> Signal has launched support to use nicknames instead of phone numbers

You will still need a phone number to sign up for Signal. Signal still knows your phone number, you just hide it from your contacts. To me this only makes it even more suspicious.

You need a phone number to sign up for Telegram as well.

And you can correlate username to phone number not that hard in most standard setting cases.

Yeah, basically both super duper encrypted privacy oriented services want your phone number.

Sorry, but that's not privacy. I don't care what they do to encrypt your messages, they are still tied to me, which makes the super duper encryption pointless.

SimpleX is the best E2E chat app that doesn't require phone numbers (or even any account signup) that I've tried.

You compare apples with oranges. Because if you'd compare the apples , you'd notice one of them has no usable E2E.

Yes oranges umm phone numbers is a problem. They have that both. Only one can additionally read the contents.

Thats for now the price for a normie interface.

First goalposts first.

I agree with you that Telegram does not even have E2EE and that's bad.

But in this thread, GP was just talking about metadata. The goalpost here is metadata. GP particularly mentioned that Signal "fixed" the phone number issue and I just want to note that currently Signal isn't any better than Telegram in this aspect.

And then you moved orange back.

> Telegram does not even have E2EE

This is incorrect. Telegram has E2EE.

https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end

I don't see how I can start an E2EE chat from my PC. If a feature only ever exists on phone it does not exist.

https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/871

...in secret chats, that are only available in 1-to-1 conversations via mobile apps.

So, not on by default (unlike Signal), no group chats (unlike Signal), no support at all in desktop apps (you've guessed it: unlike Signal).

Not sure if you've got your sequence of events straight. End-to-end encryption was added to Whatsapp after it was bought by Facebook, before the co-founder of Whatsapp left to found Signal.

It's not as simple as Signal inspiring Facebook and Whatsapp, the sequence of events happened in reverse order.

I think this not wrong but mildly misleading.

Whatsapp started encrypting messages after significant security issues in ~2012

It was purchased by Facebook under initially some administration separation terms in ~2014?

In 2016 it added e2e encryption. If I recall this was controversial because it limits fb ad potential on users.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the timeline seems to me to still be pointing towards <<e2e came from Whatsapp not FB as an initiative, even if FB owned Whatsapp at the time.>>

Again you're not factually wrong, but I hope my restating of the timeline makes it more clear why i I think your reverse order point doesn't tell the same story.

Your explanation is definitely better than mine. I just wanted to rebuke the notion that it was Signal who inspired Whatsapp to use e2e.

People has been killed based on metadata https://www.nybooks.com/online/2014/05/10/we-kill-people-bas...

No is arguing the metadata is harmless but it's significantly less of an issue than not having E2EE.

When they-them-those know who you are, knowledge of the full attack surface is the better way to compromise because it leaves the first step to compromise uncompromising-appearing. (The attack surface is broader than people generally consider, as it should include over-the-shoulder attacks, XKCD's wrench attack, etc.)

The success of such tactics can more easily be understood by even looking through the many, many comments right in this thread telling us Signal protects metadata because usernames are now a feature - guys, Signal has the metadata as the *services* are what is the topic of discussion here, not other users.

>> Signal has launched support to use nicknames

Wow, really? ICQ had that in 1996 ...