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Signal introduces usernames and phone number privacy. (signal.org)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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[–] 105 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Finally, been ages.

A number is still needed to register I believe.

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  • [–] 73 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Requiring a number is a good way to limit bots.

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  • [–] 28 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    A PoW could limit bots too. Require say 30 seconds of work before your registration submits. For regular users that isnt to bad. For bots its a PITA to get tons of accounts

    Edit: tor uses PoW as DDOS protection and its helped massively

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  • [–] 60 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    PoW...Prisoner of war?

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  • [–] 47 points 2 years ago

    That will also keep away bots.

    You can only sign up if you've taken at least one Prisoner of War. Bots can't take prisoners of war for obvious reasons.

    Kinda like how Aztec boys came into age in their society.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Proof of work. Example, bitcoin

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  • [–] 31 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    How does this prove anything if using an emulator to bulk register bot accounts? Also, Signal Desktop is a thing.

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

    It was the original purpose of the bitcoin algorithm to limit spam.

    If you have to do a lot of maths that takes your computer (for example) 30 seconds, that means it costs 30 seconds of compute to create an account. Nothing to an average user, for a spammer that wants thousands of accounts it gets expensive.

    Several captcha[0] libraries already use this and it's great for accessibility (normal captchas are terrible for it)

    [0] I know, it's not technically a captcha.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Accessibility is very important to me as a blind user, and this helps tremendously.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Anything you use to autotranscribe images or are image uploads without alt text a nightmare?

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  • [+] -6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I know what it is. It is not a barrier to entry though.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    He explained why it is, so can you elaborate on why it's not?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (4 children)

    Because it's not. I can spin any number of emulators or VMs that do any amount of work with a simple script, but that's all it does. How does it prove I'm anything but a scripted, virtual instance of a person with a device?

    There's a reason why Telegram is flooded with bots, Signal as of now has not been.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Bots can buy phone numbers, hell, they can solve most captchas better than humans.

    There’s a reason why Telegram is flooded with bots, Signal as of now has not been.

    Telegram requires a phone number, so it clearly isn't working.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    For each account you register, you have to do 30 seconds worth of work. So to register one account, you do 30 seconds worth of work. To register 100 accounts, you do 100*30 or 3000 seconds (50 minutes) worth of work. Registering tens of thousands of accounts then becomes unfeasible.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    A number is still needed to register I believe.

    Indeed, which makes their headline a bit misleading. Giving Signal your phone number is not keeping it private.

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  • [–] 35 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I thought peoples big problem with it was not wanting to give others their number to use signal? Like I meet Joe Blog online and don't want to give him my real number to chat.

    Less people worried that signal had their number?

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Seems the second group is a vocal minority. This feature helps the first group, but doesn't help the second group.

    According to Signal, the first group is the larger group and this helps the most users of Signal.

    Could it be better? Sure. This is still a good step in terms of privacy, even though it doesn't really improve anonymity.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Personally, I care about the phone number requirement not because I don't want to reveal it to Signal servers, but because it limits access to Signal for people in countries that block their SMS service - registration messages just don't arrive

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Putting a SIM card in a phone exposes it to enormous surface area of attack. People have been asking to register with anonymous emails instead of a phone number, like Wire has had for years

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  • [–] -5 points 2 years ago

    I thought peoples big problem with it was not wanting to give others their number to use signal?

    The issue is that giving your phone number to Signal Messenger LLC is giving it to others, and therefore not keeping it private in the usual sense of the word.

    Some people may be unconcerned about a corporation knowing their number vs. their contacts knowing their number, but that doesn't diminish the misleading aspect of this headline.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    Wrong, it still keeps it private but not anonymous. It's not the same concept and for most thread models knowing that you use Signal is not really an issue, especially since with this feature no one can check if you have one if you don't give them your username unless they have access to Signal servers in which case they still have nothing except the knowledge that you have an account.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    They do a lot of work to keep your phone number private, or at least any data that is tied to it. This username upgrade is solely for someone to communicate over Signal without needing to hand over your phone number.

    For example, you can now be in group chats with internet strangers by just giving them your username.

    On top of that, once MLS is adopted, you can communicate with other messengers as well.

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