this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2025
87 points (98.9% liked)

Privacy

32653 readers
376 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

It’s not. And I’m tired of repeating myself.

Yes, you continue repeating a demonstrably false statement. A very astute observation on your part.

Once again, no one has access to the content of the messages. Ergo, there is no metadata. Maybe spend a bit of time actually learning about the subject instead of trolling here.

Once again, nobody is talking about content of the messages. What's being said is that the identifying information about people sending and receiving messages is available to the server routing them. The fact that you continue ignoring this basic fact clearly shows that you're the one who's doing the trolling.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I find it fascinating that these people show up in every thread about Signal, and they just spam the same nonsense.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I like to think that it’s usually just because they’re socially invested in it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

It does very much feel like a cult.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Neither. I explained my/our rationale above. Your disinformation is making people unsafe.

Signal does not leak your phone number to anyone. You/they are just ignorant as to how the service works. Signal will notify you if someone YOU HAVE IN YOUR CONTACTS joins the network. It will not give you any of their personal information. Their ID will show up as whatever is already in your contacts.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

How much personal information Signal does or does not reveal to other Signal users is not relevant to this conversation.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Then why did you bring it into the conversation?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I didn’t.

This conversation is about the the US security state. It’s about the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

LOL you did. The title of the link you shared is "signal leaks your phone number to everyone in your contacts".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

I didn’t say that. You must be confusing me with someone else in this thread. But since you brought it up: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2017/03/signal-leaks-your-phone-number-to-everyone-in-your-contacts/

When you install Signal, it asks for access to your contacts, and says very proudly, "we don't upload your contacts, it all stays on your phone."

And then it spams all of your contacts who have Signal installed, without asking your first.

And it shares your phone number with everyone in your contacts who has Signal installed.

And then when you scream ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME and delete your account and purge the app, guess what? All those people running Signal still have your phone number displayed for them right there in plain text. Deleting your account does not delete the information that the app shared without your permission.

So yeah. Real nice "privacy" app you've got there.

I'm going back to Facebook Messenger, where at least the privacy failings are obvious.

But I’m more concerned about the security state angle.


Edit to add: I see, yes, one of the links I posted did say that, which I highlighted above. But again I’m more interested in the fact that Signal is a product of Radio Free Asia, which is a US security state outfit. https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/signal-facing-collapse-after-cia-cuts-funding

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

I didn’t say that.

....who are you trying to fool? It's there for everyone to see...?

But since you brought it up:

As I already stated, this is incorrect. It's not how it works. And after publishing such obviously incorrect information, I wouldn't trust anything they said.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

If you’re going to continue denying our lived experiences with Signal, why should we allow you continue commenting on our Lemmy instance?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Okay, so you are saying that now...? I honestly don't know how you expect anyone to take you seriously at this point.

I'm not denying your experience, I'm denying your interpretation of your experience. You don't get a special version of the app that's different from ours. They all work the same.

As I explained above, what you may have interpreted as Signal sharing your contact info was actually just Signal notifying all of the people that already have your contact information that you joined the service, using the information those people already have...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Given than I deleted Signal years ago now, I don’t much care about this phone number sharing/not sharing aspect.
But in case anyone does care, Moxie responded to jwz’s concerns in that ancient post: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2017/03/signal-leaks-your-phone-number-to-everyone-in-your-contacts/#comment-172865

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

If you don't care then stop arguing about it. Personally, I care very much about people spreading disinformation.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago

Yeah sorry: my bringing up JWZ as an example of past circular arguments I’ve come across devolved into a whole tangent thread I never meant to have.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Okay, you've sufficiently demonstrated not only that you don't know what you're talking about but also that you have no evidence to back it up and your only recourse is repetition and personal insults so I'm gonna call it a night.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

The only one making claims without evidence here is you bud. What I said is that Signal requires users to submit their phone numbers, and that only people operating the server know how that information is handled. These are objective facts.

You made a baseless claim that Signal does not retain the phone numbers or use them to build graphs of users. This is a claim that cannot be proven, and you keep repeating it as fact. Either you are clueless or you're intentionally spreading misinformation.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

You made a baseless claim that Signal does not retain the phone numbers

So you've run out of personal insults and repetition and are just moving on to blatant lies now...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

What lies are you referring to, please be specific.