[interfixus]

We are not really supposed to talk ill of the holy Signal here on HN, and we usually get severely trounced if we do. But of course you are absolutely right - this has been one gaping hole in Signal privacy since forever.

Another thing Signal likes to do is to broadcast the fact every time you shift it to a new device. I have seen enough changing round from a couple of correspondents to deduce a pattern in their hardware habits.

A third stunt it likes is to make it non-obvious what actually happens when you set up groups. One friend did, believing it to be just a personal way of organising contacts, thereby of course immediately exposing parts of his contact list to the rest of us and vice versa.

Also terrible user experience (like using heavily license restricted software). I no longer use the thing.

[tapoxi]

> Another thing Signal likes to do is to broadcast the fact every time you shift it to a new device. I have seen enough changing round from a couple of correspondents to deduce a pattern in their hardware habits.

This is a security feature to ensure you're talking to the same person. Phone numbers are terrifyingly easy to port to another account.

[interfixus]

Yes, I know it's supposed to be a security feature. Not one that works weel, but perhaps it does somewhat enhance security. Alas, Signal forgets to mention that it does so at a cost to privacy.

[newscracker]

It stops being a security feature when Signal keeps sending such messages when nothing has changed (and because Signal has bugs), prompting users to ignore these messages forever.

[dooglius]

>Phone numbers are terrifyingly easy to port to another account.

Which is precisely why they should never be used as an identifier.

[ajconway]

This feature leaks metadata. It's just an implementation detail, I'm sure the devs are not happy about it and probably are researching other ways to provide cross-device experience.