this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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The Signal messenger and protocol.
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I don't understand the hype; how many people are chatting with people they don't know on Signal?
With usernames now it would be a better option. Before you had to share your phone number and hence your name
You'd still share your name, no? As far as I understand it, these usernames only serve to get in contact, nothing more
You'd share a username, which is way different if you ask me. I don't mind sharing my username, Kusimulkku, here but I wouldn't want to share my phone number and real name.
If you use the username to get into contact then your phone number isn't visible to them iirc. Same other way around, your username isn't visible to people you've got into contact with a phone number. So no need to worry about your phone number leaking or your friends and family seeing that you also go by "MonsterCock2000" or something.
What I mean is that the username only serves to connect two users. But the profile they then see of each other is their standard Signal profile, with whatever name and other info it contains.
At least that's how I understood their blog post
I think that might be true, but you could just have your first name as your name or something less private than full name + phone number etc.
That was exactly my first thought. Might be something for various underground groups, but the normal use case seems to be just regular communication among friends & family.
For me it can replace DMs everywhere. Put your username in your profile and get actually secure DMs.
But wouldn't that just put you at risk of spam and other malicious messages?
In addition to what the other user said, usernames are both optional and easy to change in order to prevent spammers from finding you. Plus, they can only make so many accounts themselves, with the phone number limitation in tow.
Don’t accept the message/block them? Same as any other DM system. Or just change your username.
Wasn't this what Matrix was for?
Matrix isn’t private at all. All metadata is shared+stored by both your server and mine (no sealed sender). Encryption is worse (no double-ratchet) and there’s no guarantee of encryption at all (some clients don’t even offer it). It’s also a lot harder to get set up and IMO the clients are much worse.
Well then. This is useful information.
I'm going to put a UN or QR code on my website for another form of tech support. (Think of WhatsApp numbers)