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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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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.
Signal has a huge vulnerability: because Signal uses phone numbers, it leaves Signal users wide open to government retaliations and crackdowns. I can not recommend Signal to anyone living in authoritarian regimes.
This is the core issue. Signal devs refuse to acknowledge or fix this, which discourages people from using Signal.
You don't need phone numbers to find people. Usernames have been a thing long before phone numbers crept into the internet.