Hi all,
I have some messages from an unrooted Android 14 phone that are now relevant to a potentially life-altering legal case. I can't read these as they encrypted in Crypt14 format, the account is blocked by a "log in" screen, and the phone no longer connects to internet or other radios. I've had several Graphene OS phones on which I've reinstalled WhatsApp since then, which I no longer have access to. The Graphene phones produce Crypt15 files. I have been trying to recover the Crypt14 messages by copy pasting them from the old phone to the new one with a cable and trying to trick WhatsApp into skipping the Google Drive backup search and picking up a local backup (from the crypt files) instead. I get to the local backup, but can't get it to restore.
My question is if reinstalling WhatsApp has changed the decryption keys WhatsApp fetches from the server, or if the decryption key remains consistent across all app installations linked to the same phone number. Secondarily, if Crypt 14 files are accessible with a decryption key that will also work on Crypt15 files.
I was able to get a partial messages backup last time I changed phones, a process I don't understand since I no longer have a Google account. It didn't include the messages from the time I need them. I have however and deleted several Google accounts since then trying to get the copy-paste method to work. I don't have access to the Google Drive from the original account anymore. If encryption keys are changed after reinstallation, I have potentially completely botched everything. I am wondering if its worth the risk to install WhatsApp on a burner Android which has been rooted, as apparently rooting will give me access to a key file if not the key in question.
Thanks a lot for reading all the text