device.
Any newly added device doesn't have the ability to retrieve old messages. But history can be transferred from old devices if they're still working and online.
Basically, if you've configured things for maximum security, you will lose your message history if you lose or break your only logged-in device.
There's no real way to audit whether Apple's implementation follows the protocols they've published, but we've seen no indicators that they aren't doing what they say.