Comment by tamimio
2 years ago
So basically copying telegram way. That being said, why does Signal still require a phone number in the first place? Exactly, because when needed, it will be used to be linked back to your real identity, it has nothing to do with spam or anything, Signal isn’t a social media with public posts and what not, it is a messaging app.
> why does Signal still require a phone number in the first place?
From https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/
> We use third-party services to send a registration code via SMS or voice call in order to verify that the person in possession of a given phone number actually intended to sign up for a Signal account. This is a critical step in helping to prevent spam accounts from signing up for the service and rendering it completely unusable—a non-trivial problem for any popular messaging app.
I'm not sure why you need to assume that it will be linked back to your real identity; I haven't seen anything that indicates any motivation to do something like that. I'm all for being cautious, but being overly cynical can lead to letting perfect being the enemy of the good.
For the spam part, I commented below how’s that doesn’t work and it doesn’t even make sense for a messaging app.
> I'm not sure why you need to assume that it will be linked back to your real identity;
I’m not assuming, only North America (edit: and some European countries) doesn’t require an ID for a phone number (1), and even in here, you would use it in other services that are linked to your real ID like banks or paying the phone bill online. The concept simply boils down to as soon as you find an account’s phone number, it’s a game over for that said privacy.
(1) https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/sim-card-regist...
> The concept simply boils down to as soon as you find an account’s phone number, it’s a game over for that said privacy
You completely misunderstand what kind of privacy Signal aims to achieve. Signal protects you from eavesdropping and data hoarding, two major privacy issues with solutions like Facebook Messenger for example.
They do not and have never claimed to offer a service where “privacy” means nobody knows who anyone is, it isn’t Tor and I wouldn’t want it to be.
If you don’t like the goals and design choices of Signal, just use another service.
There are benefits of the choices they’ve made, namely ensuring that most users of the service are “real people”, which I think is great. It’s not a social network, it’s a messaging app between friends that solves issues presented by alternatives like SMS or Instagram; that’s it.
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You lose anonymity. You do not lose privacy, which is still secured by the message encryption.
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Neither Signal nor Telegram allow to pay a small amount in cryptocurrency to prove you are not a spammer. This shows that they are really interested in knowing who is their user.
It's either that, or perhaps they're looking for a solution that works for 99% of people.
There are places where one's mobile phone is effectively one's identity. South Korea for example:
<https://www.nfcw.com/2022/10/20/379863/south-korea-to-roll-o...>
Sure, but that means that your phone number is linked to your identity even without Signal? There's no additional data that Signal links to it, other than that you're a Signal user and when you sent your last message.
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Definitely not a copy of Telegram. I'm not actually sure what the draw is with Telegram but given it's origins I'll choose Signal over Telegram.
If you read the thread the linkage between a phone number and a Signal account cuts down on fake accounts significantly - which has nothing to do with "social media" but it does have a lot to do with SPAM as you've incorrectly stated. I understand why it's not ideal, but there are tradeoffs in both directions. It's unlikely that usernames are going to expose users more than they currently are if they're already using Signal. And it's also unlikely that this new feature changes much, but I welcome the ability to prevent users from associating my known number to my Signal account. In this way the security model has improved considerably.
Telegram has channels and groups that work in a weird but very useful way. That's mostly the draw for me, not really the private messaging. Though the UX is just amazing, even for private messages. Everything is just super neat and where you expect it to be. I'd still probably not use it if it wasn't for how channels work
Telegram's privacy is questionable but its UI is absolutely outstanding.
I know right? Telegram is one of my favourite iPhone apps, hands down, purely on the basis of the interface. It’s also incredibly performant, which means a lot considering I use a 6S model from 2015. In comparison, the last discord update became literally unusable, for performance reasons (it was so bad, i ended up deleting it).
Does Telegram still have a feature where you can see who nearby you is using Telegram? That to me is a reason alone to not install it.
This feature requires you to press the button that says “make myself visible” — and then it shares location. Like most apps, you can deny the location access at a system level and never worry about it.
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> why does Signal still require a phone number in the first place?
