Nostr Web Client

I thought phone numbers were no longer required to use Signal but that would be too good to be true.

You still need them for registering an account and the hash of the phone number still your "public ID" when it comes to the protocol.

The only change is that you can start a new chat by sharing a changeable username and you can hide your phone number from your Signal contacts.

It's still a positive step, but I expected more and now that I know this is what 'signal usernames' amounts to, I'm left disappointed.

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Discussion

GigaBTC 🌽⚡️🔑 1y ago

There used to be a client in F-Droid called Open Signal and the Signal team forced them to stop. Something never sat right about that and I stopped using it and generally don’t trust it.

sommerfeld 1y ago

There's not much to distrust: it's a FOSS client with end-to-end encryption.

In worst case scenario, you leak metadata to Signal servers. This is still orders of magnitude better than WhatsApp.

Not allowing competing servers and federation is understandable. Doing otherwise would put them in a similar bag as Matrix (which is trash btw). Also, service centralization allows quicker iterations without accidental breakage.

nostr:npub1exv22uulqnmlluszc4yk92jhs2e5ajcs6mu3t00a6avzjcalj9csm7d828 and Threema are of course far superior but convincing friends and family to use those niche apps just for me it's a hard sell.

Signal has proven to be a nice middle ground where I already have a considerable network effect in my social circle.

Saberhagen The Nameless 1y ago

Supposedly "sealed sender" hides your social graph from their servers so they can't see who is communicating with who, only that you use Signal

You can also use a burner number/sms verification website that requires almost no information to register with Signal and pay with Bitcoin or Monero.

But yea if you want to remove any doubt completely SimpleX is a better option

https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/

47 1y ago

Yep. Sub optimal to say the least

Ronin 1y ago

That wss what I assumed when I read the thing. That it would only hide your number. I read someone say in HN that signal uses phones numbers as a cheap way of anti-spam wich makes sense, but they could offer an option of one time pay to use username only for eg.

5-MeO-DMT 1y ago

SimpleX fixes this

Lostdog 1y ago

Just wait until you see their "Payments" feature... 😖

sommerfeld 1y ago

I've seen it, not particularly recent.

Matthieu 1y ago

I just used a non identifying phone number service to register. Can manage that number in a silo and nothing is associated with me directly.

Nullifier 1y ago

Thank you for this clarification.

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