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Resetting Secure Backup ruins device verification / cross-signing #22168

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@AndrewFerr

Description

@AndrewFerr

Steps to reproduce

  1. Go to Settings->Security & Privacy -> Encryption -> Secure Backup -> Reset, in order to change your Security Phrase
  2. Follow the instructions to start a new backup with a new phrase
  3. In a few moments, will get a prompt to "upgrade your encryption", which is reminiscent of the upgrade to enable cross-signing

Outcome

What did you expect?

Only the backup for message encryption keys should be rebuilt from scratch, which is a fairly invisible event.

What happened instead?

All of my clients appeared as untrusted devices to each other, anyone I had verified before became marked as unverified, and I appeared as unverified to them. It is as if cross-signing keys were reset.

And FWIW, Element Android said that it didn't have cross-signing private keys, as also seen here: element-hq/element-android#5090 (comment) . Logging out & back in fixed that issue, but the issue of lost verification remained.

This happened with both a matrix.org account & a self-hosted account.

Operating system

Fedora Workstation 36

Browser information

Firefox 100.0

URL for webapp

app.element.io & self-hosted Element Web v1.10.12

Application version

No response

Homeserver

matrix.org & self-hosted Synapse 1.57.1

Will you send logs?

No

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    Labels

    A-E2EEA-E2EE-Cross-SigningA-E2EE-Key-BackupO-UncommonMost users are unlikely to come across this or unexpected workflowS-MajorSeverely degrades major functionality or product features, with no satisfactory workaroundT-Defect

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