• Ferk
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    3 years ago

    And yet Telegram and Whatsapp do that and more.

    We are not comparing Signal with “messengers that do not use phone-numbers” (which often leak other info instead). We are comparing it to messengers in the level of Telegram and Whatsapp, because the point was that placing it all on the same level isn’t accurate or fair. Reality isn’t Black&White.

    Signal has flaws, but I’d much rather have people asking me to communicate via Signal than through Telegram/Whatsapp as they usually do. I do wish Signal was able to catter to that demografic.

    • poVoq
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      2 years ago

      deleted by creator

      • Ferk
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        3 years ago

        Because “slightly less” is a subjective measure that’s relative to how pedantic we want to get.

        Even XMPP is a “slightly less” bad option, in the sense that you are still targetable when using a sufficiently advanced method, and you are still not free of risk. Even hosting your own instance you give away the IP, if you don’t host it then you do have to trust the host to keep the metadata safe (and more metadata than Signal).

        • poVoq
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          2 years ago

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          • Ferk
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            3 years ago

            I thought we were talking about security and privacy in general, applied to messaging platforms. Specifically, comparing Telegram/Whatsapp with Signal.

            If you want to talk exclusively about phone numbers then it’s obvious that if a messaging system doesn’t use phone numbers there’s no risk that metadata related to phone number is the one that’ll get leaked.

            Whether you want to make them be “a completelly different league” based on that distinction alone is an arbitrary separation. By that logic XMPP would be in the same “league” as unencrypted email.

              • Ferk
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                3 years ago

                “So? We are talking about the risk of using your phone number as the public identifier.”

                  • Ferk
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                    3 years ago

                    According to your logic, they are the same. Otherwise, don’t compare Signal to Telegram/Whatsapp.