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"I won't trust an individual who won't even use a real name" That's the hard privacy-killing argument of corporations. And only cultural change can help it.
by poisonborz 4y ago
"I won't trust an individual who won't even use a real name"
That's the hard privacy-killing argument of corporations. And only cultural change can help it.
- newaccount74 4y agoFunny thing is you can't use Signal without revealing your phone number. So much for privacy.
- baq 4y ago...and they tell all your contacts that you've created an account. super bad. anyway, I hear they're working on it.
- anjbe 4y agoNot your contacts, but everyone [already using Signal] who has you as a contact. To remove that functionality would be equivalent to removing the ability to look up if a Signal message can be sent to a particular number. At least as long as phone numbers are used as the sole identifier for Signal accounts—another decision that has been debated into the ground, of course, but was done for understandable reasons.
- baq 4y agoyes, thanks for the correction. that is mostly a UX problem, not a technical problem: people are surprised that signal tells others that they created an account, and this isn't a pleasant surprise IME. doubly so (more, actually) if you've got a stalker who has your phone number.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y agoI've even had people start arguing with me as if I'd created the new conversation on their Signal list.
- ComodoHacker 4y agoThat would also remove the ability to easily transfer your existing social graph, which would kill adoption. You don't actually have any other choice if you target for mass adoption.
- niel 4y agoYou're confusing privacy with anonymity.
- atoav 4y agoPrivacy != Anonymity If you live in a village where everybody knows each other what happens inside your house can be private even if everybody knows you live there. The other way around you could be at a nightclub in a big city where nobody knows you and do the most i timate stuff publicly (but protected by anonymity). Of course if you have privacy and anonymity what you do will have even stronger protections, which could be especially useful in the internet, where the biggest part of our conversations is not ephemeral but persists. But to defend Signal here, this is actually something you could choose with their disappearing messages.
- raxxorraxor 4y agoAnonymity massively helps privacy. Legislation in my country could force the company to spy on me and break encryption, technical challenges completely aside.
- medo-bear 4y agoa phone number is a very private thing so your explanation is unwarranted. you can be concerned about giving away your phone number without having concerns for anon
- zaik 4y agoI would guess that for many people their mobile phone number is a identifier more stable and unique than even their full name. In some jurisdictions it's hard to get one without presenting an ID.
- medo-bear 4y agoexcept as a spam impedence (not prevension) requiring phone numbers is a legitimate security and privacy risk, especially for people who think it is a stable and unique identifier