Nowadays, a majority of apps require you to sign up with your email or even worse your phone number. If you have a phone number attached to your name, meaning you went to a cell service/phone provider, and you gave them your ID, then no matter what app you use, no matter how private it says it is, it is not private. There is NO exception to this. Your identity is instantly tied to that account.
Signal is not private. I recommend Simplex or another peer to peer onion messaging app. They don’t require email or phone number. So as long as you protect your IP you are anonymous
Signal allows you to speak confidentially, therefore it is private. It is not, by default, anonymous. Yes, this plus the centralized server mean that potentially dangerous metadata, like relationship maps, can be collected. All indications are this isn’t the case, but that’s not something you can count on.
If you need anonymity, which you probably do at least a bit, use simplex. And yes, having more people using anonymous services like simplex is a good thing for the community as a whole. That said, I’m not going to try to convince all of my friends to use simplex. It’s just too far from the mainstream, missing too many features. Signal is a sufficient compromise for most people, and it’s sufficient for me for most purposes.
Privacy and anonymity is different things
When this US service has your phone number (meaning your real name and address), then what is the point of making this distinction? Is them having my address private?
No one should have this info, regardless of how you every person differently defines “privacy” vs “anonymity”
what is the point of making this distinction
because they are completely different things
So its a “private” and “secure” US corporation that knows everyone I talk to and when? I’ve heard this one before.
No, it’s a private and secure protocol (not corporation) thanks to end to end encryption. You can evaluate the protocol yourself with your own eyes, except clearly you cannot read, but modulo that.
Newsflash, chuckles: your IP address IS NOT ANONYMOUS. Any private protocol you use without going through Tor, i2p, or some similar anonymizing network IS NOT ANONYMOUS.
You’re attacking a strawman. Neither Signal nor anyone else has claimed the protocol or the service are anonymous. Which, yes, is something that every user should know before trusting it. They should understand what it means and what the consequences are. I’m honestly not sure you’re even there.
thanks to end to end encryption. You can evaluate the protocol yourself with your own eyes, except clearly you cannot read, but modulo that.
This means nothing when you have no idea what code the server is running, they even went a whole year without publishing their server code updates, until they got a lot of backlash over it. Real security doesn’t require a “just trust us” claim.
Also, metadata is content. Even if they don’t have the message text, Signal still has the real identities of everyone you talked to, and when. With that you can build social network graphs, which are far easier to harvest and more useful anyway than trying to read through message content and determine meaning.
Just because you know where I live doesn’t mean you know what’s going on in my house
See the difference?
Words have meaning
mean you know what’s going on in my house
Signal knows the real identities of everyone you talk to, and when. Is that not “knowing what’s going on in your house?”
The post office knows where I live too. And who I send messages to. Didn’t mean they read my mail
You can use whatever app you like, but I think this adds confusion.
Signal is private because no one can see your messages except the people you are messaging. The government can’t, Signal themselves can’t.
Signal is not anonymous only in the sense that the government can check if you use Signal. That’s it. They can tell if you use Signal. They can’t link messages to your number in any way through data requests, etc.
Not forcing anyone to use Signal, but if you choose to, you can know it is private.
(So this post is confusing privacy with anonimity basically)
Anonymity is a very big part of privacy and always has been. That is why you don’t write your name on your voting ballot.
They are conceptually quite different.
People use both the terms interchangeably, but they are not the same thing.
Voting ballots are anonymous because you didn’t write you name on them (and they can’t be linked back to you hopefully), but they are not private because you have no control over how the data is used (once you submit a balot you have zero control over what happens to it next).
I’m not finding any definitions of “privacy” that suggest the term refers to control of something. Regardless of whether that something is within or outside of your reach.
From the page you linked:
noun Secrecy; concealment of what is said or done.
Signal conceals what you say.
In a data sense specifically, I believe privacy refers to your data being hidden from unwanted eyes (aka you have control over who can see your data).
Which is also what you do when you vote. You control who has your identifying information and who has the information on how you voted. Which I guess is still different from Signal if we are still talking about that. Since you cannot control who has your identifying information.
Its not private nor is it anonymous.
