[sneak]

> If you care about security, all you have to do is turn off iCloud backup, and everything is secure.

No, each conversation has at least two endpoints, and it's unlikely that the people you iMessage with have disabled iCloud Backup.

It's sort of like switching from gmail to avoid Google having access to your correspondence: they'll get it from the mailbox of the people still using gmail (so, everyone) that you correspond with.

[vineyardmike]

Ok yeah, i should have been way more clear here. I just meant that your data can't be snooped from the cloud, due to encryption, if backup is turned off.

Of course, this also assumes you trust apple and the implementations of encryption, blah blah blah typical security-depends-on-trust-someone-somewhere warnings.

[unsignedchar]

Very good point. In addition to iCloud Backup for messages, people could also have Messages in iCloud turned on as well

[pseudalopex]

Messages in iCloud is end to end encrypted.