cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/75560265
Signal has started rolling out Signal Login, an optional registration method that allows users to create a Signal account without providing a phone number. The feature will be rolled out first on Android and will come to iOS later.
As we previously reported, Signal Login is not a free alternative registration method. Signal requires users who choose to register without a phone number to make a one-time payment. The price at launch is $2.99 / € 3.49, although this may vary by region and currency.
Not beating the NSA collection allegations. I get the excuse is that it stops spammers but in practice it also ties each account to a payment transaction tied to a real human person just the same as a phone number which allows the NSA and other eyes groups to do metadata graphing analysis on who you’re talking to, when you’re talking, how much you’re talking, etc.
Even presuming they don’t have an NSL in place and NSA devices on their servers reading everything sent via their Google and Apple distributed apps (no way to prove those apps properly implement e2e and reflect open source code published and a big if given their founder and board are under US legal jurisdiction) this basically gives NSA/GCHQ/eyes agreement countries 90% of what they want in that it ties a real person to the account.
Signal is still preferable to getting zucked by Meta alternatives or Discord obviously but I hope no one truly thinks it’s actually high confidence private from national security organs given all the weirdness.
Finally. Now make payment not depend on Google.
🙄🙄🙄
just use fucking session or simplex at this point
If you’re not into fascism (and other unhealthy shite) I’d stay away from Simplex:
SimpleX has received a $1M donation from Jack Dorsey[source] in the wake of changes to Telegram that promised to crack down on far-right extremism on the app.
nice to know.
This sounds very useful (once I can pay without Google Play) to set up bot accounts. I’m in some groups that organise on Signal, and I’ve looked into the possibility of having a bot to post meeting reminders and such. I don’t have a second number for the bot though, and operating it with my account seems dumb. A cheap, one time fee for a bot account sounds perfect though.
say wat?
They don’t know which account made which payment. They only know that a payment was made.
Why not let people donate on website, get a pass there and then allow login on app?
Functionally, that’s exactly what they’re doing.
They’re just starting with Google Pay as the payment processor, because it’s easy for them to beta test with.
