Re: [Jami Android - 20221225-01]

[bill-auger]

> How to delete a message?

once a message is sent and received, it is impossible to delete
- it "happened"; and past events can not be altered - when the
message is delivered (usually immediately) the receiver has
received it, and probably has read it within seconds - so
deleting chat messages is pointless, in all normal circumstances

that is not specific to jami - it is fundamentally true for all
libre communications software - some may have such a feature,
which appears to delete messages; but is never sincere - it is
always an illusion, which can be exposed by the receiver (or a
"MITM" observer, if the message is not encrypted properly)

only non-free software could have a reliable deletion feature -
it still would be an illusion; but because it is non-free, it
would be very difficult for a user to remove that illusion

the important thing to remember, is that a deletion feature is
not very useful anyways; because, the message has usually been
read by the receiver, within seconds of receiving it - so, not
only is there no point in deleting messages, there is no point in
keeping them either - the time window of relevance for any chat
message is very narrow - in all normal use-cases, chat needs no
storage - all messages may live only "on-the-wire", perhaps
cached, but only for re-tries of failed deliveries

if the message was important or has a longer time window of
relevance, then synchronous communication such as chat, is not
the right tool for the job - asynchronous communication with
permanent storage (such as email or web forum), are much more
appropriate