Privacy

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Signal Finally Rolls Out Usernames, So You Can Keep Your Phone Number Private (www.wired.com)

submitted 9 months ago by issue0315@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/12200311

Signal Finally Rolls Out Usernames, So You Can Keep Your Phone Number Private

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[–] kbal@kbin.melroy.org 35 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (11 children)

Whittaker says that, for better or worse, a phone number remains a necessary requisite

Worse. It is for the worse. We sure did wait a long time for this half measure, Signal.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 34 points 9 months ago (9 children)

Is there a reasonable alternative, though? Email addresses? Adding a cryptographic challenge to prevent somebody from generating tons of accounts?

As far as phone numbers go, I'm not a big fan of Signal having them, but I definitely prefer not having to give them out! That change is a huge deal to me, as I can now communicate with people without handing them a phone number. And Signal has provided their client and server source code, along with evidence that their servers store absolutely nothing.

Nowadays, the most likely way your Signal data will get leaked is if somebody screenshots it.

[–] RandoCalrandian@kbin.social -2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It’s the signal metadata that they want to keep associated with an identity

They still can fulfill government requests for who is talking to who and how often

[–] cjf 7 points 9 months ago

Got proof for that last claim?

I thought their sealed sender feature was meant to prevent exactly this scenario.

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