And then there is the kinds of people who cry about Signal dropping support for SMS.
I am one of those. I ditched Signal and went back to the stock sms app and adopted matrix. Haven’t looked back since. The reality is that Signal dropping support for sms wasn’t going to stop me from using SMS. For that, other people need to be convinced to stop using it at the same time. Signal didn’t have nearly the market size needed to make that happen. And now that card is played, and nothing has changed. Signal is just another messaging app among hundreds. At least matrix offers a real paradigm shift.
signal and matrix are both CIA. i’d say it’s worse for your privacy than using your standard messengers since they know that’s where all the juicy stuff is.
Source?
They might be trying to express that the Matrix protocol makes it easier for Israel to spy on someone using it. That idea came up somewhat often about 2 years ago, but I don’t know many relevant facts. It’s also common for people to say that the CIA and Israel cooperate, so that might be the connection to the CIA.
As for Signal, I am greatly annoyed that Signal requires your phone number for registration. Some people justify the centralization of Signal by saying that using a centralized network means that everyone using the network is using the same (good) security practices, and I’ve been told that the developers for Signal periodically express that they’re trying to remove that requirement, but I still try to avoid using Signal (or any networks that I can’t access without involving a phone number). The lack of progress on removing the requirement of your phone number from Signal (and the lack of information on where any centralized infrastructure is located) invites ideas about conspiring with the CIA.
Despite any uncertainty or discomfort, I defer to https://www.privacyguides.org/en/real-time-communication/ and https://soatok.blog/2024/07/31/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-signal-competitor/ to determine what methods of communication might be suitable for me to use.
Not really a work around, but you could get a VOIP number from MySudo or Hushed or a similar service and use that to sign up for Signal. Might at least be more private if you go about it with like a prepaid card and temp email or something.
I wouldn’t recommend that, since it’s likely that anyone who could register with Signal using the same phone number could harm your ability to communicate with other people reliably, and I don’t have many reasons to maintain a VoIP telephone number: https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2022/11/10/signal-number-registration-update/
If someone gets a new phone number from their carrier, they should not be prevented from registering with Signal indefinitely because the previous owner has reglock.
The intention of reglock is to prevent hijacking of numbers you actually own, not to guarantee the number for yourself for life.
While this change makes sense from the perspective of making it so you cannot “hold a number hostage” as long as you keep checking in, it is particularly important for people who’ve used disposable phone numbers to know this.
I found that URL from https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2022/07/07/signal-configuration-and-hardening/ which I found from https://www.privacyguides.org/en/real-time-communication/
There is some documentation that supports this idea, like https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059792-Signal-PIN
Enabling a registration lock triggers a 7-day inactivity timer if your number is registered on another device.
Registration Lock expires after 7 days of inactivity.
After 7 days of inactivity, a new PIN can be created. The old PIN and information associated with it are no longer available.
I also recall that Mental Outlaw discussed this in the past, but I have failed to find where.
I thought signal switched to allow usernames a few months ago
You can hide your phone number from other users, bit still need a phone number to sign up or to use your account.
So… they only warn people about how insecure texting is after someone else exploits it…
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