this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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if they need my phone number to have an account anyway, they can offer both.
i dont need more apps that do the same thing. i need less.
It's arguably a very bad idea for a secure messenger to also provide an SMS interface, since those are basically cleartext
exactly. so I'm wondering what the purpose is for its need.
(edit: apologies- the phone number. needing the phone number.)
What? You use a secure messenger to send secure messages. It doesn't make sense for a secure messenger to offer sending insecure messages (SMS).
Edit: oh, you're probably referring to why it requires a phone number. This seems to be due to abuse/spam prevention, as otherwise creating new accounts to spam people with is basically free.
using the phone number is still a pretty unnecessary risk, imho.
there's no real need for it any longer.
Do you have a better approach to prevent spam in mind? Without a barrier of entry it becomes a serious issue.
Spam prevention? Ive got spam on Signal. Having your phone number be the barrier of entry doesn't make Signal a flawless app.
and considering i can just plug a google voice number in, I'm not sure its the best barrier.
Spam isn't a binary issue, where it either exists or doesn't. It could very well be the case that, without requiring a phone number, there'd be far more spam (since it'd be far easier to automatically create new accounts).
Again, do you have a better suggestion for spam & abuse prevention?
And still, aside from that - it doesn't really make sense to expect Signal to offer SMS integration just because it requires a phone number for spam prevention, when offering this integration would be detrimental towards the mission of Signal (offering secure messages).