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I think you may be misinterpreting the use case for Signal. Signal is not meant to be used for anonymous communication, it's meant for secure communication. Sig

I think you may be misinterpreting the use case for Signal. Signal is not meant to be used for anonymous communication, it's meant for secure communication. Signal's threat model is meant to solve issues with SMS: a MitM can tell a message was sent but not the contents of the message. If you were to replace the phone number with a username of some sort it would be a little more anonymous, but could be easily doxed from users' poor OpSec or poor OpSec of a users' peers. Given Signal is meant to be used by people who don't know what OpSec is, it doesn't seem worth the effort to put up trivial anonymity barriers.

stiray 4y ago
Sorry but anonymity is security. Once you know who to beat, you will get the keys. Wanna bet? We can do an experiment... ;) /s (anyone down-voting this post - you don't agree? You are welcome to join the experiment too. Why don't you put your livers where your mouth(fingers) are? I know for myself that immediately when you would show me rubber hose (not even coming to wrench!!!) I would tell you whatever you want to know. But you can obviously do it better, so lets test it. I have a nice, 1kg french wrench waiting for your beliefs (and knees). Yeah, I know I am not politically correct, but facts are facts and you deny them for unknown reason. /s)
- asah 4y ago
  obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
- godelski 4y ago
  > Sorry but anonymity is security. I'm actually with you here. But anonymity is HARD. Way harder than people give credit. We're not anonymous here on HN. But Signal is doing this step by step and I think that is the right way. Yes, the wrench attack works, but it doesn't always work. It would be better if it was hard to use the wrench attack, but protecting against it is surprisingly difficult. Signal seems to be taking this into account and also working on this in steps.
  - stiray 4y ago
    Not really. Anonymity is simple. You don't require PII for registration. As simple as that. What is hard are their other use cases. Preventing rotten eggs entering the system. And they cut shortcut here, sacrificing security of their users to keep the bills down. The phone number requirement is not there to protect you but to protect their ecosystem and even more their resources (if I take it as lightly as possible, check the last line). Again I will use IRC as an example, it was able to connect so many people without requiring PII, yes there was spam (same as with emails, I host my own mail server and I dont see spam, it is 100% filtered out by rspamd), for what, 30 years(?), they can do it too. I don't see any excuse for their requirement. But ok, lets be fair - easy to connect. I have around 400 phone numbers in my phone of people I asked for their phone number - they were relevant to me at some point, for instance primary school schoolmates. How many, do you think I communicate with? I went to count history for last year - 35 numbers. 35! Out of those, I would communicate over secure channel with 6 (current company). And now this is an issue? Let me say it again, with all the facts, I can only take them as a honeypot.
    - godelski 4y ago
      Honestly you seem to just want to hate Signal. That's okay to dislike something but calling Signal a honeypot is a strong statement. That requires strong evidence, not weak conjecture. It is hard to respond to you in good faith because it does not feel like you want to engage that way. Maybe I am misunderstanding your statement. So I will engage in good faith once more (reminding you that this is a HN rule). Anonymity is nowhere near as simple as not requiring PII during registration. Even from the provider side. We can agree that it is difficult to maintain anonymity from the user side. But choices made by the provider can make these things impossible. Let's suppose Signal gives me one username that I can use and I must use that continuously. What do I choose? If I use "godelski" then I've made a permanent connection between that identity and my real life identity. After all, I do talk to friends, family, and coworkers on Siganl. If I choose another name and share that name through this name, then those two are linked together. All of this is information leakage and highly valuable to OSINT people. I'm sure someone here has significantly more experience than me and would be happy to expand upon this too. But it is extremely naive to believe/claim that anonymity is provided simply by removing the phone number. It is far more complicated than that. Hopefully you now know that.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Anonymity is a kind of security. There are other kinds that are trivially not anonymous but should be secured (and private between members), like talking to my family members about our private business. To the best of my knowledge, Signal's use of phone numbers does not meaningfully compromise the security or privacy of my conversations with my friends or family.
- j0hnyl 4y ago
  Let me just go ahead and send my mom an anonymous message asking what time she wants to see me this week. Should work great.
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  >Sorry but anonymity is security. Tell me your threat model, and then I'll tell you whether "anonymity is security" or not. Anything else is just you talking past other people.
  - sixstringtheory 4y ago
    I would say anonymity is necessary but not sufficient for security. So while you might be able to devise an example that _only_ uses anonymity that can be defeated, that would be meaningless because in real life there would be other measures at work, too. This is why Omertà–basically a vow of secrecy achieving anonymity as far as the police are concerned–is taken so seriously and why it has been such a big deal the few times it’s been broken. But Omertà isn’t the only tool employed–they use guns, safe houses, all kinds of other tools and methods to ensure their security.
- sigg3 4y ago
  > Sorry but anonymity is security. Anonymity is security through obscurity, by definition.
  - godelski 4y ago
    Obscurity is still security. But it is a speed bump, not a locked door. Security is probabilistic in nature and it is quite confusing that people portray it as a static concept. For example, remote wiping your phone when lost is a common practice. You ACT as if the information has been extracted but you still wipe. Why? Because not doing so gives a potential adversary infinite time to retreive the data. Similarly speed bumps make it harder. Every security researcher will tell you that there are no foolproof methods. If there were we wouldn't have this cat and mouse game with hackers. It is all probabilistic and anything you do to increase your odds against hackers is, by definition, security.
- rozab 4y ago
  If your threat model assumes that you will be tortured, and you will immediately give up any desired information upon being tortured, then you better include some magic amnesia pills with your secure messaging protocol.
anigbrowl 4y ago
> it would be a little more anonymous, but could be easily doxed from users' poor OpSec or poor OpSec of a users' peers This is my problem, not my messaging service's problem. > Given Signal is meant to be used by people who don't know what OpSec is ???

