Matrix doesn’t harvest metadata like phone numbers by design while Signal does.

You’re right, Matrix doesn’t ask for a phone number but it damn sure leaks metadata like a sieve. Unless things have significantly changed in the last year, here’s a list of things Matrix can see about you in an encrypted room, that an app like Signal cannot:

• Your content
  • Your username
  • Your display name
  • Your avatar
  • Your rank within the room (admin, moderator, etc)
  • The Sent date of every message
  • A link to every message you responded to (the contents of which are encrypted)
  • Every emoji reaction you send, and to which message
  • (If on your home server) your IP address
• The room content
  • The room name
  • The room icon
  • The room description
  • The room membership
• Your changes
  • The time and message ID of messages you edit
  • The time and message ID of messages you delete
  • A history of rank changes (promotions, demotions) and who changes your rank
  • A history of things you do to other users, if appropriate
• Room changes
  • Who enters the room and when
  • Who leaves the room and when
  • Who gets promoted/demoted and when
  • Changes to the room name, avatar, description, etc - when they happened-

I love how I’ve addressed this numerous times but you’re still unable to understand the difference. Trusting that the protocol works correctly is different from trusting people operating a server. Clearly this is a concept that is beyond your comprehension.

I clearly understand the difference, what you fail to address is that at the end of the day you are placing your trust in a third party, whether its the code, the protocols or a back-end server. Matrix removes the server if you host your own and never interact with other instances, but otherwise, you’re still trusting the code and the protocols and that - as I’ve pointed out above - that what you’re recommending isn’t already leaking tons of data. And don’t get it twisted, I’m ROOTING for Matrix, it just has a long way to go to address issues that Signal clearly identified early on would hold back the platform (federation + third party clients).

Maybe go read up on where Signal comes from instead of spending your time trolling here. http://surveillancevalley.com/blog/internet-privacy-funded-by-spies-cia

I know what you’re talking about but you don’t want to bring it up because its all tinfoil hat wearing flat-earth conspiracy theory web of poorly connected dots. Your response is the MAGA equivalent of “do your research”. I’ve done my research. The onus is on you to bring forth the evidence. To quote Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. Don’t try and connect dots that don’t back up your claim and stand proud behind what’s at best poorly thought out misinformation.