Privacy

31993 readers

523 users here now

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.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

How I Got a Truly Anonymous Signal Account (theintercept.com)

submitted 4 months ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

44 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Yes, you can use Signal without sharing your personal phone number. Here’s how I did it.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] leanleft@lemmy.ml -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

”It’s important to maintain control of this phone number."

I strongly feel that this is false.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Care to elaborate?

[–] leanleft@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

~~If someone trys to register with an existing number then it wont work if its already being used.~~
Im not sure on this^
Better to enable a security pin if you are concerned.
The traditional phone system involvement is annoying.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Got a source for that? There have already been multiple contradicting sources posted saying this isn't true.

[–] leanleft@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I cant find any information that discusses the security risk. But it would seem that this transfering all content to the owner of the phone number is a standard feature.
So, maybe its not discussed because it doesn't frequently happen.
It doesnt seem like a trustworthy way to ensure users' content remains secure.
Update:
https://old.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/8r7tbc/someone_impersonating_me_using_my_old_number_what/
https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007062012-Change-Number
https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007062452-What-do-I-do-if-my-phone-is-lost-or-stolen
https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Backup-and-Restore-Messages