omg so cool right? they finally invented usernames. IRC is jealous.
this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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Privacy
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I think its great. Its for people who simply don't want to share their phone number with other people which is a huge privacy concern, as you can find out a lot about a person by looking up info connected to their phone number.
Just yesterday, somebody commented that Signal might be adding the feature in a few weeks. I was incredulous, assuming it would be months.
Nope. As soon as I saw this, I went looking for an app update, installed it, and made a username.
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Finally bits been ages.
A number is still needed to register I believe.
A number is still needed to register I believe.
Indeed, which makes their headline a bit misleading. Having to give Signal your phone number is not keeping it private.
They do a lot of work to keep your phone number private, or at least any data that is tied to it. This username upgrade is solely for someone to communicate over Signal without needing to hand over your phone number.
For example, you can now be in group chats with internet strangers by just giving them your username.
On top of that, once MLS is adopted, you can communicate with other messengers as well.
Wrong, it still keeps it private but not anonymous. It's not the same concept and for most thread models knowing that you use Signal is not really an issue, especially since with this feature no one can check if you have one if you don't give them your username unless they have access to Signal servers in which case they still have nothing except the knowledge that you have an account.
I thought peoples big problem with it was not wanting to give others their number to use signal? Like I meet Joe Blog online and don't want to give him my real number to chat.
Less people worried that signal had their number?
I thought peoples big problem with it was not wanting to give others their number to use signal?
The issue is that giving your phone number to Signal Messenger LLC is giving it to others, and therefore not keeping it private in the usual sense of the word.
Some people may be unconcerned about a corporation knowing their number vs. their contacts knowing their number, but that doesn't diminish the misleading aspect of this headline.
Seems the second group is a vocal minority. This feature helps the first group, but doesn't help the second group.
According to Signal, the first group is the larger group and this helps the most users of Signal.
Could it be better? Sure. This is still a good step in terms of privacy, even though it doesn't really improve anonymity.
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Requiring a number is a good way to limit bots.
A PoW could limit bots too. Require say 30 seconds of work before your registration submits. For regular users that isnt to bad. For bots its a PITA to get tons of accounts
Edit: tor uses PoW as DDOS protection and its helped massively
PoW...Prisoner of war?
That will also keep away bots.
You can only sign up if you've taken at least one Prisoner of War. Bots can't take prisoners of war for obvious reasons.
Kinda like how Aztec boys came into age in their society.
Proof of work. Example, bitcoin
How does this prove anything if using an emulator to bulk register bot accounts?
It was the original purpose of the bitcoin algorithm to limit spam.
If you have to do a lot of maths that takes your computer (for example) 30 seconds, that means it costs 30 seconds of compute to create an account. Nothing to an average user, for a spammer that wants thousands of accounts it gets expensive.
Several captcha[0] libraries already use this and it's great for accessibility (normal captchas are terrible for it)
[0] I know, it's not technically a captcha.
I know what it is. It is not a barrier to entry though.
He explained why it is, so can you elaborate on why it's not?
Because it's not. I can spin any number of emulators or VMs that do any amount of work with a simple script, but that's all it does. How does it prove I'm anything but a scripted, virtual instance of a person with a device?
There's a reason why Telegram is flooded with bots, Signal as of now has not been.
Bots can buy phone numbers, hell, they can solve most captchas better than humans.
There’s a reason why Telegram is flooded with bots, Signal as of now has not been.
Telegram requires a phone number, so it clearly isn't working.
Sure, if you had unlimited gpus with unlimited electricity then it wouldn't keep you from spinning up unlimited bots
Bruh. No GPU needed. I build multiplatform apps daily on GitHub Actions. Dafuq you talking about?
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It's a time and resource gate, not a way to prove that you're a human.
Also doesn't Telegram require a phone number too?
You're in the wrong thread.
I'm really not. Did you want to try making a coherent point again? Or are you all tapped out?
Yes. Please explain again how compute == human
It doesn't... No one was claiming that...
Are you lost?
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Oh, neat. I was unfamiliar with PoW. Thanks!
Accessibility is very important to me as a blind user, and this helps tremendously.
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For each account you register, you have to do 30 seconds worth of work. So to register one account, you do 30 seconds worth of work. To register 100 accounts, you do 100*30 or 3000 seconds (50 minutes) worth of work. Registering tens of thousands of accounts then becomes unfeasible.
And how can a VM or emulator NOT do this?
Anything that can compute can do it. The important part is that it has an associated non-insignificant cost.
Exactly! ANYTHING THAT CAN COMPUTE CAN DO IT. Few things have a uniquely identifying piece of information with other levels that are barriers to entry...like a phone number. The idea is to STOP bots from signing up to Signal.
Are you missing the point maybe?
It makes bots more expensive to create, therefore fewer will be created.
It doesn't stop anyone though. Expensive is relative when you convince a Grandma to give you her $1000 check for a $5 phone number.
By that standard, whats to stop people from just getting more phone numbers? Its just an additional cost.
Are you unfamiliar with the market? I can buy 100 numbers right now, but they will be hit or miss from landline known numbers.
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