Privacy: You knowing who I am but not what I’m doing
Anonymity: You knowing what I’m doing but not who I am.
How is someone having your real identity, and address, “private” ? This distinction is pointless.
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My neighbor knows who I am and where I live…next door. He does not know what I do, other than observe that I ride a John Deer around in the fields and corn comes up shortly there after. Riding a John Deer in a field is observable by all public passers by. In public we are not guaranteed an expectation of privacy. He doesn’t know tho, that I run a private sex dungeon and crack still in my basement.
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I’m a haxor diddling some server somewhere to gain access. The server admin can see what I’m doing and indeed would have a record of what I was up to including any associated IP addresses, but wouldn’t know me from Adam’s house cat if I were truly conducting my activities in an anonymous manner.
He does not know what I do, other than observe that I ride a John Deer around in the fields and corn comes up shortly there after. Riding a John Deer in a field is observable by all public passers by.
So because he knows only a limited amount, that’s the distinction between private and anonymous?
Signal is not your neighbor. Signal’s DB stores phone numbers and knows who you are, and who you talked to, and when. Are the people you talk to considered “public”, to a US-based corporation?
So because he knows only a limited amount, that’s the distinction between private and anonymous?
It is my distinction, yes. There are many other distinctions like it, but this one is mine based on my threat model. Now, if you’d supply your definition/distinction and threat model, then I can be pedantic about it as well. Or we can accept that, since we are talking about a wide swath of users, no one real definition suites all. If you’d like a similar exercise, hit Lemmy Self Host and pose the question, ‘What is self hosting? Is hosting on a VPS considered self hosting or is a home lab considered self hosting’. Report back please.
Signal is not your neighbor. Signal’s DB stores phone numbers and knows who you are, and who you talked to, and when
You know the part in the Signal setup where it asks you for your phone number for verification purposes? You do know Signal does not prohibit the use of temp phone numbers. You can try as many as you like until you get one to work (if you’re relying on free temp phone) One phone number not giving you any joy, tap ‘Wrong number’ and try again, or use a paid for burner phone service such as MobileSMS.io (which is specifically recommended for Signal), Burner, Quackr.io, Temp-Number.com, or there are reports of using Google Voice, if you dare tread those waters.
As clients upgrade, messages will automatically be delivered using sealed sender whenever possible. Users can enable an optional status icon that will be displayed in the detailed information view for a message to indicate when this happens. These protocol changes are an incremental step, and we are continuing to work on improvements to Signal’s metadata resistance. In particular, additional resistance to traffic correlation via timing attacks and IP addresses are areas of ongoing development. https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender
As I understand the Sealed Sender protocol, it does redact or seeks to redact the metadata of ‘whom you contact and who contacts you’. Since 2024, Signal has introduced usernames to reduce reliance on sharing phone numbers. You can set a username and hide your number from others, though it remains in the database for account purposes. Sooooooo…find you a temp burner phone number to use.
As I’ve said early on, I have no dog in this hunt. You can use Signal, Simplex, Smoke Signals, design a new enigma machine, whatever. My corn is going to grow regardless and my neighbor will still not know about my sex dungeon and crack still. LOL
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I don’t consider it “private”, if you were to know the real identities of everyone I was talking to, and when I talked to them. I’m not telling any US corporation like signal that especially.
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They know who you’re in contact with, who you communicate with the most due to the phone numbers being linked to your account. On their own website they say people can add you by searching your phone number in the search bar. If your phone number was not stored, this would not even be possible. A reference (like a phone but with your number on display) would have to be used in order to confirm that your account is the one that is being searched. The reference is the phone number. It is not private. I am not the one talking about anonymity over and over you are.
From the very beginning I have been speaking on privacy. If they know your number and know who your number is in communication with they now know what you’re doing (talking to person x)
Evennif it is encrypted the damn app is a worst choice than SimpleX the thing I recommended. You chumps want to argue so bad you are missing the point. PRIVACY. Like the name of the damn group you’re in. Why get compromised privacy when you can get comprehensive privacy (simplex)?
