I remember a time when visiting a website that opens a javacript dialog box asking for your name so the message “hi <name entered>” could be displayed was baulked at.
Why does signal want a phone number to register? Is there a better alternative?
I remember a time when visiting a website that opens a javacript dialog box asking for your name so the message “hi <name entered>” could be displayed was baulked at.
Why does signal want a phone number to register? Is there a better alternative?
Because they’re building a private, not anonymous, instant messenger. They’ve been very open about this.
Our numbers are not private from Signal. Do not let this derail us. Escaping to libre software is the best return on investment.
Nothing “derailing” us. Not everyone has the same threat model. The messages are private and that’s what’s most important. Signal can only provide phone number and last connection time to the feds. If that’s too much information for you, then you’re not the target group and have a different threat model.
Anti Commercial-AI license
No, that isn’t true. WhatsApp has the same lies. Law enforcement connect communication between users at key times and use it as credible evidence. Why would drug exporter 1 be communicating with drug buyer 1 at the exact time the delivery arrives in the country? Law enforcement doesn’t need to know what was written.
What are you talking about? Are you saying sealed sender is a lie? If so, I want some proof.
Anti Commercial-AI license
They are referring to message metadata.
Even if they don’t show the content of messages, if they can show that phone number A is sending messages and getting replies to number B then that’s all the government needs.
https://signal.org/legal/
They store metadata, which is distinct from encrypted data.
https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/
They have a list of encrypted messages, who it’s from and who it’s to, based upon the sealed sender description. If you are using phone numbers then you are not anonymous, and a TLA agency can search known bad numbers even if Signal does not try to build that graph.
The ONLY data Signal stores about you is your phone number, most recent registration time/date and most recent login time/date. They don’t know who you’re messaging or when you’re messaging them AFAIK.
You can see this for yourself at signal.org/bigbrother
deleted by creator
Did… Did you just read the problem they were trying to solve, and just, skip the solution?
No.
They haven’t hidden it yet. It’s a goal.
What?
That blog entry is almost 7 years old. Sealed Sender came a long time ago.
The literal quote you provide has a link on “exploring techniques” that you didn’t click. It takes you to another blog post for the launch of Private Contact Discovery, which takes you to a repo of the service, but because your cutting and pasting such old stuff even that’s been replaced by a V2.
Please take a step back and read the technical docs, or at least more recent info.
As ratcheting and chaining are used, messages are sent with rotating keys on ebery message as the sender/recipient identifiers for the messages, not the phone number. It would be way easier to tap Google for Firebase notifications to get to what you are talking about.
And the capability argument is moot if it’s been proven in court to not be done today. You could say that about any service that uses push notifications that go through cloud providers.
Tagging @onlinepersona@programming.dev