Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Why does Signal want a phone number to register if it's supposedly privacy first? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 day ago by 0101100101@programming.dev to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I remember a time when visiting a website that opens a javacript dialog box asking for your name so the message "hi " could be displayed was baulked at.

Why does signal want a phone number to register? Is there a better alternative?

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[–] Geodad@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I believe you can delete your phone number once you're up and running, but yeah that seems like an anti-feature.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I see an option to change it, not delete. It's still attached to a SIM card which requires identity verification in many states.

[–] Geodad@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago

You're right. That is odd.

[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

When anyone get a copy of your data, nothing will bring it back.

[–] 0101100101@programming.dev -5 points 1 day ago

I'm sure that just sets the database column hide_phonenumber to TRUE.