4mo ago

Under Meredith Whittaker, Signal Is Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong

www.wired.com Under Meredith Whittaker, Signal Is Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong

On its 10th anniversary, Signal’s president wants to remind you that the world’s most secure communications platform is a nonprofit. It’s free. It doesn’t track you or serve you ads. It pays its engineers very well. And it’s a go-to app for hundreds of millions of people.

Privacy @lemmy.ml

Signal Is More Than Encrypted Messaging. Under Meredith Whittaker, It’s Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong

www.wired.com /story/meredith-whittaker-signal/

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My only gripe with signal, is the use of phone numbers as usernames. Not everyone with whom I want to communicate via signal has a phone number. I understand why they went this route, but wish there was an alternative way.
- You can use a username only for finding and adding friends, you only need the phone number to create an account. That's probably because Signal started as an alternative to Messages (or whatever it was called back then), so you could send SMS if you wanted, or secure messages to friends w/ Signal. The whole point was to be a gentle transition from SMS to private messaging. However, they eventually dropped the SMS feature, but it seems they kept the phone number as username thing.
  It kind of sucks, but I think that's a reasonable limitation since the vast majority of people using this service will have a phone number. You could probably even sign up for a free trial of something (e.g. Google Fi) to sign up for Signal, set up the username, and then drop the phone number service. I don't know if there are any problems with this, but I don't think they do anything with your phone number after everything is set up.
  
  I think another reason they use a phone number is that it can mitigate issues with people or bots creating hundred of accounts maybe
  
  But there are plenty of other services that don't require a phone number that also seem to mitigate that issue, so while it may be a convenient option, it's hardly the only option.
  
  Yeah. And I don't fault them for this route. I just with I could sign up without a phone number. Maybe the username thing is a predecessor to allowing usernam-only registration in the future.
  
  Yeah, hopefully. It would also be awesome to have a web login so I could access messages and whatnot when using someone else's computer w/o having to install something.
  I don't know what direction they're going, but I'm honestly okay with the caveats that currently exist.
  
  Having web logon would mean they would need to hold the decryption key in some form (or have a weak decryption key, your credentials), so, while convenient, I think it would degrade security and possibly privacy. Unless you mean to receive new messages, the way the desktop app works?
  
  I'd be more interested in allowing more than one Android device at a time like MySudo. They let you link Windows with a phone so I wouldn't think it would be too hard to implement.
  
  Big concern with your number being recycled and a new user receiving the signal activation key on that number.
  
  Sure, and I think that would send a message to all of your contacts that a new account is using that number, but I'm honestly not sure. If you have an active account (i.e. on a desktop or something), I think you can just change your number if that happens (i.e. get another temp number).
  It's certainly more convenient if you use a longer-term number, but I think it's feasible with a throwaway number. Once your account is set up, Signal doesn't need your number for anything if you disable publishing that.
  
  It does send a "your safety number has been updated with user" message. But not as an automated message. Only when a new signal thread is started.
  Haven't tried when only logged in to desktop and changing devices / numbers so I can't speak to that.
  
  You need to enter your Signal Pin, otherwise you will get removed from all groups etc
  
  Another issue with phone numbers is that it makes it easier to censor - from what I heard, in Iran the confirmation SMS just would not arrive, making rentals the only option (thus making you risk your account being deleted by the new owner).
  My personal biggest issue with Signal, though, was the inability to register from the official desktop client. They were pushing to register on mobile instead. There are ways around it, like Signal-Cli (what I used) and Android VMs. However, the fact that they push people onto mobile at all is worrying, because phones are much harder to make private (while you can install Linux onto pretty much any given laptop/desktop, only certain phones are compatible with alternative OSes, and mine wasn't so I could not trust it with my chats).
  
  Hmm, I guess then you'd need to get a VPN that works in your country (not sure how hard that is in Iran) and find a VOIP service that either doesn't require any payment, or accepts payments from Iran.
  It's certainly not ideal, and I wish they'd eliminate the dependency on phone numbers, but until then, there are options for most people to create an account w/o having a permanent number.
  
  You can use Monero for payment, I started doing this ever since sanctions began. Free services are not really viable because they're far more likely to have all their numbers already used up.
  But yea, the overall point is that it is a large inconvenience and a possible point of failure (the next number user deleting the account).
  
  Yeah, it's certainly problematic, and I'd very much prefer that it not have that dependency. But I think it's still worth using Signal despite needing a number, because it's a really low barrier to getting new users on it.
  If you want something truly private w/o the dependency on a number, there are better options, such as SimpleX. However, the barrier to entry there is a bit higher.
  
  I have a few problems with Simplex (I worry about it being effectively centralized for now and that the VC funding may get it to either enshittify or stop development)... But I do use it quite a bit and even have the servers (which were very easy to set up and don't consume a lot of resources). I like a lot of what it does (including being very easy to use), and hope it succeeds as it matures!
  
