5 ms·

This is certainly a good set of points. The phone number thing always bothered me, I wonder what a good solution is?

Onavo 3y ago
Telegram has a Blockchain to sell you.
codedokode 3y ago
A good solution is paid registration. Telegram did an experiments for this, but they asked too much (about $10-15 for not requiring a phone number) and you needed to buy their weird cryptocurrency. If Telegram asked about $4 in BTC for anonimity, I would gladly pay for it. It's interesting that this experiment shows how valuable is knowing your phone number and identity.
jojobas 3y ago
Federation. Matrix has you.
up6w6 3y ago
Usernames is a pending feature[1], something discussed in their "secret" non-indexed forum. [1] https://community.signalusers.org/t/usernames-in-signal/9157 https://community.signalusers.org/t/usernames-in-signal/9157
clnq 3y ago
On the user (and actionable) end, getting a cheap SIM from a country where they are sold OTC. Then, registering with that. You only need to confirm your number once, I think.
- cuu508 3y ago
  But keep in mind these numbers expire if you do not top them up regularly, and eventually get assigned to someome else.
  - clnq 3y ago
    Yes, but it’s a throwaway SIM, so it doesn’t matter.
    - cuu508 3y ago
      If you don't have access to the original phone number you used for registering, and accidentally lose or break the phone, how do you recover the account?
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
I don't know if there is a good solution. Mostly it's a trade-off against these problematic options: 1. your contacts to be stored server-side instead of device-side, where they might end up in the hands of an adversary 2. your contacts to be stored in some other, less-ubuquitous-and-less-likely-to-be-complete format on your device. Maybe signal could have write access to your contacts so that it could store its own identifiers in the address book, but I could see a lot of wtf moments coming up when privacy-minded folk see that permission request.

Telegram has a Blockchain to sell you.

A good solution is paid registration. Telegram did an experiments for this, but they asked too much (about $10-15 for not requiring a phone number) and you needed to buy their weird cryptocurrency. If Telegram asked about $4 in BTC for anonimity, I would gladly pay for it. It's interesting that this experiment shows how valuable is knowing your phone number and identity.

jojobas 3y ago

Federation. Matrix has you.

up6w6 3y ago

Usernames is a pending feature[1], something discussed in their "secret" non-indexed forum. [1] https://community.signalusers.org/t/usernames-in-signal/9157 https://community.signalusers.org/t/usernames-in-signal/9157

clnq 3y ago

On the user (and actionable) end, getting a cheap SIM from a country where they are sold OTC. Then, registering with that. You only need to confirm your number once, I think.

cuu508 3y ago
But keep in mind these numbers expire if you do not top them up regularly, and eventually get assigned to someome else.
- clnq 3y ago
  Yes, but it’s a throwaway SIM, so it doesn’t matter.
  - cuu508 3y ago
    If you don't have access to the original phone number you used for registering, and accidentally lose or break the phone, how do you recover the account?

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

I don't know if there is a good solution. Mostly it's a trade-off against these problematic options: 1. your contacts to be stored server-side instead of device-side, where they might end up in the hands of an adversary 2. your contacts to be stored in some other, less-ubuquitous-and-less-likely-to-be-complete format on your device. Maybe signal could have write access to your contacts so that it could store its own identifiers in the address book, but I could see a lot of wtf moments coming up when privacy-minded folk see that permission request.