Keep your phone number private with Signal usernames
signal.org
Signal’s mission and sole focus is private communication. For years, Signal has kept your messages private, your profile information (like your name and profile photo) private, your contacts private, and your groups private – among much else. Now we’re taking that one step further, by making your...
  • Stewbs@lemmy.world
    0·
    9 months ago

    About time!! Been waiting for this for so long. This will definitely make the usability of Signal better and it’ll also be more accessible to people who wanted a Telegram like way to talk to other folks. Requiring a number to still register isn’t a bad thing in my eyes though sometimes it can be frustrating so I hope that there’s an option to create an account without a number. Maybe the account will have finite time before it’s auto-deleted if you don’t input a number some time later to ensure that this option isn’t abused to all hell by bots and malicious actors alike.

    • leanleft@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      its a sensible choice because many potential implementers hae been dissuaded by the anxiety attached to risks of giving out phone number. (harrassment, stalker, spammer, scammer) . the telephone system has paralyzed itself in fear. yet we all keep buying their shit.

  • guts@lemmy.ml
    0·
    9 months ago

    Still register with a phone number is a red flag. I prefer SimpleX.

  • LWD@lemm.ee
    0·
    9 months ago

    Just yesterday, somebody commented that Signal might be adding the feature in a few weeks. I was incredulous, assuming it would be months.

    Nope. As soon as I saw this, I went looking for an app update, installed it, and made a username.

  • BentiGorlich@gehirneimer.de
    0·
    9 months ago

    I think its great. Its for people who simply don’t want to share their phone number with other people which is a huge privacy concern, as you can find out a lot about a person by looking up info connected to their phone number.

      • shortwavesurfer@monero.townEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        A PoW could limit bots too. Require say 30 seconds of work before your registration submits. For regular users that isnt to bad. For bots its a PITA to get tons of accounts

        Edit: tor uses PoW as DDOS protection and its helped massively

              • shortwavesurfer@monero.townEnglish
                0·
                9 months ago

                For each account you register, you have to do 30 seconds worth of work. So to register one account, you do 30 seconds worth of work. To register 100 accounts, you do 100*30 or 3000 seconds (50 minutes) worth of work. Registering tens of thousands of accounts then becomes unfeasible.

              • RobotToaster@mander.xyz
                0·
                9 months ago

                It was the original purpose of the bitcoin algorithm to limit spam.

                If you have to do a lot of maths that takes your computer (for example) 30 seconds, that means it costs 30 seconds of compute to create an account. Nothing to an average user, for a spammer that wants thousands of accounts it gets expensive.

                Several captcha[0] libraries already use this and it’s great for accessibility (normal captchas are terrible for it)

                [0] I know, it’s not technically a captcha.

          • Gork@lemm.ee
            0·
            9 months ago

            That will also keep away bots.

            You can only sign up if you’ve taken at least one Prisoner of War. Bots can’t take prisoners of war for obvious reasons.

            Kinda like how Aztec boys came into age in their society.

    • arin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      Kinda stupid for privacy to hand over your phone number… Very counter intuitive

    • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
      0·
      9 months ago

      A number is still needed to register I believe.

      Indeed, which makes their headline a bit misleading. Giving Signal your phone number is not keeping it private.

      • RayJW@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        9 months ago

        Wrong, it still keeps it private but not anonymous. It’s not the same concept and for most thread models knowing that you use Signal is not really an issue, especially since with this feature no one can check if you have one if you don’t give them your username unless they have access to Signal servers in which case they still have nothing except the knowledge that you have an account.

      • 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world
        0·
        9 months ago

        They do a lot of work to keep your phone number private, or at least any data that is tied to it. This username upgrade is solely for someone to communicate over Signal without needing to hand over your phone number.

        For example, you can now be in group chats with internet strangers by just giving them your username.

        On top of that, once MLS is adopted, you can communicate with other messengers as well.

      • PersonalDevKit@aussie.zone
        0·
        9 months ago

        I thought peoples big problem with it was not wanting to give others their number to use signal? Like I meet Joe Blog online and don’t want to give him my real number to chat.

        Less people worried that signal had their number?

        • delirious_owl@discuss.online
          0·
          9 months ago

          Putting a SIM card in a phone exposes it to enormous surface area of attack. People have been asking to register with anonymous emails instead of a phone number, like Wire has had for years

        • fuzzzerd@programming.dev
          0·
          9 months ago

          Seems the second group is a vocal minority. This feature helps the first group, but doesn’t help the second group.

          According to Signal, the first group is the larger group and this helps the most users of Signal.

          Could it be better? Sure. This is still a good step in terms of privacy, even though it doesn’t really improve anonymity.

          • preasket@lemy.lol
            0·
            9 months ago

            Personally, I care about the phone number requirement not because I don’t want to reveal it to Signal servers, but because it limits access to Signal for people in countries that block their SMS service - registration messages just don’t arrive

            • XTornado@lemmy.ml
              0·
              9 months ago

              It’s specific to signal? Like they want to block people registering or what’s up with that SMS block?

              • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
                0·
                9 months ago

                Not specific to Signal. I believe he was referring to places where Twilio doesn’t serve, for example because of sanctions.

        • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
          0·
          9 months ago

          I thought peoples big problem with it was not wanting to give others their number to use signal?

          The issue is that giving your phone number to Signal Messenger LLC is giving it to others, and therefore not keeping it private in the usual sense of the word.

          Some people may be unconcerned about a corporation knowing their number vs. their contacts knowing their number, but that doesn’t diminish the misleading aspect of this headline.

        • American_Jesus@lemm.ee
          0·
          9 months ago

          Telegram have this in a long time, and I never got any spam messages.

          Try to read the article instead.

          • Atemu@lemmy.ml
            0·
            9 months ago

            Don’t bother with this person. All I’ve seen them do is read the post’s title and produce an (often inappropriate) reaction to said title. Peak Redditor.

  • JoYo@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    omg so cool right? they finally invented usernames. IRC is jealous.

  • kksgandhi@lemmy.ml
    0·
    9 months ago

    Great feature, but if I’m reading it correctly, you won’t be able to chat with someone anonymously (because your profile will still be shared). Are there good apps for that?

  • psychothumbs@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    I’m still just so furious at Signal management for removing compatibility with other text apps. I used to be constantly growing my Signal network, now it’s a slowly shrinking rump that I never add anyone to.

      • psychothumbs@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        Right, the idea was that you could use Signal as your SMS app, and so whenever there was someone else doing the same you’d automatically upgrade to Signal. Whereas now I never have those auto-upgrades, any new contact I am just stuck on SMS with.

        • FrankTheHealer@lemmy.world
          0·
          9 months ago

          In my opinion, relying on upgrading users automagically to an encrypted and secure protocol isn’t good practice. If someone wants to use an encrypted chat, they should do so consciously. It will only cause confusion otherwise.

          Do people still use SMS these days though anyway?

          I would have thought iMessage, RCS and separate chat apps like Whatsapp, Signal and WeChat would have largely replaced SMS by now.