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Doesn't Signal do all of this, minus the profit? > Maybe charge people to use the app? Who will pay for a service that's offered for free by at least 3 major

• esafak 3y ago
  I pay for Signal. I used to pay for WhatsApp, before it was acquired. Not many users are like me, granted.
• jszymborski 3y ago
  I'm not aware how to anonymously use Signal in any meaningful way but there might be some way.
  • contact9879 3y ago
    Anonymity isn't necessary. e.g. Briar isn't anonymous (you still need to trust your contacts), but it's essentially impossible for third-parties to track who is talking to who and when.
  • sneak 3y ago
    Use it via a VPN and with a telephone number that is not associated with your identity. This is what I do.
    • lxgr 3y ago
      That's pseudonymity, not anonymity. Signal doesn't allow creating multiple identities for different contexts (without using multiple phones). And depending on your personal risk profile (e.g. journalists protecting their sources), phone numbers are extremely difficult to acquire anonymously in many countries. In most EU countries, you need to show photo ID to register prepaid SIM cards these days.
      • sneak 3y ago
        You don’t need to acquire a phone number from the country you’re in. Any phone number works on Signal. There’s no long distance. In EU countries you can easily and anonymously get a US number via the internet that works fine on Signal. There is no requirement that the SIM card in your phone be the number you use to register on Signal, or that the number even be a GSM number. My Signal number is a Google Voice number, for example. Anyone with access to a US GSM number can create these; many are for sale for anonymous payment methods. It’s easy to use Signal anonymously in any country that has mostly uncensored internet.
        • lxgr 3y ago
          > In EU countries you can easily and anonymously get a US number that works fine on Signal. How? And even if that's feasible (for many people I'd argue it's too big a hurdle) it still only gets you pseudonymity. There are some interesting encrypted messaging ideas floating around that allow you to have per-contact or even per-conversation keys or multiple identities for different contexts; Signal is just not doing much in that regard.
          • sneak 3y ago
            It is completely anonymous, there is no link from the telephone number used to register to the person using it.
            • lxgr 3y ago
              Yes, but you only have one number/identifier that links you across all contexts. That’s a pseudonym, which is a different thing from being anonymous. You’d need multiple phones and a phone number per context to be actually anonymous. That’s just not practicable for many people, I’d say.
    • crossroadsguy 3y ago
      If I would have to be anonymous then I won’t even bother with any phone number. In fact I won’t even bother with Signal or WhatsApp. I’ll find an app or service that is e2ee and doesn’t require a phone number at all. Because what’s even the general use case of using Signal and WhatsApp (in their current forms)? Because then it would just be weird talking to friends and family. And with those few people you want to be totally anonymous with? Those apps and services which are already anonymous. Will be awesome if Signal adds that feature? Yes. But even then I would still ise dedicated anonymous apps.
  • PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    Switch to using Session instead.