Great update. Patiently waiting until the day I can decouple my phone number from my Signal "account" though.
I seriously doubt it’ll be a decoupling. They might come up with a coupling like Telegram - having both at once.
You can change your number
271–280 of 410 posts
Re: You can change your number
#272It's been promised for years, but you still can't use a second phone as a linked/secondary device. As a result, it is literally impossible to have the same signal account on two iPhones. Since they already support using an iPad as a linked device, this would require little more than changing a flag and a recompilation. Maybe they have their reasons, but all they keep saying is 'soon'.
This is the feature I want most. I have my EDC and then I have a "if I drop it in the ocean, oops" phone.
You could bridge Signal with Matrix and then use two Matrix clients.
Quite a workaround, but should work ;-)
Re: You can change your number
#273With SIM swapping, does using a phone number mean someone can takeover your Signal account?
You can turn on Registration Lock which requires the PIN if you "re-register" with signal again.
Re: You can change your number
#274Earlier 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?
The fact that my number is registered to my legal identity? In my country, and I think in most countries, it's not legal to sell a SIM without checking and recording the buyer's legal ID.
Re: You can change your number
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regarding your specific issue: You could get your daughter a VOIP number, which can run as an app on the iPad. VOIP numbers can process text messages too, which should enable Signal's confirmation message.
Do you have any suggestions on where/how would be best to get a VoIP number?
It's very easy; you could have it up and running in an hour, possibly. Here are market leaders for small business, and I presume they would handle consumer accounts. In my very limited experience, I had the best experience with RingCentral.
* RingCentral: Softphones only (i.e., applications on a computer), IIRC - no hardware handsets.
* Nextiva: In my one experience, the sales culture as a bit of a hustle, but it worked out.
* 8x8
* Star2Star: Don't know much about them; maybe medium-to-large business only.
Re: You can change your number
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually there are two main problems I'm referring to. You identified one of them. If I want to stay anonymous, I'm really asking how to compartmentalize chats and groups of people. We have different identities with different groups and use different names with them. The other problem is actually the act of sharing a username. If my username is "godelski" then yeah, I can share it on HN and Reddit where I use that us…
> Alternatively, if I have a username "not_godelski" then how do I get in contact with someone on HN while maintaining anonymity? You can't, and I don't think that's a surprising outcome. If you have a non-anonymous identity on one platform, and link it to your anonymous identity on another, then that latter identity is no longer anonymous. You just can't really mix your anonymous and non-anonymous worlds without de-…
Signal could create pseudonymous UN's on the fly
Re: You can change your number
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're great compared to the alternative of simply storing a plaintext register of every pair of communicating parties on the server, which is how other messengers work. What's "good" about phone numbers is that they're tied clientside to a "buddy list" that everyone already keeps --- their contact list. They don't want phone numbers on the merits of phone numbers.
Also, Signal envisions (or envisioned) contact lists as a foundation for a distributed, secure, private social network, under end-user control. It's an obvious solution once you think about it (a signal of brilliance).
For skeptics, here is Moxie talking about it:
https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/
... Signal began by using the social graph that already lives on everyone’s phones: the address book. Rather than a centralized social graph owned by someone else, the address book is distributed and user-owned. Additionally, having the social graph already on the device means that the Signal service doesn’t need to store a copy of it. Any time someone installs or reinstalls Signal, their social graph is already available locally.
Re: You can change your number
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you explain this a bit more? Am I correct in understanding that you feel it hurts you when your contacts find out that you have signal installed, hence why signal shouldn't do it? What is the impact of someone who has your phone number knowing you are available over Signal? Are there communities out there where someone being on signal is a red flag?
There are subcultures that are not widely accepted where this is an issue. Take the furry subculture as an example. You might not want your family or college pals to see your furry profile picture and pseudonym, but you also might not be aware of the implications of using a messaging service where the primary ID is your phone number. Many people hand out their phone numbers permissively, as historically, they weren't…
> among privacy-conscious users and members of fringe communities
Sure, but this is realistically a tiny group, and development effort is probably better spent making the 99% that don't fall into this category happier rather than prioritizing features needed for the 1%.
Re: You can change your number
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those both rely on the assumption that being offline for a little while = app uninstalled. Not always so.
They can just say the message wasn't received. They don't have to say it was uninstalled. Just loudly tell me things aren't working like I expected. That's all this takes.
You could just check for yourself if it's important. I do.
Re: You can change your number
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you provide documentation of that version of how Signal operates? You can see the links from Signal and Matthew Green that I supplied. > I'm talking about contact-discovery, wherein the client regularly sends (hashed versions of) all the phone numbers from your contacts (if you've shared them with the app) to Signal's servers If they are hashed, why do you need to trust anyone?
You can read Marlinspike's 2017 description of an approach they were then rolling out – & AFAIK still use – at: https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/ Note it relies on SGX for privacy. (Anything they did earlier may have involved even more trust of Signal Inc's servers.) Hashes across the (tiny!) space of all phone numbers are easy to reverse via brute-force. But also, again: how do you think Signal is a…
Thank you for the link! That helps a lot.