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out of the loop, what's the problem with signal? (thelemmy.club)
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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i've just seen a comment in a post, in this very community, saying people trust signal because of missinformation (from what i could undertand).

if this is true, then i have a few questions:

-what menssaging app should i use for secure communications? i need an app that balances simplicity and security.

-how to explain it to my friends who use signal because i recomended?

-what this means for other apps in general?

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[–] 31 points 5 months ago* (7 children)

Signal does have your phone number, which is a problem.

On the other hand, the only information linked to that phone number is, "the person with this phone number uses signal". AFAIK your phone number is not linked to your contacts, your message content, etc.

So in practice, the fact that Signal has your phone number is probably only a problem insofar as you don't want anybody to know that you use Signal.

But to be fair, why have that issue if you don't have to. Signal is actually good, still, but there are even better alternatives.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Signal is actually good, still, but there are even better alternatives.

    ... Would you care to list some of these alternatives and how they are better?

    Every alternative I've looked at has some major drawbacks that would prevent me from getting any of my friends to move. Having to selfhost my own chat service isn't really a positive in my mind due to the maintenance required and the higher possibility of outages.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    list some of these alternatives

    Probably the ones you're already thinking of (SimpleX, Session, XMPP).

    how they are better?

    They're better in terms of privacy. When I said they're better, I mean specifically in terms of privacy.

    Of course they're less convenient, as you're alluding to.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Signal gets me all the privacy I need. I don't care if they know my phone number uses Signal, I don't use it as anonymous chat, I use it with friends and family.
    As others in this post have said, Signal handles privacy perfectly fine, it does not provide anonymity.

    Unlike several other users here, I actually view Signal's contact discoverability as a feature, not a security flaw. All it means is if someone I know installs Signal, they can easily send me a message without a complicated back and forth through some other medium.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago*

    I myself said "Signal is actually good", so there's no need to argue with me about it.

    Nevertheless:

    I actually view Signal’s contact discoverability as a feature, not a security flaw

    Of course it can be both. Many things are both features in one domain, and flaws in another domain. Obviously it's a feature or else they wouldn't have purposely developed it.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Well, it’s 100% linked to your contacts in one way or another because when you install it Signal will happily alert you to which ones of your contacts are already using Signal. I can’t see how they could manage that without slurping up your contact information.

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