[HN Gopher] Signal v7.0.0 with phone number privacy
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Signal v7.0.0 with phone number privacy
Author : p4bl0
Score : 28 points
Date : 2024-02-17 20:48 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| p4bl0 wrote:
| It seems there's nothing on Signal's blog as of yet, but the
| project's git repository was tagged with v7.0.0 yesterday and we
| can see from the commit history since the previously tagged
| version (v6.74.4) that there will be a setting to hide one's
| phone number [1], as well as disabling the previous default
| behavior of advertising that one is on Signal to all of their
| contacts already using it [2].
|
| [1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-
| Android/commit/8797236b5... (PNP stands for "Phone Number
| Privacy")
|
| [2] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-
| Android/commit/6097e6c30...
| fsflover wrote:
| When will I able to use my GNU/Linux phone without buying another
| phone from the duopoly?
|
| My phone is considered "desktop" by Signal, and it doesn't work
| without connecting to a "real" phone.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| It's good enough when I don't need a number to sign up at all.
| Unfortunately they're not there yet. So for now.. meh
|
| Without that it's just a slightly more private WhatsApp.
|
| In fact I wish we could move to another kind of identifier than a
| "phone number" for things like this. It's probably pretty region-
| dependent but personally I never use my phone to actually make
| phone calls or text. All my voice, video and messaging traffic to
| friends goes through apps, though the number is unfortunately
| still used as an identifier. Unfortunately, because if I let a
| number lapse I lose access to the whatsapp and telegram accounts
| related to it. This way it makes it hard having multiple
| accounts.
|
| I'd prefer if mobile providers would just become a dumb data pipe
| the same as landline providers have already become. My Spanish
| provider still forces me to take a "landline" with my internet
| but I don't even have a phone connected to it.
| fsflover wrote:
| I solved this problem (and more) by switching to Matrix.
| tptacek wrote:
| Records of precisely who you talk to are being kept
| serverside because of that decision. Maybe that's totally
| fine for you! Most people have pretty unserious secure
| messaging threat models (I don't mean that as a value
| judgement).
| greyface- wrote:
| The same is likely true of Signal, no? Traffic analysis on
| AWS' edge would tell you precisely who is talking to who,
| and user identities are tied to legal identities via phone
| numbers. Maybe Signal doesn't store this data serverside,
| but there are entities with both the capability and
| motivation to obtain it. I bet there are Signal XKEYSCORE
| selectors.
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| The amount of problems remains stable, as a universal
| constant . Problems are neither solved nor created, only
| transformed. By switching from Telegram to Matrix, new
| problems arose. By switching from Matrix to Session, by
| switching to Signal, where we are now, fewer problems arose
| shp0ngle wrote:
| Signal will not publicly admit that, but they are using phone
| numbers as a cheap anti-spam measure. If anyone can sign up
| with an email, you will have same spam problems as with email,
| and will need to implement some spam filtering, and so on.
|
| It's harder to spam with phones. Although, as they now do in
| Burma, they can just kidnap a lot of people from China and
| India and keep them as slaves and make them send spam from
| phones. But anyway that's a different story
| tptacek wrote:
| I feel like Signal has been up front for many years about why
| they use phone numbers, and I get incessant spam on other
| phone number platforms (most especially: phones) so I'm not
| sure that holds water.
| nicce wrote:
| > Without that it's just a slightly more private WhatsApp.
|
| They are not even comparable. WhatsApp does not encrypt
| metadata at all, which is the most interesting information you
| can leak.
| jwr wrote:
| Will we get an ability to backup on iOS?
|
| Most people don't even realize that if their phone dies today,
| all of their Signal chat history (photos, etc) are gone.
| whitepoplar wrote:
| Please, we need this.
| Karellen wrote:
| Heh. I have the opposite problem. I'd like a way to have Signal
| auto-delete conversations and media from my device after a
| certain amount of time.
|
| Yes, there are auto-delete options, but those apply to the
| group/chat as a whole, and other people in some of the groups I
| belong to want to keep their chat history. I'm not totally
| opposed to them doing so, but would like the option to just
| delete my copies.
|
| (Signal uses more space on my iPhone than all my other apps
| combined, and I've had problems with upgrades being blocked
| because there wasn't enough space remaining to install them.
| Manually deleting hundreds of photos from individual groups to
| make room is _such_ a pain in the ass.)
| px43 wrote:
| Large group chats should have an expiry of one week or so,
| maybe 4 weeks at the longest, otherwise it gets crazy.
| Unfortunately the best way to delete those old messages in
| your local chat is to delete the conversation and rejoin it.
|
| Admins really should have a "purge all history older than X"
| option. They let you do it one by one manually, but it's
| basically impossible to automate, and doing it manually is
| super tedious.
| px43 wrote:
| So you're looking for a feature where someone can hit a button
| and get a clear text export of all the encrypted chat history
| on the phone? You do understand why that feature doesn't exist
| right? Backup utilities are regularly abused by criminals and
| other bad actors to harvest private data.
|
| If you want to record all of your chat history with someone and
| keep it around forever, Signal is not the right tool. Signal is
| for private communications, and I'm glad that people on the
| other side of conversations with me can't just export
| everything with a button press. That would be a massive
| violation of trust.
| garciansmith wrote:
| N.b. this version is a recent beta. See
| https://community.signalusers.org/t/beta-feedback-for-the-up...
| chislobog wrote:
| I started getting "unknown" message requests on three unrelated
| phone numbers through my different signal accounts on Jan 24
| 2024. The contact info doesn't have a phone number, crypto scams.
|
| I guess this is the result of the beta. See screenshot please.
|
| https://ibb.co/F014n88
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