Answer you are a hypebeast promoing the most popular “privacy app”
They know who you’re in contact with, who you communicate with the most due to the phone numbers being linked to your account. On their own website they say people can add you by searching your phone number in the search bar. If your phone number was not stored, this would not even be possible. A reference (like a phone but with your number on display) would have to be used in order to confirm that your account is the one that is being searched. The reference is the phone number. It is not private. I am not the one talking about anonymity over and over you are.
I’ve already covered the phone number conundrum further in this thread.
Answer you are a hypebeast promoing the most popular “privacy app”
Quite laughable. Have fun storming the castle bro.
Have fun when the signal data breach gets revealed SIS
What data breach could there possibly be? Phone numbers are already public information and that’s literally the only info Signal has. Oh no! My phone number that’s publicly available already has been released in a “breach”!
It’s already been mentioned numerous times but you’re confusing privacy and anonymity.
Per Cambridge Dictionary:
Privacy: someone’s right to keep their personal matters and relationships secret
Anonymity: the situation in which someone’s name is not given or known:
Using Signal, even after giving them your phone number, fits the definition of privacy in that matters discussed through the app are secret to anyone outside of the sender and recipient. Even if Signal is told to hand over messages, they can’t, there’s nothing to access on their end. Private? Yes. Anonymous? No.
Try looking up “privacy vs anonimity” (or a similar search query). You may find that your post is talking about anonimity, not privacy.
Signal is private.
God damn. If you attach your phone number to it. It is not private in most users cases the identity it tied to the phone number. Signal knows the phone numbers and you better understand that they will reveal them if ever requested.
Did you look it up?
Yes, as I said, the government can tell if you use Signal or not by asking Signal (by providing Signal a phone number and asking if they have a record of it).
It’s not anonymous in that sense, but it is still private because your messages cannot be revealed by such data requests.
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No you all are SIMPs for signal. You all are promoting it like you work for them. All because you’re too stupid (lack of having information) to understand they are a bad choice for privacy
Yep we’re all out to get you. We have meetings and everything. We have a pot luck on Sunday, and you cannot come.
How are you still unable to differenciate privacy and anonimity.
And you are calling us stupid for using Signal…
Seriously, use whatever you are comfortable with, but don’t spread misinformation and panic.
You keep saying this. But you never offer any proof. Everyone keeps telling you why there is a distinction but you keep conflating the two, and here you are flat out bullshitting. It is in fact private.
What is your point? I am beginning to think YOU are propaganda. Or an idiot.
Here, go argue with this guy for a few weeks, and give us a break for a while.
what information is provided to an entity about whom.
“Content” and “Context”
Why is only message text considered “information / content / context” here. Signal has your real name and address via phone numbers, and has every other real person you talked to, and when. Why is “message text” considered context, but social networking graphs aren’t?
All these definitions are highly subjective, and the above one clearly considers social networking graphs to not be “content”. Basically they’ve re-defined privacy in a way that excludes highly sensitive information like everyone you talk to, and when.
So, late to the party. Me Skuzi. This comment is more targeted towards your responses to user comments, but I would extend that to your entire thesis. So I decided to make an entirely new comment.
Honest questions/comments to follow:
Yes, the US govt can ‘compel’ a organization such as Signal to allow them to monitor/intercept encrypted messages, The government can even ‘compel’ a citizen to disclose their encryption key. The cost of non compliance varies from contempt of court to short term incarceration. United States v. Fricosu et al.
However, Signal would only shrug and hand them metadata. Even Signal can’t decipher your messages. There are other services unrelated to Signal that operate thusly, such as VPNs, that absolutely do not keep logs and run in RAM only. Some of those VPNs have been raided and servers confiscated by multiple governments with nothing to show for their efforts. If I recall correctly mega.nz and other storage facilities operate along the same lines.
As to the requirement for a phone number, yes they do require a phone number. However, unless they’ve changed something recently, you can use a free or paid for, burner phone number for verification. The caveat is that if you ever have to recover your account or future verification, you may or may not have access to that number if you used a free service. So, that might be a consideration.
Also, some free services might not work while others will. If signing up for a paid account, burnerapp.com for instance, will allow you to sign up via their website, however you can’t use a VPN. WiFi can be acquired at any coffee shop. If you prefer more private methods of payment for these services, there are those that accept crypto.