Governments won't go on a crusade against Signal as long as they keep records of who is using their platform to commit crimes.
Signal won't commit to being an anonymous platform likely for that reason.
Yep, plus I (and many others) feel the US government is satisifed with the information that Signal provide to the government and it has to follow juristictions such as NSLs: https://dessalines.github.io/essays/why_not_signal.html#a-si...
It is a way to increase usability for casual users, decrease spam by requiring some other source of identity tied to real existence (emails are easier to generate than throwaway phone numbers).
It may decrease privacy philosophically, but it isn't nefarious.
If you want a private messaging platform with zero prerequisite identity, use Briar.
> It is a way to increase usability for casual users
You can keep it as an option.
> decrease spam by requiring some other source
Phone numbers never been a good way to counter spam, just look at social media, you can buy phone numbers in bulk these days, not to mention spam might work in social media because there’s the concept of “public space” where everyone shares and talk, so it does make sense for some bad actors to spam or even trying to influence others, that’s not the case in messaging app, because first I need to know your “unknown” username that I can’t see it elsewhere, and second, the efforts are worthy for such unsolicited message, which in case it was, you can get a burner to send it. The point is requiring a phone number to counter spam doesn’t work, and it doesn’t make sense either for messaging apps.
> If you want a private messaging platform with zero prerequisite identity, use Briar.
Well, personally I don’t use Signal, never will in its current state, but they always try to promote it as privacy messaging app while still relying on a broken system known as GSM.
A lot of spammers opt for media that does not require the effort of obtaining a phone number. It's the bike lock model: no bike lock is ever safe, but as long as your bike is parked next to bikes with a weaker lock, you have a pretty good chance of not having to walk home on foot.
> It may decrease privacy philosophically, but it isn't nefarious.
It doesn't decrease privacy. It decreases anonymity which is distinctly different.
> If you want a private messaging platform with zero prerequisite identity, use Briar.
Or Session which is a fork of Signal that runs it's own network using standard PKI instead of a phone number for identities and a decentralised message delivery/onion routing system.
> It is a way to increase usability for casual users, decrease spam by requiring some other source of identity tied to real existence (emails are easier to generate than throwaway phone numbers).
You either end up discriminating against users who have to use VOIP for whatever reasons (and there are legitimate reasons) by blocking VOIP numbers, or your barrier to entry for spammers is almost negligible. It's not a good system.
If you want to prove that users are humans, use a webcam and an id, or delegate the task to some bigcorp who already has a similar system. If that's too much for you in terms of privacy, you shouldn't be attempting to prove that users are humans in the first place. Maybe you should prevent spam via product driven solutions, e.g. whitelisted contacts.
For the people who really don't want a phone number, make them pay via mobilecoin. Lets them raise money and prevent spam.
You can use burner voip numbers, it doesn’t need to be a gsm sim in your phone or tied to your identity in any way.
>it has nothing to do with spam or anything
What experience do you have to have gained this confident knowledge?
Would they be able to resist a secret court order?
Signal publishes their responses to court orders already: https://signal.org/bigbrother/.
Obviously doesn't include warrants they may have received where a gag order is in place, but you can see from the responses they do publish that they only store phone number, initial registration date, and last connection date.
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At this point that's entirely unclear. Because they're keeping your data in the cloud my guess is that the US government can easily access that data and any other government can get anyone's data as long as they can guess the person's PIN. You can find a discussion on the problems with their security here: https://community.signalusers.org/t/proper-secure-value-secu...
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An order to what? Hand over a random phone number?
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No tech professional is going to resist people with legalized force showing up at their door.
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Telegram? Neither ICQ (1996), nor Skype (2003) required phone numbers. That's a later trend, part of general enshittification of internet.
How much spam did you get on ICQ? I remember getting a lot.
I dont remember getting spam, but I ditched it pretty early on in favor of Microsoft messenger (RIP).
Because the social graph sitting in people's phone address books isn't easily replicated, and using phone numbers is basically the only chance of overcoming the chicken-and-egg problem with network effect.