  Google is a very bad choice because it requires a phone number on its own. Also heard that there may be additional KYC.
  
  Are you suggesting you need a phone number to get a phone number from Google Fi?
  And yeah, it'll definitely to KYC, because that's a federal regulation. My point is that you don't need the number long-term, so the number will only be associated with you for like a week while the trial period lasts. So sign up for Google Fi trial, create a Signal account, then cancel the trial. That sounds pretty reasonable to me.
  
  Yea. Don't you need a Google account first to use such a service? Those do need phone numbers to register.
  And also KYC is unacceptable in this case, imo. If the number is needed only for a short time, there are similar, non-KYC options like what you would find on kycnot.me.
  
  Yeah, I think you'll create a Google account as part of the Google Fi account creation process.
  If that really bothers you, use a different MVNO. Some offer free trials, but even if not, it's not too bad to buy a month of service. My provider is Tello, and the minimum service that'll give you SMS is $5/month. If you're clever, you can probably also find a VOIP provider that does SMS for really cheap.
  My point isn't that Google Fi specifically is what you should use, just that it's an example of a service that offers a free trial, so you can sign up for Signal for free.
  
  I get the point, I just said how bad of an example this is, lol
- It creeps me the fuck out. I do not get why a service that bills itself as secure needs to know something that can be traced back to my credit card and name. I won't use Telegram or Signal because of this.
  
  It's about your posture. Most people who use signal use it to have privacy from governments. They're not hiding that they use signal, they're hiding what they write on signal. In this case, using your phone number isn't a big deal.
  Some people, have a tighter posture, which could translate to your position. In that case, something like Briar could fit the bill.
  Lastly, security and privacy are not the same thing. Google products are secure, but they are not private. Self hosted sftp, for example, is private, but may not be secure. Signal is definitely secure, at least enough for general and governmental use. So, it seems, is telegram. Signal is more private than telegram in many ways, but it is not the gold standard for privacy (because of its use of phone numbers as usernames), but it is "good enough" for the masses. The balance between good for everyone and zero-knowledge private for everyone is delicate, potentially impossible. Honestly, I don't know if signal was able to strike that balance perfectly, but they did a much better job than many other services, certainly than those others that are accepted by the masses.
  
  But putting a phone number in immediately exposes protesters to association. Sure, Signal can't give out the contents of messages, but it still has the chain of contact. So if a government gets hold of this record, legally or otherwise, now you have everyone associated to a suspect phone number/person and can start rounding them up.
  It's the complete antithesis of freedom of association when there's a record of everyone that you've contacted. The contents don't enter into that problem, and I can't see why they feel the need to keep this as part of their system. It purposely makes it impossible to use this for something like peaceful protest. So, no, it doesn't give you privacy from governments, because governments that don't respect freedom of association will use that information to punish dissidents.
  I can't imagine any reason to use phone numbers except to purposefully keep this chain of association for governments to use. Even Facebook doesn't require this sort of personal proof, and it's suspicious as hell.
  
  Sure, Signal can't give out the contents of messages, but it still has the chain of contact.
  it doesn't. they've been ordered to hand over data multiple times, and the only thing tied to the phone number they have is 1. time the account has been created and 2. last time the account connected to the server: https://signal.org/bigbrother/
  
  FISA order could require them to collect the data and turn it over, US courts won't be able to to do shit about it.
  This is purely I trust signal bro type argument
  
  You're mistaken on the basis of your beliefs here. Signal only had two pieces of data around your phone number (joined datestamp, last online datestamp). This means that governments can't petition signal for any more information, since signal simply doesn't have it to give (by design).
  Your point on fb is hilarious, because they do require it. They just don't require you to input it, because (1) they already have it and (2) you freely provide the missing pieces without them even asking. But, like I said earlier, if this goes against your posture, use something like Briar or Matrix or whatever. Choice exists, because everyone is different and has different postures.
  
  FISA order could be in place and signal disclosed what they were told.
  This argument about them producing only two data points is good but it is not a slam dunk arguement everyone makes it to be.
  Signal has technical capabilities to time stamp every ineteration you have with another person if it goes through their server. This is internet 101.
  So we relying that they don't do this but if US government said do it. They would and Jack shit anyone can do about it.
  
  That is my concern with any US based company. With all the information we have how their government agencies used both legal and illegal means to access data how can you ever think those companies can protect your privacy even if they sincerely want to?
  
  Them being a us company is a very valid concern, and one I share. If I were a dissident, I likely wouldn't use signal just because they're us based.
  
  The Signal pitch is that you don't need identity security so long as the encryption is strong enough.
  That is, incidentally, the same pitch Botcoiner make.
- For me, today the best messaging app is SimpleX, it is a bit in early development but it's already really nice.
- I've been using it for a while and by far the biggest issue is how giant the backup file is and now about 3Gb of data were lost because of a signal version mismatch between an old phone I was using and the new one I switched to.

169 comments