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Comment by MikeGale | Hacker News Reader

I haven't signed up with Signal because it's a source of surveillance for me. It gives out a phone number.

It also leaks contact lists making it worse.

A communication medium has no need to force people under surveillance. Why not just assume you're an adult dealing with adults and let people choose. Choose their handle, need to opt in to sharing contacts. (Would also be ethical that they're forced to tell each person that they gave away their details.)

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> It gives out a phone number.

To who? The article linked is literally explaining how Signal doesn't know who your contacts are, or you.

> Why not just assume you're an adult dealing with adults and let people choose. Choose their handle,

You'll be interested to know that this is coming this year.

>> It gives out a phone number.

> To who?

To the recipient of any message you send. https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007061452-Do...

I mean... that's kinda how phones work. Really any communication system you have to give out some identifier. For the vast majority of us we know who we're communicating with. If you're that concerned, buy a burner phone with cash or wait a few months. But I don't understand why this would be a big issue. Who are you handing out your number to?

I mean conversely at this point in the spam world I'm blocking anyone who doesn't give the phone number they're sending from. If I don't need to know who you are, you don't need to talk to me.

To the best of my understanding, the service only gives out your phone number to people you message (the recipient needs some way to message you back, after all), and the service does not receive nor leak your contact list.

Source: TFA

i don't want to share my phonenumber with everyone that i communicate with.

my main concern is that i want to be able to block contacts if needed and i can't effectively do that if they have my number

You'd like Threema.

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