I’m quite sure that there are issues similar to this one.
I would like to have the possibility to register to Signal without a phone number but maybe with an email or just an user name . I have got really young cousins that have got phones just to play games and sending whatsapp messages and they have to pay 15 euros or more to have a SIM card. It’s unbelivable… i think that it could be done without problem

Read The Intercept article How to Use Signal Without Giving Out Your Phone Number.

As replied by Open Whisper System many times, it’s on DOTO list.

What is DOTO list? It’s like a roadmap?

Then please search for them first next time.

It was typo, I thought TODO list. TODO list is “something to do in the future”. You have a list of actions sorted by priority, but without any time estimate when feature is going to be implemented. Roadmap is one step further, you exactly specify WHEN (in which version) some feature is going to be implemented.

6

Signal shouldn’t require users to enter their phone number to signup. Or even if they do there should be support for usernames to message people. There are many times when I would like secure messaging, but not be required to reveal my personal cell phone number. I would love to give out some form of username instead of revealing my personal phone number.

7

Currently only devices with a PSTN number are supported. Embedded devices like door stations, webcams, etc. should be able to communicate with Signal users, too. I suggest to implement UID support for devices without a PSTN number.

8

“There are many times when I would like secure messaging, but not be required to reveal my personal cell phone number. I would love to give out some form of username instead of revealing my personal phone number.”

I think this is incredibly important.

9

I know that you need to own a mobile in order to securely use the Signal (

https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/981375344883122176 )

Why do the designers of the Signal decide to disallow simple username + password authorization, like e.g. Skype has? I understand that there were important reasons behind this architectural decision, and I am really curious about what they are.

10

Having read across all topics dealing with this, I think it’s mainly because of

  • simplicity (you don’t have to manage (remember) a username and/or password)
  • contact discovery (if you give Signal the permission to access your contacts, you’ll immediately see who of your contacts uses Signal as well and you can write them without knowing and having to enter/import their usernames)

This seems to make adoption of the masses more likely.

11

In addition to the ease-of-use things (which indirectly improve security and privacy because if you want the masses to use end2end crypto you have to make it easy enough they will actually use it), there are some more direct security and privacy things:

  1. hijacking an SMS/PSTN is considerably more difficult than hijacking an email

  2. with server-side rate-limits and reg-lock-PIN, you can make it more difficult

  3. spammers have to be thwarted preventatively, from ever getting a toehold; if you make it somewhat expensive for them to get EACH fresh new signal-identifier, and extremely easy for recipients to insta-block (very first option on the list), you can have nigh-zero-knowledge server-nodes with extremely strong metadata-resistance and ubiquitious end2end crypto for everything. But if you FAIL to thwart spammers, preventatively, things get really ugly really fast: they are pretty much impossible to detect server-side, thanks to all the privacy-respecting design-decisions. Client-side scanning is a primitive unsatisfactory band-aid. Thus, either you have to LOWER security for everybody by rolling back the privacy design-decisions, or you risk an aggressive proprietary hypercorp competitor cannibalizing away your userbase with embrace-extend-extinguish (endusers will give up almost any amount of privacy for convenient ‘reasonably’-spam-resistant comms as gmail and facebook prove).

Usability is an important part of the equation, but to me the spam-constraints are the lynchpin. Building an enormous userbase, increases the risk of spammer-invasion: if you only have a few million endusers (or even less like most of signalapp’s teensy no-phone-num competitors) then spam is minimal, because there aren’t enough gullible suckers to make it viable. As soon as you get into the hundreds of millions, let alone billions, of endusers… you either needs massive server-side spyware to identify and weed out “unwanted” spammers (as opposed to “advertising partners” who have fully paid their whatsapp4biz dues this month!) or you need strongly-preventative measures.

Signalapp already has needed to implement the abusedb and recaptcha, for specific areas of the world – unclear which ones, but there have been automated signups using android-in-a-virtual-machine type adversaries, rumour has it.

Anyways, in addition to being ‘confusing’ to a fairly large class of everyday enduser… the kind of folks that cannot remember their own phone-num easily will FOR SURE not be able to remember their hypothetical signal-username-and-signal-password… the other big reason to require a valid telco-num is that these are NOT an infinitely abundant pool of identifiers. Badguys can still abuse signal-network, but it is more costly and difficult for them to do so; if you give the goodguys the ability to register with a username, they will abuse that and nothing can really stop them. (With skype they can be stopped because of all the privacy-invasive knowledge skype servers hold.)

12

I would be willing to make a one time payment to have an anonymous account.

13

My mother like to use Signal on her iPad. But she do not has a mobile phone and no mobile phone number. She uses her iPad only in WLAN-area. Is there a possibility to use Signal in this way without a phone number?

14

She can register Signal on her iPad using e.g. her landline phone number, or your landline number if either of you have one.
Alternatively, I have found CloudSIM provide affordable virtual numbers that accept all manner of automated verification SMS - I haven’t tried it with Signal specifically, but it should work.

15

This would be great. I would be fine with email or username based registration. Just something else besides a phone number.

Generate public and private key pairs for each user. I explain more here: Secondary user ID alongside phone number - #10 by speaking_specs

17

An alternative to phone number singup is good.

Well, Telegram allows you to add people by using your username, without the need of letting them know your phone number. I believe this is the easiest way to not give your mobile number to strangers. In fact, I think that one the factors Telegram is so used is this! I use it too, when I don’t want to give my number (although I prefer Signal).

19

You’re in luck because that’s exactly how Signal is implementing it :slight_smile: (based on all the commits we’ve seen)

You’ll still need a phone number to register, but you’ll be able to give out your username to others. The username (contact) will be stored only on Signal.

Wow, great! Thank you so much for your very fast answer! :D Can’t wait for this feature! ^^