Signal to add optional registration without phone number through one-time payment
Signal is developing an optional registration method that allows users to create an account without providing a phone number. This new feature, known as 'Signal Login', was discovered in Signal’s Android source code and responds to frequent user requests for phone number free registration.
While this upgrade offers increased account privacy, Signal Login will require a one-time payment instead of a recurring subscription. Pricing has not been finalized, and the amounts referenced in current source code are examples. Users who choose not to pay for Signal Login will still be able to use the existing phone number based signup process. The introduction of this fee is designed to limit spam and automated account creation, which have prevented phone number free signups until now. Signal CTO Ehren Kret previously indicated that adding a cost was necessary to discourage abuse of the registration process.
Signal will continue offering its existing phone number privacy controls, including options that limit account discoverability. The nonprofit has not announced a launch date or final price, but references to Signal Login in the registration components of its source code suggest the feature is actively being developed and could arrive in the near future.
- Instant Messenger
- Free
- Open Source
Related news
External links
- SignalLoginPaymentState.ktSignal’s Android source code on GitHub • Official source
- Signal Login: optional registration without a phone number will require a one-time paymentAboutSignal
Comments
This is a tricky problem. Signal's product seems the best for privacy at this time... except for collecting your telephone number, which is deeply linked to your identity. The article says that their CTO has admitted that they can't just open it up to total anonymity without being overwhelmed by spam, trolls, bots, etc.
But collecting a fee will undoubtedly involve some kind of payment method. 99% of the transactions will also be linked to your identity. (No, i do not believe that crypto is anonymous.) So paying a one-time fee will just transfer your privacy vulnerability from phone number to credit card.
I don't know how to solve this problem. I have apps that i want to give to the community via cc-by-nc-sa, but i have the same problem.
The best examples of success that i've seen are:
I believe that the best system actually does involve:
Tough choices on that scale of service.
I would love to get serious, productive feedback.
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Tor sounds very much under attack and heavily compromised by the feds, if it's the level of anonymity you need you might look at
Nym which isn't a darknet but a mixnet which is far more complex to de-anonymise. However unlike Tor it's a paid infrastructure.
They also have made Zk-nyms to have no link possible from a payment and an account. Pretty cool but more importantly you can pay in XMR, BTC LN, GNU Taler or cash which are important for anonymous transactions and paid account creation.
I hope Signal will allow more than GPay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Visa, MasterCard and their scam shitcoin MobileCoin. I have low excpectation but I would appreciate Bitcoin like Threema allows
Threema or even better Monero and Lightning Network.
Proton doesn't allow for anonymous account creation, at least judging by the few times I tried to create one it forced me to provide a backup email. I agree with the rest of your comment though, but haven't got an answer, other then a theoretical model of using multiple independent nodes like Apple with their privacy internet protocol, but even that has just recently been shown to have serious flaws.
The only "solution" is make do with what we have and fight against surveillance as a whole. The biggest incentive for spying is money made from it (the collected data), so we should ban selling data and using it on behalf of a third party. Ideally we should ban the use of data collection for curated content outright (yes I know that will hurt streaming recommendations based on reports from the ThePrimeagen that's critical for providing users with content they like) but I don't think that's practically enforceable, or at least we shouldn't be focusing on that now (don't bite more than you can chew).