Currently when a user logs out of riot, the app will destroy things like encryption keys. If the logout was done by the user in local app then it will have first prompted the user to export the encryption keys. However, when the app is logged out remotely (i.e. it received a 401 from the server) there is no opportunity to ask the user to backup the keys, resulting in those keys being lost.
While this behaviour is useful in many circumstances, e.g. remote logging out a stolen/lost device, it also means that the server shouldn't automatically log out devices, to avoid users losing encryption keys.
A new parameter is added to the JSON body of 401 responses, called
soft_logout. This is a boolean flag (defaulting to false) that signals to
the client whether it should keep local data and simply prompt to reauth (when
true) or to destroy the current data like it does today (when false).
The major disadvantage with this approach is that once the client is logged out, the user can no longer remotely cause the client to destroy the local data. However, this is not substantially different from today where the app has to be opened to receive remote logout requests (via 401), as it allows attackers to get at encryption keys even after remote logout if they simply avoid opening the app.
When handling a soft logout the client could show a "re-login" dialogue, rather than back to the default logged out screen. This new dialogue would then have several options including logging out, exporting keys and logging out fully.
One alternative is to force the user to enter a password for backing up keys when they enter the app, and then have the app keep secure backups of they keys. This then means its safer to not delete the secure backups when the app is logged out remotely.