Even State Department-funded Human Rights Watch admits that authorities combine legal and illegal methods to obtain convictions: https://text.hrw.org/report/2018/01/09/dark-side/secret-origins-evidence-us-criminal-cases
Combining dragnet surveillance with device hacking is intended in the design of both tools. Hence, State Department-funded Signal dupes you into handing over your identity as part of the population-centric mapping. In custody, your phone will be hacked when it is taken away if it’s important.
https://xcancel.com/hannahcrileyy/status/2034273723667161480#m
This is fundamentally not how Signal works, but you are generally correct in that a phone number has been shown to provide a lot of context for a person (or a device, at least). But Signal (the app) only uses a phone number for initial verification of an account. You have a lot of options to break that association with you - use a landline and get a call verification code, use a VoIP number (assuming you trust the provider), use a burner SIM, etc.
Once you have an account, you can choose to identify yourself on the network solely via username so the registration number is not presented to other users. The Signal protocol itself is well-audited and generally secure.
If your issue is with Signal the American company, use an open source fork like Molly with your own UnifiedPush instance. Then you’re only trusting them with transport of your encrypted messages, which again have shown to be secure at least in public audits.
it all does not matter when most people register with their primary phone number that is already tied to their name
I still don’t get it. What is bad about signing up with your phone number? All readable Info that governments can force out of Signal is. “Yep this guy uses Signal, signed up last year” so nothing is lost (except if they use that as a sign you are a terrorist, but then they just wanted to monitor you anyway in the first place)
exactly. what is the question?
also its not “monitor me” and “monitor you”, but “monitor whoever is using the service” more closely, and as it seems, retaliate against them.
The question is: What privacy do I loose by signing up to Signal with a phone number instead of hypothetically a username.
If you are being monitored, they know your phone number. With that they know you are using Signal, but nothing more. Messaging through Signal is safe.
If you are not being monitored, nobody knows you are using Signal. Messaging through Signal is safe