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You can change your number

signal.org

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Re: You can change your number

#171

Post by caslon »

theamk wrote: post #59
caslon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord keeps your friend information on their servers. This is, like tptacek said, exactly what Signal is trying to prevent. If servers get seized by the Feds, they don't want to needlessly reveal who's contacting who for everyone. It's about storing as little personal information as they can.

Question: do you use Signal? If yes, are you backing up/syncing your contact list? If yes, are you worried about Feds coming for your backup/sync provider?

If that happens, that's not a disastrous thing. That means one person reveals who they're talking to in general, not just on Signal. It doesn't mean that the millions of Signal users all lose that privacy.

But no, I don't use Signal. I just think it's strange how some people can't seem to wrap their head around any of the rationale for this when it's the most transparent thing in the world. Do I like it? No, but it's ridiculous how some people pretend to be incapable of critical thinking in order to talk about how it's horrible. If something is actually horrible, being deliberately obtuse isn't needed.

Re: You can change your number

#172

Post by panopticon »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #145
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're also critical to getting people to move from WhatsApp. Next time when Facebook pulls something user-hostile (e.g. monetization with ads, yet another privacy policy change for the worse, ...) some people will simply install Signal. If they use phone numbers as (an) identifier, two people who do this independently can immediately switch to Signal. If A convinces B to switch, and C convinces D to switch, B and D…

> Next time when Facebook pulls something user-hostile ... In my opinion with or without FB putting anything more hostile people are moving, in drones, to Telegram. I see regular people (non-tecchies at all) in my friends' circle joining Telegram regularly. I'm not saying TG is better than Signal but I think TG's userbase is many orders of magnitude bigger than Signal's.

> people are moving, in drones, to Telegram

As an aside, the idiom is "in droves".

Re: You can change your number

#173

Post by raspyberr »

viccuad wrote: post #9
Vinnl wrote: post #2

> We built Change Number using the foundation of more exciting features to come. Surely this is referring to the ability to use a non-phone number ID, which they've hinted at before [1]. Looking forward to that, only because I know many others are! [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/kt91qk/comment/...

Oh, I'm surprised, after a decade stating that phone numbers were great for ID.

They mainly used numbers so they could leverage the social graph of phone contact lists. That way they didn't need to store any social graphs on their systems.

Re: You can change your number

#174

Post by raspyberr »

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…

Signal started off as a secure SMS replacement. Also, they mainly used numbers so they could leverage the social graph of phone contact lists. That way they didn't need to store any social graphs on their systems.

Re: You can change your number

#176

Post by scotty79 »

bt1a wrote: post #150
scotty79 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. I find my interlocutor knowing my phone number a severe threat to my privacy.

Sure - that's why Signal is for secure communication between individuals who have some level of trust. There's nothing stopping your interlocutor from leaking all of the messages you send to them, what's the big issue with them having your number?

> Sure - that's why Signal is for secure communication between individuals who have some level of trust.

If I have this level of trust with someone they are about at level of adding them as a friend on Facebook. Who knows, I even might invite them on Facebook sooner than I decide to give them my phone number.

> what's the big issue with them having your number?

Seriously? With my number you can harass me endlessly with phonecalls, text messagers, registering for various services that will harass me basically forcing me to abandon this phone number and notify all of my valuable contacts of the number change.

Hell, they might even plaster town with my number with advert saying "Win 50$ in Chewbaca noise contest by subitting your best attempt at that number." as one creative asshole did to some poor girl.

> There's nothing stopping your interlocutor from leaking all of the messages you send to them

That way less of a problem if I haven't doxed myself in those conversations. All he will publish is some conversations he had with someone.

Re: You can change your number

#177

Post by gst »

godelski wrote: post #160
Vinnl wrote: post #2

> We built Change Number using the foundation of more exciting features to come. Surely this is referring to the ability to use a non-phone number ID, which they've hinted at before [1]. Looking forward to that, only because I know many others are! [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/kt91qk/comment/...

I think the real question is what "usernames" will look like. There were hints dropped that this could be stronger than a typical username (like what HN has). I took a poll on reddit[0][1] to see what people wanted. I was rather surprised at how many wanted strong anonymity. I expected that the top choice would be the weak anonymity, where people just have an alternative to phone numbers. But I think if that's what S…

> I think the real question is what "usernames" will look like. There were hints dropped that this could be stronger than a typical username (like what HN has).

Quite a bit of code related to usernames has already been checked into Signal. Here's the username regexp and the method that checks if a username is valid: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/a5e5a735800...

Re: You can change your number

#178

Post by Aachen »

rcarback wrote: post #136

It is early stage, but there is now an alternative to Signal that doesn't use phone numbers at all: https://xx.network/messenger/ While you can add your number to be searchable by others, it doesn't let strangers with your number know you signed up automatically, either. Full disclosure: I work on the infrastructure behind it.

In years of browsing desktop-focused websites on my phone, this is the first website that lags at 2fps while I try to use it. High-end Samsung phone from ~2 years ago (second hand) so cpu power definitely isn't the issue. It also goes back up the page randomly if I scroll a certain way, maybe it tries to lock the view to a certain region rather than in between?

No idea what's going on with that site but I can't check out your project. I'd be interested in a ~two-sentence description of what it's like and how it's different. E.g., is it using the Signal protocol without phone numbers? It so, how's it different from Wire? If not, what does it use, custom protocol? Does it have a description I can look up elsewhere?

Re: You can change your number

#179

Post by colordrops »

palata wrote: post #121
colordrops wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What does this have to do with being tied to a phone number?

Re: You can change your number

#180

Post by colordrops »

sa1 wrote: post #56
colordrops wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is for proctecting your data from other end users. Signal still needs your number to provide to three letter agencies.

On the contrary, they started out with phone numbers so that they could avoid storing user data on their servers. The whole plan to finally have usernames comes down to their use of Intel SGX.

What does being tied to a phone number have to do with avoiding storing data on their servers or SGX?
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