- cross-posted to:
- signal@lemmy.blahaj.zone
- privacy@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- signal@lemmy.blahaj.zone
- privacy@programming.dev
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Headline:
Signal is working on registration without a phone number. But what form will it take?
30 July 2026 10:30 CEST
Signal is working on a way to optionally sign up without a phone number. The feature has not yet been officially confirmed, and it is not yet known whether it will be available to all users or in what form.
Thank you!
I’ve always said it. Best form to prevent spam is to have allow list as a default. You should only be able to receive messages from pre-approved people.
I have white listed my email for ages and it’s great.
But obviously advertisers and business hate it because then they need your true consent to send you shit.
And in the case of Telegram, if they did that why would anyone sign up for their premium account?
I tried using Telegram and the amount of spam I would receive was annoying, but what was even more annoying was finding out that the ‘Restrict messages from users not in your contacts’ setting is paywalled. Telegram profits off of the spammers on their network.
Just a FYI, the nomenclature has moved to block/allow lists.
I had no idea. Makes sense. Thanks for saying.
Yeah, I had it pointed out to me last year.
This is the main reason I don’t use Signal, so depending on if and how it gets implemented, I may finally use it. Getting other people on board will be its own fight of course.
They say they need to figure out how to counter/avoid spam/abuse first. And that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, just look at Telegram (which is ironically going the opposite route nowadays).
Telegram requires a phone number, last I checked, and Desktop needs to be signed in to from mobile. So the same as Signal for “Abuse Prevention” ™
And it’s only good for connecting to bot networks to deliver… Questionable content.
Most of my torrents ceom from Telegram bots, now that sites keep getting taken down who hosted them.
As to actually using it?
Well, the only contacts I have are pirate bots, and that will never change.
Still more than I have on Signal, though ;)
And yet I get tons of spam on telegram, and the only way to prevent it is to subscribe to Telegram Premium
I don’t believe Telegram desktop needed a mobile connection before and I used it for years and didn’t use a mobile client. I mostly used it as a bridge client for IRC and Matrix as the client itself was superior if you didn’t need privacy or encryption.
Telegram requires a phone number, last I checked
(which is ironically going the opposite route nowadays)
Well, I was worried about losing contact with the bots when I cancel my phone service, but maybe I won’t have to ;)
Just use SimpleX
Honestly in an effort to avoid american tools I went for ot then I found out the guy behind SimpleX is a climate change denier Maga supporter and all around lunatic and regardless that the project is open source I don’t want to be found near that thing.
Sessions seems to be a decent alternative though but if I want a chance to convert people to try to use more privacy respecting chat tools Signal is the best compromise.
Considering I’ve been sending everyone to Session instead, since I refuse to put a phone number linked to my name, address, and payment information in to a “privacy focused” messenger…
Ten years too late.
This could have had a far greater impact when whatsapp exodus or controversy happend in 2021. I bet they have reached a stall in the number of new accounts and donations are drying out.
I have also read rumors about them thinking about tying this to a one time payment to prevent bot registration
Will this allow people to install it on multiple devices? Right now I can’t have it on my phone AND tablet and it sucks…
I’m on beta (testflight) on IOS and the latest version now allows adding a second phone. But I think previously you could already link an iPad or a laptop.
Check out a fork named Molly.
Not my experience:
- Signal (Android) on my phone
- alternative client (SfOS) on the same phone
- Signal desktop on my Linux laptop
All work with the same number/registration, i.e. they’re in sync.
While I don’t use it because of privacy concerns over the number I have it installed, and configured to recieve messages from people who insit on it.
I have it on my phone, and linked to Desktop via the native Linux port, but if I log in to my table it logs me out of my phone.
Then you probably registered your tablet to the phone number instead of setting it up as a secondary device.
Quiter possibly, it’s the same phone app on the tablet, so it does kinda push you toward that.
Never really saw the point of bothering, though, since Session worked perfectly on all devices without trying to figure out how to set the app as a secondary device since it uses the same key per account and putting in the recovery code adds a new device no matter which app or OS you’re on.
I have no idea if this is true or not. But I heard the government has an app called “Pegasus 2”that can read all of your signal messages as long as they know your phone number.
While the capabilities of Pegasus may vary over time due to software updates, Pegasus is generally capable of reading text messages, call snooping, collecting passwords, location tracking, accessing the target device’s microphone and camera, and harvesting information from apps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)
Once installed, Pegasus has been reported to be able to run arbitrary code, extract contacts, call logs, messages, photos, web browsing history, settings, as well as gather information from apps including but not limited to communications apps iMessage, Gmail, Viber, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Skype.
The opnly confirmed thing I have heard is that they can read signal messages via your notifications, if they are enabled, so always check the app manually and do not use their push service.
Another W for Signal
We had an encrypted chat for a bit before I realized it was completely pointless with literally everyone in it but one or two having entirely stock phones with in-built Ai and tracking mechanisms. We used XMPP.
Since it was for a Jellyfin server, it basically meant anyone on an unmodified Google or Apple phone was basically a door to a seach of that data from either company for the text logged into each chatroom by each user, and displayed. Unless everyone is secure, no one is.
I guess if they optionally required some crypto payment instead of phone number it would made some people happy. Will be interesting to see where does this go.
deleted by creator
People dont WANT to you to find them by phone number. Its not a bug and its not happening randomly, people are just enabling the very good setting that prevents others from finding them by their phone number.
Whether or not you can find someone based on their phone number is based on a user setting. Each person chooses whether or not they can be found by their phone number.
Go to Settings - Privacy - Phone number.Really though, this is an excuse more than a roadblock.
I find people oddly resistant to an additional message app, yet they gleefully download a new app at every carpark they visit. People are odd.
This has literally zero correlation with whether you can search your contacts by phone number, it is in fact the exact opposite
This is creating a signal account that has no phone number associated with it.
From the article:
“The ability to register for Signal without a phone number is a frequently requested feature. While Signal hides phone numbers by default and gives users control over who can discover them, some users would still like the option to create an account without using a phone number.”
They added a username feature a long time ago that makes finding each other very reliable.
