172

Why does Signal want a phone number to register if it's supposedly privacy first? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 day ago by 0101100101@programming.dev to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

255 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] JakobFel@retrolemmy.com 1 points 13 hours ago

Privacy is not necessarily anonymity. Signal uses a phone number to prevent spam and DDOS attacks on their network. Session doesn't do this and got wrecked by DDOS attacks to the point where most of the major groups are pretty much dead.

Use Signal to talk to people you know. That's what it's for. You don't use it for anonymous chats.

this post was submitted on 11 May 2025

172 points (85.8% liked)

Privacy

37765 readers

784 users here now

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.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS