This irony isn’t lost on Signal, and it has just announced a new feature called Signal PINs that allow you to keep control of your account even if you lose your phone or are forced to switch numbers and can’t get your old one back. There’s something even less appealing about the worry that you could be locked out of your own account simply by losing the right to the phone number you used for the account. Indeed, getting hold of an “anonymous” SIM card, or using an improperly registered one, is a criminal offence in some jurisdictions.Īnd there’s something unappealing about entrusting your identity on a secure online service (one that prides itself on immunity to surveillance) to a cryptographic chip that must by law be registered with a central authority so it can keep tabs on you via that same chip. You need to use a working phone number that really is yours.īasing the identity of accounts on a phone number makes a lot of sense, not least because a phone number is something you can easily and cheaply acquire in many countries, and it guarantees that the user has a satisfactory way of verifying their identity.īut in some countries, getting hold of a phone number isn’t an easy process, and may involve proving not only your identity but also your address. We’ve never bothered with Signal for the reason that signing up means handing over your phone number.Ĭonveniently, a phone number is all you need to sign up, but you can’t sign up with your name instead, or with an email address. Signal, however, has one curious aspect that puts some people off, this author included. (With apologies to well-known cryptographers Bruce Schneier and Matt Green, who are two of Signal’s other celebrity endorsers.) Snowden is quoted on Signal’s website with the five simple words, “I use Signal every day.” Signal is also endorsed by a privacy celebrity that other IM service providers can’t match, namely Edward Snowden. Signal not only has no desire, but also has no need, to take any interest in what you’re saying, or whom you’re saying it to. …which means that there’s a much more compelling reason to believe the organisation when it claims to have an unbending focus on end-to-end encryption.
#WICKR ME ID HOW TO#
Sharing information about you with third parties isn’t part of Signal’s business model, so there’s actually no point in it figuring out how to do so…
Signal is a US-registered non-profit organisation that was founded entirely around making and supporting the messaging app.Īs a result, Signal’s big selling point is, well, that it isn’t selling anything. WhatsApp belongs to Facebook, Skype is part of Microsoft, and iMessage is owned by Apple, but the open-source app Signal belongs, inasmuch as it belongs to anyone, to Signal.
That difference – or at least its major difference – is simple: it’s not owned and operated by an industry behemoth. Signal is a popular instant messaging (IM) app with a difference. (In fact, as this article explains below, you can’t.) This article is not a “howto” list of tricks for skipping any of the steps in Signal’s official account setup process, such as deliberately bypassing the part where you have to put in a phone number.
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