In most European countries you need to submit your ID to get any sort of working SIM card.
Signal’s use of phone numbers as IDs means they don’t have to have any of your contacts sent to their servers.
As shown in the article they have no metadata and nothing to reveal beyond your phone number and when you signed up.
These other apps send your social graph to their servers, track and store metadata, don’t have encryption on by default, roll their own cryptography, or some combination of all of these things.
The phone number obsession on HN seems dumb to me - a meaningless thing for people to repeat and complain about that doesn’t actually matter so they can sound like they know what they’re talking about.
I don’t get it.
The only real criticism I have for signal is that they’re not federated so they’re vulnerable to shutdown. I think that’s okay though because we have Matrix working on that problem and having both is probably a good thing.
It’s also a thoughtful and intentional choice: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/
The response from Matrix: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom
Signal did the same thing. They invented their own cryptographic algorithms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm
And the social graph IS sent to servers by Signal. It's protected only by hashing (trivial to circumvent) and by the Intel SGX technology (a bit harder to circumvent, but I doubt that the US govt can't do it).
Am I wrong?
Signal’s cryptography has also gotten a ton of attention, I don’t think the same is true for competitors.
Telegram's crypto is reportedly designed from scratch, with questionable choices such as SHA1 and MAC-then-encrypt.
https://www.cryptofails.com/post/70546720222/telegrams-crypt...
Also, Telegram uses SHA256 now in the places relevant for security, so that point was resolved.
Adversaries will attempt to social engineer customer service for your phone carrier into issuing them a new SIM or porting out the number, so they can receive verification SMS and phone calls.
Well, if you're operating on that premise, which is to say, a premise of complete and total resignation and surrender, then from that starting point of course you haven't lost anything. I don't think anybody is joining you though in agreeing that that's a legitimate starting place to analyze privacy concerns associated with the phone number requirement.
If you're required to use ID to get a SIM (as K2L8M11N2 stated in the parent comment I replied to), then what I was saying follows - that the person is already tied to the phone number anyway.
In this context Signal revealing the only data they have (that a phone number signed up on X day) really doesn't matter or reveal anything new.
K2L8M11N2's other response to my comment is a helpful clarification, it's less about what can be compelled from Signal the company and more about what can be turned over if a user's device is compromised. In that context the name to number connection is more serious because they also have the content.
>If you're required to use ID to get a SIM (as K2L8M11N2 stated in the parent comment I replied to), then what I was saying follows
Yes, and this is what I was responding to. You want that "if" to be taken for granted as an unchallenged starting premise to your entire argument. And that amounts to a massive privacy concession. And the fact that I'm challenging that premise, and bringing up the privacy concerns that are associated with that "if", that is the thing that you're describing as uncharitable. Even though you don't appear to dispute that it is indeed a privacy concession. And it only follows if you don't contemplate alternatives to using a phone number, which is what I took to be their point about the problems associated with a phone number.
>and more about what can be turned over if a user's device is compromised. In that context the name to number connection is more serious because they also have the content.
That's going true in any context where your number can be revealed, which is why it has unique disadvantages that usernames wouldn't have, under any conceivable hypothetical scenario. I'm glad that you benefited from their clarification but that struck me as a truism about the nature of phone numbers versus the nature of usernames.
I don't want that 'if' to be anything. It was the premise, because the parent comment I was responding to was stating it as a fact for where they live.
My point is that signal revealing your phone number and when you signed up doesn't reveal anything new about you. The issue is the case K2L8M11N2 mentioned when they have compromised a device (and can now tie content to IDs via the phone number).
> "That's going true in any context where your number can be revealed...under any conceivable hypothetical scenario."
This is just false? Without access to the content on a compromised device a phone number alone doesn't reveal much (that's the entire point of the e2ee), if it limits the ability for Signal to hand over the social graph or any other metadata (which does reveal a lot) that seems like a win.
Obviously revealing the phone number still reveals more than a username would, and if you can get all the benefits of not having to upload your social graph to their servers or share metadata without having to use phone numbers that would be better - I think they're working on that.
People using apps that upload their social graph and collect their metadata so they don't have to use their phone number are probably making the wrong choice when considering the trade-offs.
The phone number is much more valuable to any authority than other metadata because they are more likely to have access to cell service than to messenger services.
In the context of the post, signal is much more vunerable than even basic things like email or web chats because police can effortlessly identify anyone in the group chat with a single request to cell company.
This is no excuse other than copying the leading app for no good reason.