zlacker

That doesn't change the fact that all phone numbers are visible to all group members. All it takes is one rogue participant to reveal the identities of all members. If that actor has access to triangulation data they now have identity, location history, words and possibly images/video.

>>unicor+(OP)
Yeah, it's optimized for communication between trusted parties (e.g. Snowden and a journalist) - as such the focus is on verifying the identity of the other person, not hiding it. It'd be cool if they figured out a group chat setting that was optimized for groups like protesters trying to coordinate - show your identity only to users you are directly connected with/have verified/whitelisted, but hide your identity to everyone else.

>>unicor+(OP)
I'm sure this is an underrated part of why discord became such a big thing in gaming communities. With so many toxic players and threats against a person so common, a good threat model would care a lot less about surveillance and a lot more about everyone seeing your phone number

>>techni+o2
Same for Twitter. Real names on internet? Actual phone numbers?

You don’t need half as much identification to get stabbed by a weirdo...

>>m12k+e2
Except the whole point of OTR-like messaging was that you can communicate with someone who you can't be entirely sure you trust in perpetuity (that's why messages in Signal and similar systems don't have non-repudiation -- neither party can prove to a third party that a message really was sent by the other party). Now, obviously the metadata worry is separate to how the message cryptography is implemented but it does seem odd to have a threat model which is somewhat confused on this question.

>>cyphar+Mf
But with signal you can verify that person, its like the opposite of otr.

https://signal.org/blog/safety-number-updates/

>>nix23+ts
OTR also allows you to do key verification -- all encrypted chat systems support that. The point isn't that you cannot be sure who you're talking to, the point is that the communication transcript cannot be provided to a third party as evidence that either party in the conversation said something.

This is fairly simply implemented in OTR. Rather than signing the message with an asymmetric keypair (as you would with PGP), you sign it with a HMAC. Thus both the sender and recipient could create a valid message from the sender (giving you the property that only the two people in the conversation can be sure what was actually said by the other party, without being able to prove it to a third party cryptographically).