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Comment by sbf501 | Hacker News Reader

IMHO, anonymity takes a certain amount of unavoidable effort. If you're just chatting with friends, maybe you really don't need Signal. If you are whistleblowing a large corporation or a government, then it makes more sense?

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A significant value of implementing security as "normal" or by default is that you don't look suspicious for having it.

Agreed. Think of all the other things we have come to take as normal.

Carrying car keys (or a fob)

House keys.

Wallets.

IDs.

They all require some mental effort.

> IMHO, anonymity takes a certain amount of unavoidable effort.

If anonymity was a factor, and not ease of use, they’d never only allow phone numbers as login.

After reading this thread, it seems like a necessary paradox. Some quotes in here claim that to use some other number doesn't really allieviate that risk since it is effectively transferred to the signal servers. E.g., there's no way to get around that fact that you must be identified to communicate, it is a matter of who owns that ID ... Hence the paradox. (I may be misunderstanding here.)

Phone numbers are, in some countries including Germany, tied to your identity (as in you can’t even get a number without government issued ID), it doesn’t get much worse for an identifier if anonymity is the goal.

So ultimately this is a service-provider problem? E.g., signal with server issued ID?

It’s the law here, KYC for phone numbers. So even a pseudonym would be better.

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