6 ms·
It's not a technical limitation, just a design decision. Everyone on Signal's network is known by their phone numbers. You cannot pick a username, as such. The
by bubblethink 10y ago
It's not a technical limitation, just a design decision. Everyone on Signal's network is known by their phone numbers. You cannot pick a username, as such. The phone number is the username.
- mirimir 10y agoI really don't get the point of that. I mean, sure one can get more-or-less anonymous phone numbers. But why create the need for that? There are things like keys for verification :)
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago> I really don't get the point of that To prevent spam and promote discovery. Finding someone on WhatsApp or Signal is easier than on WeChat as with the latter someone might be using a screen name, or an email address or a phone number.
- yorwba 10y agoWhy is it is easier to find someone when you can only use one identifier to find them, instead of several? Note that WeChat also uses phone numbers to limit spam, so you can find anyone if you know their number. (But exchanging QR codes is the preferred method of sharing contact information, to the point where I couldn't call most of my contacts except through WeChat.)
- colordrops 10y agoDiscovery and preventing spam should not take precedence over privacy for an app that supposedly has privacy as its number one priority.
- mirimir 10y agoIndeed. So one must conclude that privacy isn't the top priority.
- SimonPStevens 10y agoPrivacy isn't signal's one priority. Good enough privacy for the masses is. They are always making these tradeoffs, and always make the same decisions. Perfect privacy in every situation isn't the goal. The goal is better privacy than the average person currently has, while still maintaining a level of convenience that the average user well accept.
- colordrops 10y agoThat's what google and Facebook say.
- hackuser 10y ago> To prevent spam I suspected that, but have they openly said it? I suspect it's also to deter criminal activity.
- nradov 10y agoWow that's an amazingly stupid and short sighted decision. Why would they tie their app to a legacy numbering system which doesn't even serve to accurately identify people?
- anc84 10y agoSo that they do not have to worry about that. It's a pretty smart decision to offload the issue of unique IDs to an existing infrastructure. I really do not like it either too though.
- MichaelGG 10y ago... Same reason WhatsApp got so many users and became worth billions? It's simple, straightforward, and just works for most people.