this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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Privacy
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How I Got a Truly Anonymous XMPP Account:
Sorry, it's a cheap joke, but it still baffles me that Signal requires a phone number, so I felt I had to post it :)
Of course, this is not XMPP-specific either, just my protocol of choice, there are many other open alternatives that also offer such functionality.
and then you can anonymously chat with yourself because no one else will bother installing that favorite app of yours!
I've been trying to get people off WhatsApp for who knows how many years now. With Signal, i have a chance of convincing people. When you start talking about matrix or session or SimpleX or ???, people stay on WhatsApp
Different strokes for different folks! I've been fortunate enough that many of my family and friends have been happy enough to follow me.
But I don't disagree with you, Signal has a much more recognisable brand and better user experience. These are things that we need to improve if we're going to get anywhere near the level of adoption Signal has.
It's there for a reason. You can't easily create a spam waves if you need a phone number to create an account. And they added usernames now, so you don't need to share your phone number with people you want to talk to. It's just there to create an account and can be hidden after that.
There is Session, that uses UUIDs for names with no phone number requirement, which is basically a fork of Signal with decentralized Loki on top of it.
Isn't spoofing a phone number easy for scammers? If so, I don't understand why there is (admittedly) so little spam on Signal.
Does Signal require 2FA upon registration? (I cannot recall)
Spoofing just changes the displayed called/sender ID, not the actual number. They would still need real numbers for each account. And they block a lot of VoIP numbers, like most services these days. And getting carrier SIMs or e-SIMs is a not that easy.
No mandatory 2FA as far as I know.
Then how is the authenticity of a number tested by Signal?
And - gasp! - you can do it from your computer directly! No Android emulators, no inconvenient command-line client!