- cross-posted to:
- foss@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- foss@beehaw.org
You must log in or register to comment.
Finally, been ages.
A number is still needed to register I believe.
Requiring a number is a good way to limit bots.
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
PoW…Prisoner of war?
Proof of work. Example, bitcoin
How does this prove anything if using an emulator to bulk register bot accounts? Also, Signal Desktop is a thing.
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.
And how can a VM or emulator NOT do this?
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.
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?
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.
Its important to not let perfect be the enemy of good.
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
It’s specific to signal? Like they want to block people registering or what’s up with that SMS block?
Not specific to Signal. I believe he was referring to places where Twilio doesn’t serve, for example because of sanctions.
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
Do you need the SIM card inside the phone after registration?
Does it matter? At that point your phone is owned by Pegasus et all with zero click vulns
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.
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.
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.
What is MLS?
Kinda stupid for privacy to hand over your phone number… Very counter intuitive
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.
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.
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
we’re already banning bots, thus effectively making them time-limited. Yet we still have bots and spam on there. This sadly won’t work.
That sucks and is quite unfortunate, would’ve been cool to have another option other than signing up with your phone number but I suppose it’s alright
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.
Updated on iOS via US App Store - feature not available just yet. Looking forward to it in a few days perhaps!
found this in the article
Right now, these options are in beta, and will be rolling out to everyone in the coming weeks.
Same for me
It was nice to use it in nightly. It’s good it came to stable.
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?
SimpleX was the best for my purposes when I looked, but Briar is a compelling option as well.
The case can also be made for element, but it lacks forward secrecy and honestly the app kinda sucks.
SimpleX
jami
Threema?
I mean it’s nice but I do not know a single pirson who uses signal
Hi friend!
Now you do.
Some people switched when elon asked them to. Then they went back to the meta app.
Still register with a phone number is a red flag. I prefer SimpleX.
Great, I’ll get more spam
omg so cool right? they finally invented usernames. IRC is jealous.
