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You can change your number

signal.org

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Re: You can change your number

#121

Post by palata »

colordrops wrote: post #50
shishy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's so nefarious... phone numbers were just the easiest way for them to create a portable social graph without requiring users to re-discover if anything changed. Plus, it looks like this move is going to push them in a direction where phone numbers won't be required (as they've indicated previously is in the works).

Ok, but now that it's not tied to phone numbers anymore why do you still need one to sign up? And why has this been "in the works" for years? It's certainly not that hard to implement. Many less capable and mature messengers work without a phone number.

I am pretty sure it's harder than you think, while keeping Signal's UX and privacy level: https://signal.org/blog/secure-value-recovery

Re: You can change your number

#122

Post by Trias11 »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #3

That's cool. Can I not use a number? Would it be so hard to add a username field? That the default is phone-number based for discovery is a savvy and logical move for adoption. So add it as an optional feature. The conclusion that I immediately arrive to is that this software must be a honeypot of some sort because it makes no sense. Literally zero.

Exactly. Honeypot developed by spying entity.

Otherwise anonymous usernames + passwords would perfectly do.

Re: You can change your number

#123

Post by palata »

wyager wrote: post #64
usea wrote: post #8

How can I use this without a phone or phone number at all? If I am concerned about privacy, why would I give them that access and information when it's not necessary for the service? Surely they are only trying to gather information on their users. Whether it's being sold, breached, or used for ad targeting, I am not interested. It comes across as a scam. I cannot take seriously any claims made by the company or its…

Check out Wired; it's a signal clone, but they don't require phone numbers (just emails) and it seems to be built a lot better in many ways (e.g. allowing multiple accounts on one device).

How does it compare in terms of privacy? I mean Signal's private contact discovery, private groups, private profiles, sealed sender, etc?

Re: You can change your number

#124

Post by palata »

smm11 wrote: post #70

Signal installs via the app store, and you all are freaking out that it might reveal your phone number? Okay, then.

To be fair, you can build it from sources, and I'm pretty sure they provide an apk (they used to, at least).

Re: You can change your number

#125

Post by tialaramex »

nottorp wrote: post #58
grlass wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal keeps all downloaded media locally until you delete it. They don't have the resources to store files on the cloud, even encrypted, and don't appear to have taken WhatsApp's approach of backing up unencrypted media and messages on user's third-party cloud services like Google Drive and iCloud. You can mitigate this by having disappearing chats (current longest self-destruct time is 4 weeks), or by going to Sett…

Whatsapp can be configured to not save all the cat photos and memes to your library by default. You can still save the really good memes yourself if you want. Signal should just copy that feature. Also, what good is secure encryption if i have to give out my phone number?

> Also, what good is secure encryption if i have to give out my phone number?

Actually how could you possibly deliver secure messaging if it doesn't work with simple identifiers you already have like your phone number? Everything should be secure, that's Signal's thesis.

This reminds me of the people who were convinced HTTPS should only be used for "important" stuff that "needs to be secure" like banking and so it's wrong to have HTTPS on your blog, or news site, or whatever.

Re: You can change your number

#126

Post by pndy »

yusmary wrote: post #45

All that is cool, but I don't want Signal to advertise my presence to anybody that has my phone number when I first log in after a fresh install. I have only a handful of people that know and we negotiated that face to face prior, Signal breaks that trust

That's exactly what happen to my SO and I can see how this can be an issue to many people. The unexpected and unwanted convo with a particular person happen just because he had mobile number saved in phone's address book and despite of not giving Signal access to contacts, the presence of SO was announced.

Re: You can change your number

#127

Post by palata »

scotty79 wrote: post #67

Why would supposedly secure communicator use actual phone number as identifier is beyond me. And everybody does that, either phone number or email. The only software I could find for anonymous communication was old Polish communicator http://gg.pl which uses arbitrary numbers as identifiers I understand that startups are scared that they won't be able to build up userbase from scratch but come on! Discord and Slack d…

Two words: threat model.

Re: You can change your number

#128

Post by tenuousemphasis »

sgarman wrote: post #61
tapoxi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're working on usernames, but what's the privacy concern around using your phone number? Is it to be pseudononymous? My use case for Signal is friends and family, and it was easy to get everyone onboard because we all have each other's phone numbers already and didn't need to build a new list of contacts. It's a drop-in Android-compatible replacement for iMessage.

Personally I don't have a privacy issue with it per se but I have two phones, one is data only sim and I can't use signal on that device with their current model. I guess because the device is a "phone" whatever that means. If they do away with this reliance on phone numbers hopefully we could get something more flexible that allows me to use it on "phones" without phone numbers.

Did you try this? It should let you use Signal on two phones

https://signal.org/blog/ios-device-transfer/

Re: You can change your number

#129

Post by _joel »

jokowueu wrote: post #5
rvz wrote: post #4

How about no phone number at all?

You can use wire instead

Myself and another geeky friend tried to get out non-geeky friends away from messenger and whatsapp (well, at least get them to use Signal, talk to us via it and perhaps migrate, baby steps).

Despite a really good uptake, some didn't make the move and it's definitely fragmented some of our online groups (makes it more interesting when physically catching up though, silver linings!). I'm not sure throwing yet another messaging platform would help.

Re: You can change your number

#130

Post by Zedseayou »

samatman wrote: post #88
valleyer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a shade away from the typical "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument, and is in my opinion equally invalid. Let people decide for themselves what in their lives is OK to share with others. You don't need to know the reason why.

Either you don't understand how Signal works vis a vis phone numbers, or you're expecting something unreasonable. The behavior which is reliably objected to by someone on HN, every time Signal is mentioned, is that the app sends a user an alert when someone in their contacts list is on Signal. Phone numbers are the only resolution mechanism in Signal. Should that change? Separate question. Having someone's phone numb…

At least personally, the privacy violation is most clear if you are not part of a community that uses encrypted messaging by default (nearly everyone I know who uses SMS/FB messenger). The fact that someone I know has downloaded Signal then reveals that they now care about using encryption, which usually has the very obvious inference that they are involved in activism/have journalistic sources/other more nefarious activity that they care about encrypting. You can usually figure out which it is if you know anything else about that person. I would not know this if Signal didn't push the information to me, since I am not going to constantly search my entire contact list to find this info.
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