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

  • BrikoX@lemmy.zipOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    2 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
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      2 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
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        2 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
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          2 months ago

          No mandatory 2FA as far as I know.

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