In DeltaTouch, in a chat, you can click “+”>Contact and choose from a list of that profile’s contacts, to attach a VCard of that contact to a chat message.
Sometimes the menu says you can add the VCard of a contact you’ve deleted. It’s a sort of ghost of a contact. This could be a security issue, if someone was trying to hide the fact that they once communicated with another person.
This happens if the contact remains a contact on another profile (that is, I added a contact to profile 1, then added it to profile 2 and deleted it from profile 1; it still shows up as a VCard I can send from profile 1).
Another way to produce a ghost of a contact is:
Create profile 1
Create profile 2
Copy-paste the QR code of one into the other so they form a contact.
Send a few messages. Yes, you are sending messages to yourself between two profiles in the same client, which does feel silly. I sent a webXDC app, not sure if this is necessary.
Add a second contact (profile 3) to profile 1. You can create a profile 3 for this purpose if you want.
Delete profile 2.
Open profile 1. There will be two chats, for profile 2 and profile 3.
Open the chat with profile 3.
+>Contact to add a VCard to the chat.
The menu will list profile 2, as it should. Profile 1 does not know that profile 2 no longer exists.
Go back to the list of profile 1’s chats.
Delete the chat with profile 2. There is now no contact for profile 2 anywhere.
Open the chat with profile 3, again.
+>Contact to add a VCard to the chat.
The list will include an option to add the VCard of profile 2.
I was slightly reluctant to create and instantly abandon lots of accounts, even on a server called testrun, so I only tested this replication once; it is possible I’ve left out a step somehow. But I have certainly got a ghost VCard for a contact which I thought I had deleted fron everywhere in my client.
Thanks! Is it correct that you delete the contact first, and the chat with this contact only afterwards? If so, can you delete the contact again after the chat with the contact has been deleted, and does the issue still persist in that case?
Edit: It looks like you are not deleting the contact at all? “Deleting a contact” => Click on New Chat at the bottom of the list of chats, swipe the contact to the right and click the delete icon. I don’t think that any DC app will automatically delete the contact information from the database when all chats with a given contact have been deleted.
What do you think developing a client looks like People around me are regularly asking “are you talking to yourself again”
I deleted profile2 first, then profile3’s chat with profile2. I can’t subsequently delete profile2 again as it no longer shows up in the “Switch Profile” list.
I deleted profile2 by swiping it right in the “Switch profile” list and clicking the red trash can icon.
Then perhaps there should be a “purge contact” feature (for when someone knows they are about to have their phone searched, say). Though it might be difficult with groups; I think group members would automatically re-add one another, so you’d have to delete the group, and maybe purge those members who only had contact with you thru the group.
You are learning important things by talking to yourself.
I think there’s a misunderstanding. The “purge contact” feature is there (edit: as explained by @link2xt, it’s not a real “purge”). In profile 1, click on “New Chat”. This one here:
There is a “delete contact” feature as @lk108 says, but this actually just hides the contact if you still have messages or chats with this contact. If it is a security issue, then you also need to consider that this contact may at any moment still message you with some follow-up question or a quote you have deleted from you device at just the wrong moment.
When I go to “New chat” to delete profile2, it is indeed still there. If I swipe right and hit delete, I get a pop-up:
Delete contact [profile name] ([email address])?
Contacts with ongoing chats or from the system address book cannot be deleted permanently.
That is quite clear about potential nondeletion, though in this case I don’t have ongoing chats and I’m not sure what the system addy book is. After I confirm, I can no longer add profile2’s VCard to a message.
Alice and Bob talk using two profiles each. Alice_chat and Bob_chat discuss the weather, woodworking, and the best way to keep slugs out of your cabbages. Alice* and Bob* discuss politics. Mallory is about to get control of Alice’s phone, so Alice purges her Alice* profile. The purge removes all the contacts only Alice* has, and sends all Alice*'s contacts an alert first. Mallory looks and sees only boring discussion of slug slaughter.
If Alice were less careful, and had only one profile, but Bob had two, she could still purge Bob* with similar effect.
People around me are regularly asking “are you talking to yourself again”
