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A comment on Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption. Parent comment

Re:Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message ... by siberianbear on Friday June 05, 2020 @04:47AM (#23426368)
I'm no expert on the subject, but probably the use of phone numbers (and confirmation by SMS) is helpful to limit the number of bots.
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Re:Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message ... by noir_lord on Friday June 05, 2020 @06:42AM (#23427077)
Signal could still validate the phone number via SMS and immediately discard it afterwards.

Personally I liked the way ICQ did it back in the day, they used a uniq ID just for their service decoupling it from a phone number.

If Signal wanted to avoid long numbers, they could use a CorrectBatteryHorseStaple approach which is what Xbox does for their usernames if you don't pick one.

Easier to remember,

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Re:Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message ... by maxerickson on Friday June 05, 2020 @06:28AM (#23426988)
Phone numbers are used for contact discovery.

https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/

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