Signal tests usernames that keep your phone number private
Signal tests usernames that keep your phone number private
87 comments
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Still sucks you will need a phone number to use it though. Hopefully they adopt meshnet type technology similar to https://berty.tech so people can communicate even when the internet is shut off across all platforms with end to end encryption
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My mouth waters at the idea of decentralised, infrastructure-less, encrypted, p2p, mesh messaging
Thanks for pointing me towards Berty!
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infrastructure-less
I'd say it is infrastructure-agnostic and not necessarily without infrastructure.
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In the world of Mobile, you’re always going to have to have some kind of signalling protocol that will have to be through someone else Simply because establishing listening functions that help push notifications reach you at all consumes battery. In this case, I think what the real thing should be is, if we should be trusting these push notification systems We should be able to host them as well Servers we choose to associate with our devices
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There's also https://simplex.chat/
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Another day, another chat service.
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Berty looks cool but is it just forming a BLE mesh or an I misunderstanding?
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What is this stupid website. Cant open it because they have banned my IP. Why the fuck do they ban MullvadVPN servers?
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Some malicious users do use VPNs to send spams and many websites automatically bans these IPs. Normally switching to a different VPN server will resolve the issue.
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Surprisingly it's fine on Tor.
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Tor probably can’t carry enough traffic to concern them
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Banned on my VPN, too, good to know I shouldn’t be aggravated at my service.
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Try a different server. I've never had any issues accessing bleepingcomputer with Mullvad.
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Why are phone numbers a requirement anyway
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People are putting too much thought into this. It's discovery. Signal is a WhatsApp alternative. You switch from WhatsApp and want to know which of your contacts you can still talk to? No action necessary, you can do it right away.
Simple as.
Try doing that without a phone number.
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I guess that's true, but I'd prefer the phone number part being optional. If you don't give it, you don't get access to the easy migration or discovery features, but you get to hide your phone number.
Edit: It's not that I don't trust them, either.
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You need some sort of verification that the person is a person. Phone number puts a layer between you and the service you are trying to use - the provider of the number. The provider holds your identity but only passes on a phone number.
It's definitely not ideal, but not bad
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Thing is it is very easy to get a signal account with a fake number, I have 3 different ones. My spare phone don't have a sim or number, but do have signal. On my main phone I have one for each profile.
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Some question to be honest. I cannot expect any privacy if I have to share my phone number.
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Privacy and anonimity are different things. As long as nobody besides you and the indented destination(s) has access to the content of your communication, that communication maintains privacy, even if everyone sees that it's you talking.
Also, and this is something I mention all the time, the only information this gives is that you use signal. Besides that, as soon as anybody else registered your phone in their contact list, your phone number is already known and associated with you considering that many apps (like all the meta ones) gain access to the contact list and the chance that anybody who has your phone number uses one of those is almost 100%.
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They do their best to use the number in ways no one but your contacts who use Signal can actually see what that number is, to be fair. And you're still private either way. What a phone number breaks is anonymity, which is something they don't explicitely claim to give you. (I think)
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omg i’m so excited for this
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c'mon Signal, gimme that apk & I give you some logs in return, don't make it hard on me
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They want you to do just that: https://community.signalusers.org/t/public-username-testing-staging-environment/56866 That link has instructions on how to sign up.
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Noice
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Download and installed but it still insists on a phone number. I don't see a way to bypass.
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I believe they still require a phone number for the TESTING phase but it can be the same oje you already use for your regular Signal (if im understanding it correctly)
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A phone number will always be required to limit bot accounts.
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Bet if you read the link, it explains how to join the Staging test app (separate from main app).
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They will allow to hide your phone number from your profile, but what about your profile name ? This will identify you after your username is used. So you must also remove your name from your profile, this will confuse your previous contacts (I'm not sure if names come from profile or contact list actually).
I feel the options for phone number display are not sufficient to have several privacy profiles.
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Im an idiot visiting from the front page. But this headline without context is wild.
87 comments