Re:Twilio incident: What Signal users need to know
by spullara on Wednesday August 17, 2022 @02:29PM
(#32499968)
That isn't why Signal uses phone numbers. It uses phone numbers because users have a local list of phone numbers they communicate with and Signal can use that to determine if people you communicate with are on Signal. If there was a reliable local list of email addresses they could use that but most people use cloud email now and don't have their email addresses they communicate with on their device.
But this is all moot because phone numbers aren't just opaque binary strings. They are more useful than other forms of identification.