So, there are ‘options.’ You just might have to jump through a few hoops to get there.
Secondly, Signal is open source, no? The whole shebang including the protocol is open source. Where might ‘they’ be putting the backdoor to intercept encrypted messages? I can tell you this, the day the world finds out that the US govt has successfully cracked strong encryption ciphers, is the day you are going to see a lot of movement on this planet. From billion dollar corporations, private entities, governments, and even ne’er-do-wells on Signal.
I’m no ‘fanboy’, tho there is a lot to be a fan of. I’m not getting any kickbacks, compensation, or monetary advancements. If I need to be schooled, please do share.
Signal does plan to add a paid for service as well as their free service.
Signal would only shrug and hand them metadata
So at the very least by using Signal the government can know everyone you communicated with, at what time and where. And still is considered a private messenger. Amazing.
As clients upgrade, messages will automatically be delivered using sealed sender whenever possible. Users can enable an optional status icon that will be displayed in the detailed information view for a message to indicate when this happens. These protocol changes are an incremental step, and we are continuing to work on improvements to Signal’s metadata resistance. In particular, additional resistance to traffic correlation via timing attacks and IP addresses are areas of ongoing development. https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender
In reading about the Sealed Sender protocol, as I understand, it redacts whom you’ve contacted. However, the metadata does include timestamps. I have no dog in this hunt as 99% of my messages are whispered into someone’s ear. Still, one must implicitly trust the receiver of such whispered messages. I honestly don’t care what app you use. Those choices are ultimately yours and yours alone and hopefully dependent on who you entrust with your data. This is just an interesting dissection of Signal and privacy/anonymity for the muse.
In the end, we all trust some entity whether it be your ISP who has your bank account info and residential address and can tell when you’re downloading 150 gigs of Linux distros overnight even with a VPN, a bank with every last transaction you authorize, the time/date, or government to which we pay income taxes who has pretty much all the info they would need to show up at your doorstep. If your threat model precludes all the above, I would recommend whispering and disconnecting from society. I honestly do not see any other way.
AES256 was broken the day it was released change my mind.
Well, I’m not trying to convince you of anything, however, you can convince me if you’d like. Do you have some substantiating evidence or documentation for such claims? I am aware of improvements to AES256 down through the years, and I am aware of side channel and timing attacks. Not to be discounted, but those are largely theoretical attacks. In addition, most modern computers have mitigated the possibilities of such attacks with hardware instructions for AES to protect against timing-related side-channel attacks.
The NSA reviewed all the AES finalists, including Rijndael, and reported that all of them were secure enough for U.S. Government non-classified data. However, in June 2003, the U.S. Government announced that AES could be used to protect classified information. Now you could conspiriaze that in 2003, the govt played dumb and said that AES was good enough for classified information when they knew they could blow through it like weak toilet paper, but then again, we (America) are not the only country on the planet despite what some people think, and I am quite certain that other governments have made certain their encryption techniques are 99.999% secure for classified documentation and data.
You make good points and I can’t provide any documentation. But the documentation won’t exist. It would be the closest guarded secret of all time. NSA only holds the upper hand if everyone thinks it’s secure. If the secret was out that that they could crack it no one would use it and the advantage is lost.
This thread shows the success of Signal’s PR campaigns, and how a shiny app can get people to overlook all the privacy concerns. They’re just as successful as Apple at getting people to think that a US-based corporation hosted on Amazon’s servers and subject to national security letters, whose privacy model is “just trust us with your phone number”, is in any way secure.
precisely that’s why it’s become so popular and recommended and now these users are recommending it furthering the amount of people that will have their data exposed there was a leak I believe in 2022 and on signal a lot of customers had their phone numbers exposed if their phone numbers are not stored how did they get exposed? Clearly the answer is that they are stored.
Were there conversations exposed? Do you even understand the difference?
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That is a compromise of privacy. If those hackers used those phone number to access any account by using unique methods those users privacy would be utterly lost.
Sounds like a lack of security rather than a lack of privacy.
