Privacy

30856 readers

428 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

295

Signal leaked random contacts to me! (feddit.de)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

88 comments fedilink hide all child comments

When I press on some message to forward it, it shows me Random usernames of contacts I don't know. And it even shows some Mobile Numbers I don't know. For example, one number starts with +964 that's Iraq. I'm from Europe tho. These contacts and numbers are from all over the place.

Edit: This only happens on Signal Desktop. If I try to forward a message on Android it only shows my Contacts. And none of these unkown ones.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Has anyone else been able to reproduce this? I just tried and was not able to.

OP, is it possible these people were in group chats you were part of?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I still don't see any bug report anyone can follow up on.... I cannot trust OP's experience until that's linked here.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

The bug report forum from Signal doesn't give you any link.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No, they are not. I'm in two groups. None of them are in the groups. I only use Signal for Real life friends from my Country. I never joined any random group. These people are from all over the world.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Interesting. Are there any other accounts on your phone that provide contacts? Maybe social media or other chat platforms? On Android you can see accounts in Settings > Passwords & Accounts (or somewhere similar; it varies a little between brands). You can also check inside your Contacts app by expanding the sidebar (again, varies by brand).

Just a thought. I don't have any other contact providers on my phone so I can't test it myself.

Please keep us posted if you get any official response or learn anything new!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Nope. And I maybe had to add (did it now) that this only appears to be a problem with Signal Desktop. My signal app on android doesn't even show other contacts from strangers. I will update this if I get a response, of course.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Group chats very likely. There are often sync issues from mobile, so these may just be old spam or group chat numbers.