The Signal messenger and protocol.

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Signal tests usernames that keep your phone number private (www.bleepingcomputer.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] nao 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

"You will still need a phone number for registration, but you can choose to share it with no one."

Except us, of course.

[–] Aquila 9 points 1 year ago

Phone numbers keep spam down. It’s much much more difficult getting a bunch of phone numbers than it is to get emails so you mass create accounts

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't see that as a problem. They basically only save the phone number, creation date and date of the last connection to the server.

Signal was only able to provide two sets of data: the timestamp of when the account was created and the date of the last connection to the Signal server, as Signal does not store any other information about its users. source

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

and it probably helps battle CSAM a lot too

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't have a [usable] number. My phone is set up as a tablet.

Ergo, fuck them and their boomer fixation on phone numbers.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

They do that for easier discovery of existing contacts. Say someone switches from WA to Signal and they want to contact someone. How'd they know their username? Their contact list would be empty and they would uninstall it. Signal would only be for nerds.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

so go use matrix and get all your friends on it I guess