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Is Signal messaging really private?
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2025
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Privacy
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No the most important thing a chat app needs to do is send messages between the intended recipients making them unavailable to anyone else. Signal does this. You're worried about ppl receiving messages and knowing who they're from. Generally knowing where a message is from is considered a feature -- if you want anonymous broadcast, pick a different technology that's geared towards that
this xkcd is always relevant: https://xkcd.com/538/
The most dangerous thread vector is the government forcing you to unlock your phone, and reading your messages. At which point using phone numbers becomes a huge problem.
Fancy encryption doesn't matter when it's obstruction of justice to refuse to unlock.
Ok but a messaging app that doesn't let you know who a message is from is completely pointless? I feel like you're not really addressing this issue here
You don't need phone numbers for that.
Right. Exactly my point? Phone numbers are not, like, the only way to identify a user. You have to know who they are. You posted an xkcd but failed to derive the conclusion that if a user is 'compromised' and they know who they're talking to, then so are the people they're talking to, regardless of whether phone numbers are involved. There's no practical way to mitigate against that, it becomes a paranoid's nightmare.