this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2025
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Privacy

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Nowadays, a majority of apps require you to sign up with your email or even worse your phone number. If you have a phone number attached to your name, meaning you went to a cell service/phone provider, and you gave them your ID, then no matter what app you use, no matter how private it says it is, it is not private. There is NO exception to this. Your identity is instantly tied to that account.

Signal is not private. I recommend Simplex or another peer to peer onion messaging app. They don't require email or phone number. So as long as you protect your IP you are anonymous

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[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 8 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Here, go argue with this guy for a few weeks, and give us a break for a while.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 2 points 16 hours ago

what information is provided to an entity about whom.

"Content" and "Context"

Why is only message text considered "information / content / context" here. Signal has your real name and address via phone numbers, and has every other real person you talked to, and when. Why is "message text" considered context, but social networking graphs aren't?

All these definitions are highly subjective, and the above one clearly considers social networking graphs to not be "content". Basically they've re-defined privacy in a way that excludes highly sensitive information like everyone you talk to, and when.

Signal allows you to speak confidentially, therefore it is private. It is not, by default, anonymous. Yes, this plus the centralized server mean that potentially dangerous metadata, like relationship maps, can be collected. All indications are this isn't the case, but that's not something you can count on.

If you need anonymity, which you probably do at least a bit, use simplex. And yes, having more people using anonymous services like simplex is a good thing for the community as a whole. That said, I'm not going to try to convince all of my friends to use simplex. It's just too far from the mainstream, missing too many features. Signal is a sufficient compromise for most people, and it's sufficient for me for most purposes.

[–] unexpected@forum.guncadindex.com 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Been saying this for many many years and always get blank stares in response. All the more annoying when its for use in groups that are all about privacy and they only want to use telegram.

However, it does make me happy to finally see someone else say it. So, thanks for that.

[–] lunatique@lemmy.ml 1 points 17 hours ago

We are the rarity. Lol people in the comments are glitching over this statement

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This thread shows the success of Signal's PR campaigns, and how a shiny app can get people to overlook all the privacy concerns. They're just as successful as Apple at getting people to think that a US-based corporation hosted on Amazon's servers and subject to national security letters, whose privacy model is "just trust us with your phone number", is in any way secure.

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