It is certainly a lack of security. I wanted to emphasize how it’s also a problem for privacy. People in the thread are now having an imaginary argument about anonymity, even though this has never been something I’ve been confused about. However, it is something that one of the users pulled up, and now they all are harping on it over and over.
Since my phone number is one of my personal belongings, although abstract, if I hide it from you, it is private. If I reveal it to you, it is not. Since it is associated with me, revealing it to you lowers my privacy, as it is one more thing revealed that belongs to me.
These fools can’t even comprehend this, literally.
Started to write a long paragraph to explain the difference between privacy and anonymity but I now believe this new user is (no idea why) collecting engagement via rage bait. I won’t participate in their posts anymore.
It might even come from a good place, namely trying to always do “better” and be “more private” but in practice it’s just lead to confusion.
If Signal isn’t private, then why it is recommended over WhatsApp, Matrix and over SimpleX?
OP is confusing privacy with anonymity.
I’d say the two are different but related.
Seems OP is discussing the loss of anonymity, but the below ARE privacy concerns:
- Someone obtaining my number who does not absolutely need it
- Someone knowing who I am, and knowing I do or do not use a service
Granted that it is difficult to completely obfuscate some aspects of your identity.
Those two concerns has been fixed last year.
You misunderstand; regardless of what is shown to other users, the folks running the service know your number, and that you desire using encrypted chat.
Ah, that’s because of your use of someone, yes Signal still has that data.
Because it has become extremely popular, that’s just how it goes. At one point, even Telegram was recommended for being super secure or private, but the privacy is mild on Telegram at best.
But by comparison to Instagram or Whatsapp, it’s how the gram looks like Privacy Central, so it was recommended. Now, Signal is replacing that role.
Signal is more private than the sus apps like IG, Facebook, etc. Yes. But only because those apps are so bad.
No one should be recommending signal over matrix and simplex. It’s probably more secure than whatsapp, but both have social network graphs of everyone you talked to, and when.
Matrix’s encryption algorithm was broken for a while and when it was fixed it it took app devs years to migrate to the new requirements. It still might even be the case for a lot of them, I haven’t looked in a while.
SimpleX should be secure AFAIK though, but I’ve heard that it may not be able to scale well to larger user bases. It seems everything has pros and cons.
Because most people don’t consider the very basic concept made by op.
I am a huge fan of SimpleX and their removal of user IDs. I think it’s a brilliant solution, and wish that SimpleX was recommended more than Signal.
If simplex used phone numbers and defeated the whole concept of privacy it would be recommended more.
Thank you! Finally someone that also sees Signal as privacy invasing!
Don’t need an ID to buy a burner phone/number
I’m ready to be called milquetoast, and while I see where this comes from, it comes off idealistic if we are to communicate with people in the present day in any practical way. Do not forget how much of an improvement it already is over the likes of proprietary messaging apps and how much effort it already is to move people to Signal. It is surprisingly difficult for common folk to grasp the concept of anything but a phone number when it comes to messaging apps.
Which definitely begs the question of why people put any effort into trying to move any of their contacts to signal in the first place. I believe the answer is that they didn’t value privacy either. Just the idea of it.
Indeed, those who don’t have older friends totally underestimate how confused the oldies get by the concept of an alternative phone/messaging app.
People dont realize that you may as well hand over your social security number when you pass out your phone number.
Indeed, I also don’t realize that. Please explain further.
Its very easy to dox someone with a phone number. Not sure about social but address and full name are easily available for free.
Been saying this for many many years and always get blank stares in response. All the more annoying when its for use in groups that are all about privacy and they only want to use telegram.
However, it does make me happy to finally see someone else say it. So, thanks for that.
We are the rarity. Lol people in the comments are glitching over this statement
Be specific: what does Signal divilge about me to outsiders besides “I have used Signal”?
Who you are specifically (name etc) and the same amount of information on everyone you have talked to on signal and when you talked. Basically everything except for the actual content of the messages.
This is vastly different from every other piece of information I’ve read about Signal. Please link me to a source for your claims.
If it is tied to a phone number then any information connected to the phone account will be connected to the signal account identity. And any identifying information attached to the method used to pay for the phone account will be attached to the phone account and consequently the signal account.
