this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
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Privacy

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I remember a time when visiting a website that opens a javacript dialog box asking for your name so the message "hi " could be displayed was baulked at.

Why does signal want a phone number to register? Is there a better alternative?

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[–] tfm@europe.pub 16 points 4 hours ago

Privacy ≠ Anonymity ≠ Security

[–] SolarPunker@slrpnk.net 5 points 3 hours ago

Because it's centralized, I prefer SimpleX.

[–] Core_of_Arden@lemmy.ml 13 points 4 hours ago

I think it's important to remember de difference between being private and being anonymous. Signal IS private. It's not anonymous. The same is true for many other apps/services.

Personally I like to be private. I don't really need to be anonymous.

[–] irotsoma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Reduce spam bot accounts and other malware, as well as to allow for user discovery so you can find your contacts more easily. It's not designed to be an anonymous service, just a private one.

[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 8 points 5 hours ago

It’s not designed to be an anonymous service, just a private one.

I think this needs to be said a lot more often and a lot louder. Anonymous and private are NOT necessarily the same thing, nor should the expectation be that they are. Both have a purpose.

[–] pwalker@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (11 children)

The amount of trolls in this thread that either try to spew false information intentionally or just have no idea what they are talking about is insane.

If you are worried about what data (including your phone number) law enforcement can recieve (if they have your specific user ID, which is not equal to your phone number) from the Signal company check this: https://propertyofthepeople.org/document-detail/?doc-id=21114562 Tldr: It's the date of registration and last time user was seen online. No other information, Signal just doesn't have any other and this is by design.

If you want to know more about how they accomplish that feat you can check out the sealed sender feature: https://nerdschalk.com/what-is-sealed-sender-in-signal-and-should-you-enable-it/

or the private contact discovery system: https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/

Also as Signal only requires a valid phone number for registration you might try some of these methods (not sure if they still work): https://theintercept.com/2024/07/16/signal-app-privacy-phone-number/

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

This shows they do not need our phone numbers but they still demand it.

Despite this, escaping WhatsApp and Discord, anti-libre software, is more important.

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