Hacker News Reader

Comment by flaburgan | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry but I don't think this guy did his homework correctly. You don't need a phone number anymore to use Signal. You still need one to register, but not to communicate with anyone. You can simply share your username for that. So you can just buy a prepaid card with cash, register, and then throw it away, and it will never be linked to your real identity. Signal is not perfect, but it's still the best we have.

View on HN

IIRC there's like three developed countries in the world where one can buy a phone# without providing ID.

In the US one can buy a prepaid card wearing a mask and paying with cash.

Also I came across this service which purports to be anonymous: https://www.cape.co/ but has a ridiculous monthly fee.

Three?

Half of the eastern EU countries have no ID requirements.

Not to say they're not moving towards it, but it's not that dire yet.

Guess I IRId instead if IRCd

> You still need one to register

Case in point: recently, some Russian mobile service providers started blocking registration SMS for popular messengers, Signal included.

In earlier years there were also cases of mobile number spoofing in the country, where the control over the number was given to law enforcement who then use it as second factor authentication to break into different accounts.

That's how easy it is. The word "secure" and "mobile phone number" are the opposites of each other.

What about the possibility of the number being re-registered with someone else and them using it with Signal? They won't obtain your chats of course, but this workflow with a throwaway number doesn't really work for more than short term use?

You would need to throw the phone away too, and use it only for the prepaid SIM, otherwise its IMEI will be linked to anyone who can observe which are associated with which SIM registrations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com