Comment by 64bit_xombie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 64bit_xombie | Hacker News Reader

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Signal. I dont like having to tie it to a phone number. I would much rather use email (eg wire) if I need to pick one or the other, but a random session id (eg session, torchat) is much better. I also dont want to be limited to only using it on a mobile device. (Yes I know theres a "desktop client" but it has to be linked to your phone anyway, so it defeats half the point of having a desktop version and it also uses electron, which imo is trash.) I also am put off by the fact that they work so closely with Facebook and other Big Tech companies. Call me paranoid but it raises red flags.

The alternatives I've explored include session, and wire. Session probably would be a great alternative, or at least it seems so superficially. But the user base is extremly small, it still uses electron and they dont seem to release updates very often. It's also essentially just a fork of signal, so you might as well just use that for a few reasons that I'll omit for brevity. As for wire, theres a lot to be desired. But the main complaint I have is that theres no way to put a lock on your session the way there is with signal. I emailed them about it, and they told me they had "no plans to implement such a lock out at this time". I also have issues with it not sending and receiving messages properly. And so on, as such...

Agree.

Stop using word "security" or "end to end" encryption and then enforcing me to disclose my phone number to use your "secure" app.

This is scam.

Wow, that's interesting. I didn't expect to see Signal listed here.

Disclaimer; Signal is probably my favorite app in in the world. As someone that doesn't use any Facebook owned services, there wouldn't be any other way for me to chat with my friends and family.

But I'd really like to understand what you mean and if I am falling for a scam. How does disclosing my phone number make it insecure and not end-to-end encrypted?

>>I didn't expect to see Signal listed here.

I've put Whatsapp for broadly the same reasons. So not the Op, but my 2 cents:

I cannot listen to any discussion of "privacy" or "encryption" when the software doesn't let me create multiple anonymous accounts on computing device of my choice, and instead it insists on tying itself to my most personal device and ID at the very beginning.

I don't know if Signal does it, but Whatsapp additionally explicitly requires access to your phone contact list. At which point, the end-to-end encryption feels like sarcasm. What's left? You have my identity and you have my social graph. You can tie me to anything you want six ways to Sunday. You've asked for my most treasured things in the first 30 seconds of installation. Everything else feels like ridiculous security theater that makes my life explicitly worse (especially the lack of seamless multi-device support) for positively zero benefit for myself or any of my friends & family.

I understand broad first-principles discussion, but for me personally:

I DON'T care if my discussion with my mother in law is encrypted.

I DO care if everybody I want to chat with gets my phone number and social graph.

Quite often you want to communicate with the person on the other end without disclosing your identity.

Communication platform that enforces "KYC"-like disclosure to the platform itself is misleading their users about security.

In a lot of countries your phone number is tied to your passport.

The purpose of using phone numbers in many of todays services, is to shift the work of validating the authenticity of the user to carriers. Of course this has given rise to inumerable vendors of accounts or forged prepaid cards, but it raises the barrier just enough to make mass cheating, boosting, spamming unprofitable.

But the benefit of curbing spam doesnt outweigh the cost of abatement of privacy. Though more of my issue is being forced to have it on a phone, when I only want to use from my laptop.

And I'm assuming that if you don't have a phone (like me) that you can't use it at all? No phone, no phone number...or would a burner number work?

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