191
Bots. If it makes you feel better, you can disable other people finding you via phone number and just give them your username. All messages are private.
this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
191 points (85.8% liked)
Privacy
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One of the design goals is that they don't have a user database, so governments etc can't knock down their door demanding anything. By using phone numbers your "contacts" are not on their servers but local on your phone.
That's WRONG they have a Database of every Phone number registered to them and metadata like the last time they logged in. You send all your contacts numbers to signal so they can respond who is also using Signal.
But your phone number is, and thus every agency can get your full name and address and location.
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as I see it, Signal tried to fit that privacy gap for a standard centralised messenger, if you think about it, that might have made it easier to non-tech-savvy people to adopt it (even if it was as a request from a contact), decentralisation is not remotely appealing to them
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I think you can use a pay phone to sign up.
Because it's centralized, I prefer SimpleX.
What an answers. Completely nonsense
Signal is not perfect but we control its app, libre software. See SimpleX Chat.
Escaping WhatsApp and Discord, anti-libre software, is more important.
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It's focused on ensuring there is no middleman between you and the other party, but it does not have a goal to provide anonymous messaging. Sadly.
THATS WRONG! Signal Server can just do a man in the middle as you try connecting to your contact for the first time. You need to verify the fingerprint manually which is not very obvious and present in the UI. In SimpleX.chat you automatically verify the fingerprint, as its the way to establish the chat to your contact and is included in the way you distribute the contact to you.
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