this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Technology

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Signal tests usernames so you can avoid sharing your phone number (www.theverge.com)
submitted 10 months ago by fer0n@lemm.ee to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] sculd@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

More spam messages then, ok...

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

While Signal did justify the need for numbers by cutting spam prevention I don't get it...

Spammers use fake phone numbers all the time on the regular phone service so why not on Signal? A few steps too many for them to bother registering?

[–] sculd@beehaw.org 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

A few possible answers:

  1. Signal is not big enough for spammers to spend resources on
  2. People who bothered to use Signal are likely to be more privacy minded and therefore less likely to fall for scam
[–] u_tamtam@programming.dev 3 points 10 months ago
  1. Signal just isn't as private as its marketing wants you to think it is

A tip (but you do you, of course), use something federated (XMPP!): the time for trusting a central organization to do no harm is over if you have kept tabs of anything internet over the last 40 years or so..

[–] dan@upvote.au 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Spammers use fake phone numbers all the time on the regular phone service

The phone calls just use fake caller ID. Caller ID is entirely unauthenticated and the recipient just blindly trusts the sender, so scammers use sketchy VoIP services that let you override the caller ID without actually proving you own that number. Work is being done to improve this: https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication

That's means it's trivial to use a fake number for outgoing calls, but the spammers can't actually receive incoming calls or texts to those numbers.

[–] cosmic_skillet@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You still need phone number verification to create an account, that hasn't changed

[–] u_tamtam@programming.dev 4 points 10 months ago

So on the privacy front nothing has either. Good to know.

[–] DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com 1 points 10 months ago

Weirdly, I got a spam message yesterday on Signal. No number - just a username.

I'm on the regular production version - not the one testing usernames.