They probably do it to prevents spam/abuse. It is supposed to be a better WhatsApp after all, not a completely federated software. So it gotta be somewhat user friendly.
Probably referring to that it’s harder for scammers to create scam accounts because they need to verify the phone number is actually theirs before the account can send messages. IMO, still not worth requiring a phone number for the 90% of legitimate users.
Not sure if Signal does this, but most websites will automatically look up the phone number registration, see that it’s from one of those companies, and reject it.
The original argument is that Signal does not want to create a social graph of user accounts on their server and rather rely on the already existing one of the users phone book.
But that is very narrow thinking and ultimately counterproductive as others have pointed out here already.
They probably do it to prevents spam/abuse. It is supposed to be a better WhatsApp after all, not a completely federated software. So it gotta be somewhat user friendly.
What? It’s easier for spammers/scammers to enumerate phone numbers (because they follow a specific pattern) than usernames or random IDs.
Probably referring to that it’s harder for scammers to create scam accounts because they need to verify the phone number is actually theirs before the account can send messages. IMO, still not worth requiring a phone number for the 90% of legitimate users.
There are websites online that offer 10 minute phone numbers.
Not sure if Signal does this, but most websites will automatically look up the phone number registration, see that it’s from one of those companies, and reject it.
There are these services still around.
https://sms24.me/en/messages/Signal
You’ll notice most numbers aren’t from US. The ability to detect VoIP numbers only applies to NA.
The original argument is that Signal does not want to create a social graph of user accounts on their server and rather rely on the already existing one of the users phone book.
But that is very narrow thinking and ultimately counterproductive as others have pointed out here already.