There is no metadata harvesting on Signal and the use of a phone number is so convenient and helped massively with adoption from the general unaware public.
I loved that it acted as a private and secure drop in replacement for SMS (particularly before they removed that integration) that does what I needed and does it very well and easily connects me with people that already have my number. This made sharing Signal very easy. The only data Signal has to even provide to the authorities is your registration date, phone number, and time of last connection. The absolute minimum. It’s fantastic. If you compare this to Whatsapp which has everything but the exact content of your messages, it’s not even a contest.
For myself on Signal and everyone else I’ve known that that uses Whatsapp or Insta or whatever, the extra absolute anonymity of also removing phone numbers from the already small equation just isn’t needed or worth it, otherwise you wouldn’t be using Signal, let alone fucking Facebook.
I admire your conviction. But in that case we also have to consider how your right to move about freely is being affected. If you feel like you need to choose not to travel when you want or need to travel, how will you reconcile? Do you weigh and choose the lesser evil? Seems like you just end up violated one way or another. I don’t like it, not any of this.
AI in 2077: Based on data provided by corpos about your consciousness, we’ve determined this is your shitpost from 2024 on Lemmy. You have been deemed a flight-risk by our automated predictive policing system. Here’s the number for the suicide hotline.
Also here’s some sponsored products that may interest your wallet:
- AI Counselor - the global metaverse phenomenon. So realistic that you’ll believe you’re talking to an actual human! 5% discount available for flagged individuals.
- Trauma Care - our platinum plan offers priority care, now in partnership with Amazon Pharma (Joy Pills sold separately)
- Waste disposal - if you decide dive off the deep end, be sure to contact the team ahead of time for prompt removal of your corpse and property to make way for the next tenant
Remember the NSA director back when all the Snowden stuff happened? Keith Alexander? He joined Amazon’s board of directors in 2020. Not to mention Bezos is a particular fan of the DoD and was on the Pentagon’s advisory board.
Why anyone would trust Amazon is beyond me. And I don’t like feeling so damn watched just for walking down a street with a bunch of Ring cameras. I can’t believe it’s so normalized to constantly watch your neighbors with a corps eyeballs.
I don’t mind paying for email if it’s actually private. One advantage I found to using Proton Mail instead of my self hosted email server (other than the obvious convenience, config, maintenance, blocked port 25, IP reputation so you don’t end up in spam, etc) is that the more people start to migrate off of Google and onto Proton, the more emails between Proton users will be E2E encrypted by default, so it’s one of those “the more users, the better” kinda things.
Same with Tuta. Even though emails between a Proton and Tuta user aren’t E2E, it’s still a net benefit for everyone if more people switch to these private solutions.
Always have been, and they’re in it for the long game. They’ve already acquired a stupid amount of control on the web and web standards with everything from Chromium to Youtube, not to mention it doesn’t help that they basically control the world’s most popular mobile OS. Google wants it all if we let them.
Edit: nevermind I typed a lot but that Lemmygrad user made a far better post that I agree with.