Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Whats the purpose for usernames on signal? (self.privacy)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by Extrasvhx9he to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Been using signal for years and love it and got the majority of my contacts on to it. My question is how are usernames useful now? You still need to register with a phone number with signal to limit spam and bots afaik and I'm assuming you should protect your username just like you do your phone number anyways because spam, malicious files/messages, etc... What scenario is this addressing where an average person gives up their username to a stranger? The only one I can think of is online dating or other online interactions like on forums. Just seems this is just more tailored to the people who need to be pseudo-anonymous for whatever reason than an actual privacy feature. Even then for the anonymous people does that mean usernames will be able to be changed?

Tldr: Questioning what scenario does signal's new usernames address for the average Joe?

Edit: Just realized can be very useful for work relationships

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[–] gravitywell@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 months ago

They can't get a phone number from someone if only a username was shared with that person. maybe the people who lectured you about it not also being for anonymity where not aware of plans to ad usernames or that a projects aims and use cases can change over time but signal can and has already been useful to a good number of journalists, not requiring a phone number to share your contact with someone is what id consider a major game changer in terms of what use cases are now open and threat models that can be accounted for.