Yes, you can use Signal without sharing your personal phone number. Here’s how I did it.

  • BrikoX@lemmy.zipOP
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    4 months ago

    It’s there for a reason. You can’t easily create a spam waves if you need a phone number to create an account. And they added usernames now, so you don’t need to share your phone number with people you want to talk to. It’s just there to create an account and can be hidden after that.

    There is Session, that uses UUIDs for names with no phone number requirement, which is basically a fork of Signal with decentralized Loki on top of it.

    • sqgl@beehaw.org
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      4 months ago

      Isn’t spoofing a phone number easy for scammers? If so, I don’t understand why there is (admittedly) so little spam on Signal.

      Does Signal require 2FA upon registration? (I cannot recall)

      • BrikoX@lemmy.zipOP
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        4 months ago

        Spoofing just changes the displayed called/sender ID, not the actual number. They would still need real numbers for each account. And they block a lot of VoIP numbers, like most services these days. And getting carrier SIMs or e-SIMs is a not that easy.

        No mandatory 2FA as far as I know.

        • sqgl@beehaw.org
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          4 months ago

          No mandatory 2FA as far as I know.

          Then how is the authenticity of a number tested by Signal?