> Signal is always intended to be the "StartTLS" of telephone communication, so naturally it explicitly targets mobile phone users.
This doesn't make sense to me. If I have telephone service and the person I want to talk to also has telephone service, why do I want to use Signal to communicate from my telephone device to their telephone device? Aha! Because I want to communicate privately and the telephone service does not allow me to communicate privately. So why do I have telephone service? To allow me to use the service that doesn't use the telephone service?
This always struck me as a particularly poor argument. While it is true that most people have data services through their telephone provider, why do we want to encourage this behaviour. I mean, I could even understand implementing it initially out of convenience, but it's been years and they still haven't provided a means for authenticating with the service without using a means that will publicly identify you. As much as I wish to believe otherwise, I do not think this is unintentional :-( And if it's not unintentional, I'd really like to understand the reason.
> I mean, I could even understand implementing it initially out of convenience, but it's been years and they still haven't provided a means for authenticating with the service without using a means that will publicly identify you. As much as I wish to believe otherwise, I do not think this is unintentional :-( And if it's not unintentional, I'd really like to understand the reason.
That’s precisely what bugs me about these platforms. They all want to create the “social graph” based on phone numbers without giving the option to the user on how they want to expose themselves and how they want to construct their social graph.
This doesn't make sense to me. If I have telephone service and the person I want to talk to also has telephone service, why do I want to use Signal to communicate from my telephone device to their telephone device? Aha! Because I want to communicate privately and the telephone service does not allow me to communicate privately. So why do I have telephone service? To allow me to use the service that doesn't use the telephone service?
This always struck me as a particularly poor argument. While it is true that most people have data services through their telephone provider, why do we want to encourage this behaviour. I mean, I could even understand implementing it initially out of convenience, but it's been years and they still haven't provided a means for authenticating with the service without using a means that will publicly identify you. As much as I wish to believe otherwise, I do not think this is unintentional :-( And if it's not unintentional, I'd really like to understand the reason.