> what's the privacy concern around using your phone number? My phone number identifies my country, my address and my real name - even if I restrict the listin

> what's the privacy concern around using your phone number? My phone number identifies my country, my address and my real name - even if I restrict the listing, it's tied to my credit card. It's tied to a sim card with separate geolocation data to the GPS tracking Google does; even if I active signal from eg a pine phone, the number is tied to a 4g base station. Ed: and its tied to my current place of employment, too. None of this is needed/wanted for my signal identity (for me or signal). I could go out of my way to acquire a pseudonymous phone number, but I guess I'd have to be able to use it somehow - which seems pretty hard to keep anonymous. At the very least I'd probably have to pay for it. Signal should be able to do better than PGP and five mix master hops of 90s-era anonymous email... Or you get the old problem of those needing actual secure communication using terrorist@phreak.suspicious.net.ru and using signal just for "other" stuff.. Ed: note that this mostly about connecting with people on signal that otherwise might not have my number, than about (almost) random people that have my phone number discovering that I'm on signal.