Technology @beehaw.org fer0n @lemm.ee 11 mo. ago

Signal tests usernames so you can avoid sharing your phone number

www.theverge.com Signal tests usernames so you can avoid sharing your phone number

Ahead of an expected launch next year.

46 comments

YES! The one main hurdle I've found (and the constant "share your contacts??" prompting). Good luck to them!
- and the constant "share your contacts??" prompting
  
  Why wouldn't you just share your contacts? And what does this have to do with that?
  
  Because my contacts are none of their business, and it's fucking disgusting to even ask without the user going way out of their way to initiate it.
  
  Why not? Uh, No. That's why. Not now, not the 100th time, not ever. I want it to stop asking. No.
Now if only my people I knew used signal instead of WhatsApp 🤦‍♀️
- Yea they will only move if WhatsApp fucks something badly.
  
  they're planning on adding ads
- Imagine having to send people your username instead of them just installing Signal and knowing you're there.
Nice! Maybe this will also pave the way for multiple accounts on the same device if you have two separate phone numbers for private and work.
- Or just use SimpleX (same encryption tech as Signal anyhow).
  
  Hopefully without the toxic devs?
About time! Hopefully they will find ways to reduce spam though.
- Never had a spam message
  
  I imagine unrestricted usernames would make spam easier than with phone numbers. I'm just hoping they have a way to control this.
- Where are you receiving these spam messages from? Random numbers aimed at marketing or what?
  
  Sorry I misframed it. I mean that since there's no need to reveal phone numbers, there could be an opportunity for spammers to increase spam by creating many accounts, and Signal should preemptively find ways where such spams could be reduced. However, I realized after posting that the article says we still need to sign up to signal with a phone number. However, there's still the risk of impersonation (by writing someones username with tiny changes) and people trying to add vulnerable users by username (which they might be using on other platforms) instead of phone number.
- Best way to reduce spam is to remove phone numbers entirely.
2 hours later... Or years
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

Click here to see the summary

Signal is publicly testing letting users add usernames to their accounts so they don’t have to share their phone number to connect via the encrypted messaging service.

The test was announced via a post on the Signal forums by VP of engineering Jim O’Leary, who referred to the feature as “pre-beta” and warned that there’ll be rough edges including crashes and broken push notifications.

Although accounts will still be associated with a traditional mobile number at setup, the username feature means you’ll be able to connect with and message other users without having to share what can be an important personally identifiable piece of information.

PCMag points to a note in the service’s wiki mentioning that signs of the feature cropped up as early as 2019, and Whittaker has been open about the Signal’s plans for it.

There are indicators that competitor WhatsApp is working on a similar feature, though the Meta-owned messaging service is typically less open about its future development plans.

But the ease of installing these test clients varies, and you’ll only be able to talk to other users running similar pre-release software.

Saved 50% of original text.
...so you can avoid sharing your phone number with your contacts.

they are not planning to let you use Signal without having a phone number and sharing it with their (Amazon's) servers.
How come the only people I ever meet that use these weird messaging apps are drug dealers and immigrants? 99% of people I meet use Snapchat or Facebook Messenger to talk to people if not SMS, only time I hear about Whatsapp IRL it's the sketchiest people.

While I'm on the subject, is the person who designs the Snapchat user interface from this planet? Do they have severe mental deficiencies? It's really the worst UI of any app or program I've ever experienced.
- Let me guess American? In Europe basically everyone uses Whatsapp, lots of people use Telegram some use signal. I use all of them.
  
  Yep, you are correct.
- My Girlfriend and I use signal. We don't talk to anyone else on there. She says it's simply because she likes how it looks. 🤣
More spam messages then, ok...
- While Signal did justify the need for numbers by cutting spam prevention I don't get it...
  
  Spammers use fake phone numbers all the time on the regular phone service so why not on Signal? A few steps too many for them to bother registering?
  
  A few possible answers:
  
  Signal is not big enough for spammers to spend resources on
  
  People who bothered to use Signal are likely to be more privacy minded and therefore less likely to fall for scam
  
  Spammers use fake phone numbers all the time on the regular phone service
  
  The phone calls just use fake caller ID. Caller ID is entirely unauthenticated and the recipient just blindly trusts the sender, so scammers use sketchy VoIP services that let you override the caller ID without actually proving you own that number. Work is being done to improve this: https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication
  
  That's means it's trivial to use a fake number for outgoing calls, but the spammers can't actually receive incoming calls or texts to those numbers.
- You still need phone number verification to create an account, that hasn't changed
  
  So on the privacy front nothing has either. Good to know.
  
  Weirdly, I got a spam message yesterday on Signal. No number - just a username.
  
  I'm on the regular production version - not the one testing usernames.

You've viewed 46 comments.