I remember a time when visiting a website that opens a javacript dialog box asking for your name so the message “hi <name entered>” could be displayed was baulked at.

Why does signal want a phone number to register? Is there a better alternative?

  • 0101100101@programming.devOPEnglish
    324·
    15 hours ago
    1. yawn, vpns are a thing and strawman argument. point?
    2. my number is private. point?
    3. bs. spam is easy to detect across a large number of accounts using simpleheuristics. point?
    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      42·
      11 hours ago
      1. they were talking of something like year 2003, when they were commonly not.
      2. no, PSTN is not private.
      3. for something end-to-end encrypted, including message metadata (not connection metadata), this statement seems amazingly stupid ; “simple heuristics” are usually used on something like plaintext e-mail.
      • 0101100101@programming.devOPEnglish
        1·
        6 hours ago
        1. no they weren’t. no moving of goalposts
        2. what’s my number then?
        3. amazingly not stupid. dunning kruger and all that.
        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
          11·
          5 hours ago
          1. People were complaining about JS existing when SSL and TLS were not omniscious. If we disagree on that fact, move on.
          2. A sequence of digits.
          3. OK, what are your “simple heuristics” for a bunch of pieces of ciphertext with unknown sender (except for IP addresses) in your storage to pick spammers from that?