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Why does Signal want a phone number to register if it's supposedly privacy first? (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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I remember a time when visiting a website that opens a javacript dialog box asking for your name so the message "hi " could be displayed was baulked at.

Why does signal want a phone number to register? Is there a better alternative?

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[–] 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

  1. Yes, and in that time you would visit a website with your own IP address likely, likely over HTTP without SSL/TLS, likely with your vulnerable browser fingerprint. Point?

  2. Privacy, not anonymity. Two completely different things.

  3. Because the way Signal is built hosting it requires a lot of resources (storage especially), so they want spam prevention and fewer accounts per person.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    1. I haven't seen a non-TLS website in years.

    2. Your asserting "two completely different things" doesn't make it true. Privacy and anonymity are not synonyms but they are overlapping areas. Also ISTM you are redefining terms to suit your purposes. Anonymity to me means the message recipient can't tell who you are. If a THIRD PARTY (the server operator) can ALSO tell who you are, that's a privacy failure, not just an anonymity one.

    3. Why does it take so much storage per user? Does it have video uploads or anything like that? A user account should basically just be a row in a database.

    From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software) :

    In August 2022, Signal notified 1900 users that their data had been affected by the Twilio breach including user phone numbers and SMS verification codes.[105] At least one journalist had his account re-registered to a device he did not control as a result of the attack.[106] ...

    This mandatory connection to a telephone number (a feature Signal shares with WhatsApp, KakaoTalk, and others) has been criticized as a "major issue" for privacy-conscious users who are not comfortable with giving out their private number.[142] A workaround is to use a secondary phone number.[142] The ability to choose a public, changeable username instead of sharing one's phone number was a widely-requested feature.[142][144][145] This feature was added to the beta version of Signal in February 2024.[146]

    Using phone numbers as identifiers may also create security risks that arise from the possibility of an attacker taking over a phone number.[142] A similar vulnerability was used to attack at least one user in August 2022, though the attack was performed via the provider of Signal's SMS services, not any user's provider.[105] The threat of this attack can be mitigated by enabling Signal's Registration Lock feature, a form of two-factor authentication that requires the user to enter a PIN to register the phone number on a new device.[147]

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    They are overlapping areas, but they are "two completely different things". They overlap by sharing common goals, not by being interchangeable.

    Anonymity to me means the message recipient can't tell who you are.

    Right. And Signal doesn't provide that at all, it ties your private messages to your identity (phone number), it explicitly does not provide anonymity. In fact, it proudly advertises you as a signal user to other signal users that have your number saved. It allows you to post public status updates, it encourages you to save your first and last name on your account.

    If a THIRD PARTY (the server operator) can ALSO tell who you are, that's a privacy failure, not just an anonymity one.

    Okay? And? In this hypothetical world where Signal offered anonymity but still tied you to your number for other practical reasons, then you're be correct that it would be a privacy concern.

    But they don't offer anonymity, they offer private conversations.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    They are overlapping areas, but they are “two completely different things”. They overlap by sharing common goals, not by being interchangeable.

    They aren't interchangeable but they intersect. Completely different means they are disjoint.

    it proudly advertises you as a signal user to other signal users

    That sounds terrible, a private message service shouldn't advertise anything to anyone. If I subscribe to a subversive magazine, it shouldn't advertise me to other subscribers. It's a terrible invasion if they do. Signal and PGP are both comparable to subversive magazines in that regard, even if the PGP manual tried to say the opposite.

    I think most of us these days recognize that the whole concept of public key directories and signature chains on PGP keys was a conceptual error in how people thought about privacy back then (they only cared about encrypting message content). We like to think we know better now, but maybe we don't.

    Okay? And? In this hypothetical world where Signal offered anonymity but still tied you to your number for other practical reasons, then you’re be correct that it would be a privacy concern.

    According to Wikipedia, they do record some of that info and report it to the government when required. In fact there is further disclosure to them (they might not retain or use the info, but they do receive it) every time you connect to the Signal server.

    Anyway the Wikipedia article indicates they have introduced usernames as an alternative to phone numbers, so they have finally acknowledged the problem and done something about it.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)
    1. When people would complain about JS on webpages, they were not.
    2. Completely different things overlap all the time.
    3. Because your status updates and messages are encrypted and stored (until retrieved, of course) once for every recipient, and that includes your other devices and their other devices.
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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Because your status updates and messages are encrypted and stored (until retrieved, of course) once for every recipient, and that includes your other devices and their other devices.

    I'd like to see a numerical estimate of how much data this is. But, it sounds to me like more reason to want to self-host.

    I don't see any point to rehashing the other stuff. Non-TLS websites mostly went away once DNS spoofing at wifi hotspots became widespread.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    But, it sounds to me like more reason to want to self-host.

    So do that. You can do that with Signal.

    I don’t see any point to rehashing the other stuff. Non-TLS websites mostly went away once DNS spoofing at wifi hotspots became widespread.

    Maybe I wasn't clear, someone said that back in the day registration on a website was a new and bad thing, connecting it with privacy and comparing to Signal asking for phone number. I answered with the idea that not much commonly thought from that time about privacy has aged well. You wouldn't register on websites, but you would communicate with them over plaintext. I hope that makes it clearer.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    So do that. You can do that with Signal.

    Do you know of anyone doing it? Other people have said there are difficulties.

    You wouldn’t register on websites, but you would communicate with them over plaintext. I hope that makes it clearer.

    It is ok, in that era (dialup or wired internet) unencrypted http was basically as secure as unencrypted landlne phone calls. People still have unencrypted phone calls all the time. Typicalally sites would show public content (like product pages on an e-commerce site) by http, then switch to https for checkout to protect stuff like credit card numbers. Encrypting everything became important when wifi became widespread. Wifi hotspots would hijack DNS and spoof entire web sites to steal credentials. Also, LetsEncrypt made it possible to bypass the CA scam industry, making https-everywhere more popular. Public awareness also increased due to Snowden's disclosures.

    The RSA encryption patent also expired in 2000. Before that, US website operators were potentially exposed to hassle if they didn't use a commercial server with an RSA license ($$$). But, it didn't apply outside the US and FOSS SSL servers existed for those wanting them.

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  • [+] [S] -22 points 1 year ago* (1 child)
    1. yawn, vpns are a thing and strawman argument. point?
    2. my number is private. point?
    3. bs. spam is easy to detect across a large number of accounts using simpleheuristics. point?
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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)
    1. they were talking of something like year 2003, when they were commonly not.
    2. no, PSTN is not private.
    3. for something end-to-end encrypted, including message metadata (not connection metadata), this statement seems amazingly stupid ; "simple heuristics" are usually used on something like plaintext e-mail.
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  • [–] [S] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)
    1. no they weren't. no moving of goalposts
    2. what's my number then?
    3. amazingly not stupid. dunning kruger and all that.
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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago
    1. People were complaining about JS existing when SSL and TLS were not omniscious. If we disagree on that fact, move on.
    2. A sequence of digits.
    3. OK, what are your "simple heuristics" for a bunch of pieces of ciphertext with unknown sender (except for IP addresses) in your storage to pick spammers from that?
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