We tested the end-to-end encrypted messenger’s new feature aimed at addressing critics’ most persistent complaint. Here’s how it works.
  • kbal@kbin.melroy.org
    4712·
    1 year ago

    Whittaker says that, for better or worse, a phone number remains a necessary requisite

    Worse. It is for the worse. We sure did wait a long time for this half measure, Signal.

      • kixik@lemmy.ml
        6·
        1 year ago

        Jami doesn’t require a phone number, which is p2p. Xmpp (+ Omemo) doesn’t require a phone number and it’s federated… I mean, if a service is willing to rid of phone numbers, it’ll do totally without them.

      • Որբունի@jlai.lu
        3·
        1 year ago

        The challenge of having your device solve a nasty PoW that takes minutes would not deter most people: a timer once is better than evil captchas, phone numbers, etc. I don’t understand why they use hCaptcha and not that.

          • Որբունի@jlai.lu
            11·
            1 year ago

            A lot, but farming phone numbers from poor countries is also cheap and Signal sends them insanely expensive SMS. There is no perfect solution, spammers aren’t stupid. Since Signal is centralised they can enforce PoW incrementally if they get reports for spam, I still think it is way better than hCaptcha which is garbage.

      • Scolding0513@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        1 year ago

        phone numbers for spam prevention are a bandaid for a mediocre solution. the mediocre aspect being that it’s totally centralized when it should at least be federated like SimpleX. SimpleX is the ultimate solution to be honest with you, it’s federated, fast, extremely private and extremely secure.

      • RandoCalrandian@kbin.social
        46·
        1 year ago

        It’s the signal metadata that they want to keep associated with an identity

        They still can fulfill government requests for who is talking to who and how often

        • cjf@feddit.ukEnglish
          7·
          1 year ago

          Got proof for that last claim?

          I thought their sealed sender feature was meant to prevent exactly this scenario.