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> which was and is a reasonable design constraint given their target audience Who do you think their target audience is, and why do you think that this a reaso

> which was and is a reasonable design constraint given their target audience Who do you think their target audience is, and why do you think that this a reasonable constraint?

barsonme 3y ago
Their target audience is literally the general population. It should be obvious why phone numbers are a reasonable constraint.
- _8j50 3y ago
  No, that's the deception of signal. The general population is already using other identifiers like whatsapp and viber numbers (which almost every country outside the US use even more than sms). Signal refuses to opt-out of phone number collection and usage. With the tens of millions at their disposal and with the time they spend on mobile payments, crypto,etc... you are telling me they can't auto-generate identifiers as alternative to phone numbers? They can't make it alphanumeric and consider any id that is all numbers a phone? It's all culting around tech/crypto personalities and ignoring the obvious things that don't pass the smell test. Explain to me why Signal is special as opposed to more popular apps made for the general population that also do E2EE? Explain to me specifically why phone numbers and mobile usage is not optional? Even after like a decade of people begging for it? This is a lot like PGP email, the same circles of people promoted it (still do in some cases) but the government loves it because email metadata is unencrypted and tech circles insist on email dependency on every app because of the same cult mindset even though hostile middle parties love it. Everything I do in amazon, netflix, uber, slack you name it you can tell my whole life pattern just looking at email subjecte in the clear on an MTA! All because of tech sector refusal to apply critical thinking and creativity when it comes to these things. So again I ask, if I am allowed to criticaly examine Signal: why is it special and unique that it needs phone numbers no matter what? Especially given device compromise of people you talk to is not in their threat model. e.g.: you are a source and the journalist's phone is compromised, that is exactly what governments do! If signal didn't collect phone numbers all they would see on the journalist's phone would be your nick or in-app id, but thanks to signal they can find out who the source is, and using exploit kits like pegasus this way is not uncommon! Real people are put in danger by signal. Look at all my downvotes and tell me this is not tech sector conspiracy or at best culting after personalities.
woodruffw 3y ago
Non-technical users, including people who don’t know what “end-to-end encryption” means. The right to privacy isn’t just for dorks who practice keyring bonsai.
- throw10920 3y ago
  > The right to privacy isn’t just for dorks who practice keyring bonsai. I never said anything contrary to that. I know that normal people are part of the intended audience - I'm interested in whether you think that Signal's target audience includes or excludes "keyring bonsai" users (which, admittedly, is an amusing and not entirely inaccurate way of describing much of the security community). If it includes those users - then why Signal couldn't have been designed such that use of phone numbers for identification are optional (but the default)?
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    I think the short version is that doing so substantially complicates Signal’s design (meaning more edge cases, more complicated threat models, more exploitable bugs) for a marginal user case. Parsimony is a significant virtue in E2EE designs. But for those users: you can effectively use Signal without a phone number by using a virtual number or similar for the one-time registration process. That’s clunky and not ideal, but IMO is a reasonable hurdle for “bonsai” users.
    - throw10920 3y ago
      > I think the short version is that doing so substantially complicates Signal’s design (meaning more edge cases, more complicated threat models, more exploitable bugs) for a marginal user case. Marginal users are just as human as the rest of us. Can you show examples of how this complicates Signal's design? The idea in my head requires only marginally more complexity to serve ~hundreds of thousands of more users.
      - woodruffw 3y ago
        Closer to tens of thousands, if you use other “keyring bonsai” metrics (such as maintaining a PGP key). Signal’s intended userbase is O(humanity). The complexity here is in crossing domains: Signal will need to decide how to communicate which “kind” of identity a user has, what that means, etc. They’ll need to decide whether to use random-but-intelligible identifiers (easy to make errors with) or allow people to configure identifies (which means storing more personal data, plus impersonation risks). And so forth.

> which was and is a reasonable design constraint given their target audience Who do you think their target audience is, and why do you think that this a reasonable constraint?

barsonme 3y ago

Their target audience is literally the general population. It should be obvious why phone numbers are a reasonable constraint.

_8j50 3y ago
No, that's the deception of signal. The general population is already using other identifiers like whatsapp and viber numbers (which almost every country outside the US use even more than sms). Signal refuses to opt-out of phone number collection and usage. With the tens of millions at their disposal and with the time they spend on mobile payments, crypto,etc... you are telling me they can't auto-generate identifiers as alternative to phone numbers? They can't make it alphanumeric and consider any id that is all numbers a phone? It's all culting around tech/crypto personalities and ignoring the obvious things that don't pass the smell test. Explain to me why Signal is special as opposed to more popular apps made for the general population that also do E2EE? Explain to me specifically why phone numbers and mobile usage is not optional? Even after like a decade of people begging for it? This is a lot like PGP email, the same circles of people promoted it (still do in some cases) but the government loves it because email metadata is unencrypted and tech circles insist on email dependency on every app because of the same cult mindset even though hostile middle parties love it. Everything I do in amazon, netflix, uber, slack you name it you can tell my whole life pattern just looking at email subjecte in the clear on an MTA! All because of tech sector refusal to apply critical thinking and creativity when it comes to these things. So again I ask, if I am allowed to criticaly examine Signal: why is it special and unique that it needs phone numbers no matter what? Especially given device compromise of people you talk to is not in their threat model. e.g.: you are a source and the journalist's phone is compromised, that is exactly what governments do! If signal didn't collect phone numbers all they would see on the journalist's phone would be your nick or in-app id, but thanks to signal they can find out who the source is, and using exploit kits like pegasus this way is not uncommon! Real people are put in danger by signal. Look at all my downvotes and tell me this is not tech sector conspiracy or at best culting after personalities.

woodruffw 3y ago

Non-technical users, including people who don’t know what “end-to-end encryption” means. The right to privacy isn’t just for dorks who practice keyring bonsai.

throw10920 3y ago
> The right to privacy isn’t just for dorks who practice keyring bonsai. I never said anything contrary to that. I know that normal people are part of the intended audience - I'm interested in whether you think that Signal's target audience includes or excludes "keyring bonsai" users (which, admittedly, is an amusing and not entirely inaccurate way of describing much of the security community). If it includes those users - then why Signal couldn't have been designed such that use of phone numbers for identification are optional (but the default)?
- woodruffw 3y ago
  I think the short version is that doing so substantially complicates Signal’s design (meaning more edge cases, more complicated threat models, more exploitable bugs) for a marginal user case. Parsimony is a significant virtue in E2EE designs. But for those users: you can effectively use Signal without a phone number by using a virtual number or similar for the one-time registration process. That’s clunky and not ideal, but IMO is a reasonable hurdle for “bonsai” users.
  - throw10920 3y ago
    > I think the short version is that doing so substantially complicates Signal’s design (meaning more edge cases, more complicated threat models, more exploitable bugs) for a marginal user case. Marginal users are just as human as the rest of us. Can you show examples of how this complicates Signal's design? The idea in my head requires only marginally more complexity to serve ~hundreds of thousands of more users.
    - woodruffw 3y ago
      Closer to tens of thousands, if you use other “keyring bonsai” metrics (such as maintaining a PGP key). Signal’s intended userbase is O(humanity). The complexity here is in crossing domains: Signal will need to decide how to communicate which “kind” of identity a user has, what that means, etc. They’ll need to decide whether to use random-but-intelligible identifiers (easy to make errors with) or allow people to configure identifies (which means storing more personal data, plus impersonation risks). And so forth.