Computing desk
< January 8	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 10 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

January 9

Transferring WhatsApp to a new device

I'm trying to move all my WhatsApp data, mainly messages logs, to a new phone. I did the followings, according to the instructions on the website:

Entered Settings - Chats - Chat Backup and created a local backup.
Copied the backup file to the new phone to the location WhatsApp\Databases as msgstore.db.crypt12.
Started WhatsApp and verified my phone number.
The app found the backup and asked to restore it.

When restoring, the process ended at 24% for some reason, and the bigger problem I'm having is that nicknames on groups (gray text near the phone number) don't appear.

How do I solve these issues? Galzigler (talk) 06:07, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The file could be damaged. Maybe try the whole process again.

As an alternative, you could backup your messages and restore them through Google Drive. Hofhof (talk) 12:23, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Radio

Question was duplicated on the Humanities Desk. Moving the answers there. --69.159.60.210 (talk) 07:55, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Client for Cisco VPN that saves password regardless of server policy

Just wondering if there is third-party VPN software that will save login details for a Cisco VPN, and not keep prompting every time? Apparently my new university has banned password saving via server policy settings, and the official client doesn't let me override this. I have a Windows desktop, a Macbook, and an Android phone, so suggestions for any of those platforms would be appreciated.

I guess I could use a batch file to autofill the password via the command line, but firstly I don't know how yet, and secondly I realise that a client which encrypts saved passwords would be more secure. Batch files are plain text, right? Anyway thanks for reading. 95.245.37.196 (talk) 15:24, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I use vpnc and save all credentials in the VPN config file. The password is technically pulled from an environment variable set in my bashrc file. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 17:45, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You could use a password manager although it may not be entirely automatic [1] [2].

However note that encrypting the save passwords is not really more secure if don't need to do anything to decrypt the password. Password managers generally allow you to enter a master password to decrypt the passwords. This means as long as the master password hasn't been entered or stored somewhere, then your passwords (hopefully) can't easily be recovered. So for example if someone steals your computer edit: and it's off they're hopefully out of luck. (Although there is always some risk the master password has been stored somewhere, hence encryption of all disks is also ideal.) If you don't need to enter a master password or similar (e.g. connect a device) then there isn't really any significant security. This applies to most saved passwords by software itself. (An exception would be where the software doesn't need to save the password, but this may still allow login since the software obviously can.) Note there isn't any need to install software on your computer. A person (e.g. evil maid) just needs to know where the software stores the encrypted password and perhaps the key (if it uses a randomly generated key rather than a standard one). If the key and encrypted password is fairly long, writing it down will take a fair amount longer and the person needs to know a bit more but that's the only real advantage.

In fact, there is a slight risk malware (although malware may also install keyloggers or monitor the software itself if left too long) may be more likely to know about these stored passwords and steal them than your personal batch file. Note also that some software intentionally makes no attempt to encrypt the password for this reason. Some just does some easily reversible modification e.g. a simple cypher.

Nil Einne (talk) 06:30, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And here's a list of password managers to choose from. Mitch Ames (talk) 10:40, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]