stiray 4y ago

Sorry but anonymity is security. Once you know who to beat, you will get the keys. Wanna bet? We can do an experiment... ;) /s (anyone down-voting this post - you don't agree? You are welcome to join the experiment too. Why don't you put your livers where your mouth(fingers) are? I know for myself that immediately when you would show me rubber hose (not even coming to wrench!!!) I would tell you whatever you want to know. But you can obviously do it better, so lets test it. I have a nice, 1kg french wrench waiting for your beliefs (and knees). Yeah, I know I am not politically correct, but facts are facts and you deny them for unknown reason. /s)

asah 4y ago
obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
godelski 4y ago
> Sorry but anonymity is security. I'm actually with you here. But anonymity is HARD. Way harder than people give credit. We're not anonymous here on HN. But Signal is doing this step by step and I think that is the right way. Yes, the wrench attack works, but it doesn't always work. It would be better if it was hard to use the wrench attack, but protecting against it is surprisingly difficult. Signal seems to be taking this into account and also working on this in steps.
- stiray 4y ago
  Not really. Anonymity is simple. You don't require PII for registration. As simple as that. What is hard are their other use cases. Preventing rotten eggs entering the system. And they cut shortcut here, sacrificing security of their users to keep the bills down. The phone number requirement is not there to protect you but to protect their ecosystem and even more their resources (if I take it as lightly as possible, check the last line). Again I will use IRC as an example, it was able to connect so many people without requiring PII, yes there was spam (same as with emails, I host my own mail server and I dont see spam, it is 100% filtered out by rspamd), for what, 30 years(?), they can do it too. I don't see any excuse for their requirement. But ok, lets be fair - easy to connect. I have around 400 phone numbers in my phone of people I asked for their phone number - they were relevant to me at some point, for instance primary school schoolmates. How many, do you think I communicate with? I went to count history for last year - 35 numbers. 35! Out of those, I would communicate over secure channel with 6 (current company). And now this is an issue? Let me say it again, with all the facts, I can only take them as a honeypot.
  - godelski 4y ago
    Honestly you seem to just want to hate Signal. That's okay to dislike something but calling Signal a honeypot is a strong statement. That requires strong evidence, not weak conjecture. It is hard to respond to you in good faith because it does not feel like you want to engage that way. Maybe I am misunderstanding your statement. So I will engage in good faith once more (reminding you that this is a HN rule). Anonymity is nowhere near as simple as not requiring PII during registration. Even from the provider side. We can agree that it is difficult to maintain anonymity from the user side. But choices made by the provider can make these things impossible. Let's suppose Signal gives me one username that I can use and I must use that continuously. What do I choose? If I use "godelski" then I've made a permanent connection between that identity and my real life identity. After all, I do talk to friends, family, and coworkers on Siganl. If I choose another name and share that name through this name, then those two are linked together. All of this is information leakage and highly valuable to OSINT people. I'm sure someone here has significantly more experience than me and would be happy to expand upon this too. But it is extremely naive to believe/claim that anonymity is provided simply by removing the phone number. It is far more complicated than that. Hopefully you now know that.
woodruffw 4y ago
Anonymity is a kind of security. There are other kinds that are trivially not anonymous but should be secured (and private between members), like talking to my family members about our private business. To the best of my knowledge, Signal's use of phone numbers does not meaningfully compromise the security or privacy of my conversations with my friends or family.
j0hnyl 4y ago
Let me just go ahead and send my mom an anonymous message asking what time she wants to see me this week. Should work great.
NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
>Sorry but anonymity is security. Tell me your threat model, and then I'll tell you whether "anonymity is security" or not. Anything else is just you talking past other people.
- sixstringtheory 4y ago
  I would say anonymity is necessary but not sufficient for security. So while you might be able to devise an example that _only_ uses anonymity that can be defeated, that would be meaningless because in real life there would be other measures at work, too. This is why Omertà–basically a vow of secrecy achieving anonymity as far as the police are concerned–is taken so seriously and why it has been such a big deal the few times it’s been broken. But Omertà isn’t the only tool employed–they use guns, safe houses, all kinds of other tools and methods to ensure their security.
sigg3 4y ago
> Sorry but anonymity is security. Anonymity is security through obscurity, by definition.
- godelski 4y ago
  Obscurity is still security. But it is a speed bump, not a locked door. Security is probabilistic in nature and it is quite confusing that people portray it as a static concept. For example, remote wiping your phone when lost is a common practice. You ACT as if the information has been extracted but you still wipe. Why? Because not doing so gives a potential adversary infinite time to retreive the data. Similarly speed bumps make it harder. Every security researcher will tell you that there are no foolproof methods. If there were we wouldn't have this cat and mouse game with hackers. It is all probabilistic and anything you do to increase your odds against hackers is, by definition, security.
rozab 4y ago
If your threat model assumes that you will be tortured, and you will immediately give up any desired information upon being tortured, then you better include some magic amnesia pills with your secure messaging protocol.

anigbrowl 4y ago

> it would be a little more anonymous, but could be easily doxed from users' poor OpSec or poor OpSec of a users' peers This is my problem, not my messaging service's problem. > Given Signal is meant to be used by people who don't know what OpSec is ???