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.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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Haven't seen anyone link this here so I'll link it myself
https://dessalines.github.io/essays/why_not_signal.html
Some things are outdated, like how you had to give others your phone number (although it's still necessary for signup) but most of these still hold up
So, you're going to get two schools of thought on this, and one of them is wrong. Horrendously wrong. For perspective, I was a certified CEHv7, so take that for what its worth.
There's a saying in security circles "security through obscurity isn't security," which is a saying from the 1850s and people continually attempt to apply the logic to today's standards and it's--frankly stupid--but just plain silly. It generally means that if you hide the key to your house under the floor mat, there's no point to having the lock, because it doesn't lend you any real security and that if you release the schematics to security protocols and/or devices (like locks), it makes them less secure. And in this specific context, it makes sense and is an accurate statement. Lots of people will make the argument that F/OSS is more secure because it's openly available and many will make the argument that it's less secure. But each argument is moot because it deals with software development and not your private data. lol.
When you apply the same logic to technology and private data it breaks down tremendously. This is the information age. With a persons phone number I can very likely find their home address or their general location. Registered cell phones will forever carry with them the city in which they were activated. So if I have your phone number, and know your name is John Smith, I can look up your number and see where it was activated. It'll tell me "Dallas, Texas" and now I'm not just looking for John Smith, I'm looking for John Smith in Dallas, Texas. With successive breakdowns like this I will eventually find your home address or at the very least your neighborhood.
The supposition made by Signal (and anyone who defends this model) is that generally anyone with your private number is supposed to have it and even if they do, there's not much they can do with it. But that's so incredibly wrong it's not even funny in 2025.
I've seen a great number of people in this thread post things like "privacy isn't anonymity and anonymity isn't security," which frankly I find gobstopping hilarious from a community that will break their neck to suggest everyone run VPNs to protect their online identity as a way to protect yourself from fingerprinting and ad tracking.
It frankly amazes me. Protecting your data, including your phone number is the same as protecting your home address and your private data through redirection from a VPN. I don't think many in this community would argue against using a VPN. But why they feel you should shotgun your phone number all over the internet is fucking stupid, IMO, or that you should only use a secure messaging protocol to speak to people you know, and not people you don't know. It's all just so...stupid.
They'll then continue to say that you should only use Signal to talk to people you know because "that's what its for!" as if protecting yourself via encryption from compete fucking strangers has no value all of a sudden. lol
You have to be very careful in this community because there are a significant number of armchair experts which simply parrot the things that they've read from others ad-nauseam without actually thinking about the basis of what they're saying.
OK. That's my rant. I'm ready for your downvote.
The only thing I'll tack onto this is that with the introduction of Signal usernames, you still have to give Signal your number to verify that at least on some level, you probably are a real person. As someone with 5 different phone numbers, probably doesn't stop spam as much as they'd hoped, but more than they feared, but at least now you don't have to give that Craigslist guy who uses Signal your phone number, just your username. Is that the best method? I dunno, but but it is something.
I was unaware of this change, and it's perfectly acceptable. No one has any ground to lambast Signal for requiring phone numbers to get an account. I think that's a perfectly reasonable spam mitigation technique. The issue is having to shotgun your phone number to every Howard and Susan that you want to use Signal to communicate with.
This was honestly the only thing holding me back from actually using Signal. I'll likely register for an account now.
If you are even remotely involved in any activist type of things, you certainly don't want this US government honeypot have your phone-number and device id.
Spam accounts are clearly the biggest factor for not letting anyone just sign up with an email. Although getting a new email without a phone verification is getting increasingly hard now.
Privacy ≠ Anonymity ≠ Security
It's private but it's not anonymous. they know who is talking to who, but not what they are talking about.
To prevent spam and to allow people who already know each other's number to easily contact over signal. If you want an anonymous account use an online sms activation service paid with monero, personally I recommend smspool.net .
I assume ease of use and spam prevention.
I think Signal tries to be at least somewhat attractive to the average person who wants more privacy than just using WhatsApp or whatever. Making it easy to message existing contacts helps a lot with adoption.
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.
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.
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.
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/
Signal fills an incredibly important spot in a spectrum of privacy and usability where it's extremely usable without sacrificing very much privacy. Sure, to the most concerned privacy enthusits it's not the best, but it's a hell of a lot easier to convince friends and family to use Signal than something like Matrix.
I think you can use a pay phone to sign up.
Because they're building a private, not anonymous, instant messenger. They've been very open about this.