[eitland]

> think saying "chats are stored in plain text" is a reasonable way to convey that message

If I keep your messages encrypted in my database and your keys on another unonnected database in another building, would it then be fair to say that I store your messages in plaintext?

No. They are encrypted. It is a matter of fact.

The word you are looking for is "not E2E encrypted" which can be a problem, but a different and smaller problem.

> and I think "plain wrong" is an overstatement.

No. It is a statement of a fact.

[heinrich5991]

>If I keep your messages encrypted in my database and your keys on another unonnected database in another building, would it then be fair to say that I store your messages in plaintext?

If you can still access them, I don't think it is fair (or maybe rather: it is misleading) to say that you store them encrypted.

[eitland]

If you cannot trust me it doesn't matter.

If you trust me but are worried that someone else might break into the server it makes a huge difference.