Typically people pay using credit or debit cards, so the identifying information of those bank accounts become attached to your signal account.
So Signal doesn’t provide anonymity. Is that all you’re saying?
Yes… and if it needs to be said, I am also directly implying that anonymity is a large and crucial part of privacy.
It needs to be said. Because anonymity is only one part of privacy.
Security is another part - in messaging, this means that the message cannot be spied on in transit, and cannot be altered in transit.
Authenticity is another part - you need to know that the message came from who it claims to have come from, and not elsewhere.
Signal does not provide anonymity, basically. But it guarantees security and authenticity beyond doubt. And this is useful - you can exchange secure information with people using Signal, knowing that it’s not being spied on or altered, knowing that only the person you intend to see the data can see it, and knowing that they know that you sent it.
But yeah, if you want to send messages anonymously, other services are necessary.
Signal over the past few years has been exposed for having flaws in its security integrity. Even the president’s current administration has had a leak issue by using the platform, Signal.
Once again, they ask for your phone number. Anything they ask for your phone number, if your phone number is tied to your identity, can easily be revealed to reveal who you are.
The leak from the administration was because Pete Hegseth included a journalist in a discussion about sensitive war plans. Trying to blame that on Signal is deceptive on your part.
If you are saying that Signal does not offer anonymity then you are right. Anyone I message on there knows it’s me. But Signal is still keeping my messages safe from monitoring and third-party surveillance, to the best of my knowledge.
This is the core of the issue, and it’s wild how many people don’t get it.
Your phone number is metadata. And people who think metadata is “just” data or that cross-referencing is some kind of sci-fi nonsense, are fundamentally misunderstanding how modern surveillance works.
By requiring phone numbers, Signal, despite its good encryption, inherently builds a social graph. The server operators, or anyone who gets that data, can see a map of who is talking to whom. The content is secure, but the connections are not.
Being able to map out who talks to whom is incredibly valuable. A three-letter agency can take the map of connections and overlay it with all the other data they vacuum up from other sources, such as location data, purchase histories, social media activity. If you become a “person of interest” for any reason, they instantly have your entire social circle mapped out.
Worse, the act of seeking out encrypted communication is itself a red flag. It’s a perfect filter: “Show me everyone paranoid enough to use crypto.” You’re basically raising your hand.
So, in a twisted way, Signal being a tool for private conversations, makes it a perfect machine for mapping associations and identifying targets. The fact that it operates using a centralized server located in the US should worry people far more than it seems to.
The kicker is that thanks to gag orders, companies are legally forbidden from telling you if the feds come knocking for this data. So even if Signal’s intentions are pure, we’d never know how the data it collects is being used. The potential for abuse is baked right into the phone-number requirement.
Everyone you talk to and when you talked to them, with their real identities via phone numbers. Because signal is hosted in the US and subject to national security letters, you should assume the worst.
Are you talking about the client app, or about the service?
Much of what you said doesn’t apply to the service, which stores hashed phone numbers and first access / last access times and nothing else.
And the client does store these things, but also lets users delete messages and contacts. Your message deletions can propagate as well.
stores hashed phone numbers and first access / last access times and nothing else.
Even if this weren’t false (otherwise they wouldn’t be able to connect to your existing contacts), that’s a “just trust us” claim. You give them your phone number, you should assume they have it and not “trust them” to hash it like its a password.
And the client does store these things, but also lets users delete messages and contacts. Your message deletions can propagate as well.
Not that its that important, but its yet another just trust us claim.
You literally don’t understand how hashing works, got it. Please educate yourself on this topic. In short, “connecting your existing contacts” is ENTIRELY possible with hashed phone numbers; it’s not even complicated or tricky. To claim otherwise, as you just did, is nothing but trumpeting your own ignorance.
As for deleting (and propagating deletion of) messages, this is most definitely NOT a matter of “just trust us”. The client is open-source! We KNOW how it works. We KNOW that deletion propagates across devices when you tell it to. We KNOW that the service cannot see your unencrypted messages, and that the encrypted messages are made with AES so even quantum computers in the future can’t decrypt them. This is incredibly far from “just trust us”.
