What would happen if I registered on signal using 1 sim card and then immediately throwing it away in the trash (where it belongs), eventually the phone number would be recycled and given to somebody else, does that mean that I would lose access to my signal account, even if usernames are used?
Thanks!
I’ve been wondering about this myself. It looks like keeping a number isn’t necessary as long as the device remains the same and a pin is used on the account.
From the link:
If you cannot remember your Signal PIN, you can tap the “Skip” button in the top-right corner to go through the traditional SMS verification flow instead.
It seems like whoever has the number can dictate whether or not to let you use the account registered on that number.
It’s very unfortunate that there are such dependencies on phone numbers.
This is interesting and a welcome change. It used to be that if you couldn’t get a text or call you just couldn’t bring signal over with the same chats to a new phone.
Keep in mind that whichever phone you decide to use the sim card with, the cellular network will have access to the phones IMEI and IMSI identifiers.
Phone numbers are why Signal is the most popular private messenger.
Unfortunately is a necessity till something becomes big at least.
You don’t need a phone number to find someone on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, they tell you their username and boom that’s it.
When Signal gets that big, maybe they can remove the phone number dependency, but still the contact discovery would suffer.
Phone numbers are unfortunately a price we have to pay so, many people that are not in tech can use actual private messengers.
Better messenger apps like SimpleX for example will fall short because of things like this. They focus too much in privacy and to impress the privacy and security communities.
In the end of the day when i call my parents to install SimpleX to communicate, maybe we will succeed to communicate after some work, but i bet they won’t open it again.
IIRC, after 7 days of not connecting to signal servers the registration PIN is removed automatically.
Along with all the information associated with your account. Link