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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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Privacy
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I thought peoples big problem with it was not wanting to give others their number to use signal? Like I meet Joe Blog online and don't want to give him my real number to chat.
Less people worried that signal had their number?
Seems the second group is a vocal minority. This feature helps the first group, but doesn't help the second group.
According to Signal, the first group is the larger group and this helps the most users of Signal.
Could it be better? Sure. This is still a good step in terms of privacy, even though it doesn't really improve anonymity.
Its important to not let perfect be the enemy of good.
Personally, I care about the phone number requirement not because I don't want to reveal it to Signal servers, but because it limits access to Signal for people in countries that block their SMS service - registration messages just don't arrive
It's specific to signal? Like they want to block people registering or what's up with that SMS block?
Not specific to Signal. I believe he was referring to places where Twilio doesn't serve, for example because of sanctions.
Putting a SIM card in a phone exposes it to enormous surface area of attack. People have been asking to register with anonymous emails instead of a phone number, like Wire has had for years
Do you need the SIM card inside the phone after registration?
Does it matter? At that point your phone is owned by Pegasus et all with zero click vulns
The issue is that giving your phone number to Signal Messenger LLC is giving it to others, and therefore not keeping it private in the usual sense of the word.
Some people may be unconcerned about a corporation knowing their number vs. their contacts knowing their number, but that doesn't diminish the misleading aspect of this headline.