Privacy

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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.

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Why does Signal want a phone number to register if it's supposedly privacy first? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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

That’s not the full picture. That's exactly the problem I was highlighting. The issue isn't whether some of the code is "FOSS", it’s about whether all of it is. If even small parts remain proprietary (as you mentioned), then we can’t verify what those parts are doing. And those parts could theoretically significantly affect the data collection. Also, I didn't make up a lot of stuff. The Signal Foundation themselves have confirmed that certain UI and build components are not fully libre. As the GNU project puts it, if part of your system is closed, then you're trusting a black box, no matter how well-lit the rest of it is.

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

Signal protocol guarantees that what's on the server we can discard in your suspicions, it doesn't matter, because you are not trusting it.

The client is fully open.

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

You are trusting the server, or do you verify the fingerprint of EVERY contact of yours? The normal people don't, as Signals UI purpusfully doesn't encourages it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

Normal people don't anyway.