It's bad for privacy no matter how you sell it. Unless you have a good amount of disposable income to buy up burner numbers all the time, a phone number tends to be incredibly identifying. So if a government agency comes along saying "Hey, we know this account sent this message and you have to give us everything you have about this account," for the average person, it doesn't end up being that different than having given them your full id.
Ganbat
joined 2 months ago
The second I went to sign up and learned a phone number was absolutely required, I knew that their privacy was pure bullshit. That little declaration at the end here is an absolute slap to the face.
ITT: Wicked coping with some terrifyingly invasive practices from people none of us know. Seriously, some of this stuff is super concerning.
Scroll down and listen to the recording for Never Gonna Give You Up. Someone knows where that box is.
Yeah, it's kinda been all over the place, but that's where the show ended up going, except Vault Tech was very much in the loop. I can't get spoiler tags to work, so I'll leave out the details.
What I'm thinking of, though, was also in Fallout 4. I've been thinking on it, and I remember now that what I'm thinking of is that it's implied that the AI from the Railroad quests fed fake info about incoming missiles to force America to fire. I still don't remember any specifics, though, and I could be misremembering. It's been a good few years after all, lol.
There are actual science fiction stories built on the premise that AI reporting on the start of Nuclear War resulted in actual kickoff of the apocalypse, and we're at that corner now.
IIRC, this was the running theory in Fallout until the show.
Edit: I may be misremembering, it may have just been something similar.
Wonder if 3.0 will finally fix alpha levels.
Oh, this would be funny if people en masse were smart enough to understand the problems with generative ai. But, because there are people out there like that one dude threatening to sue Mutahar (quoted as saying "ChatGPT understands the law"), this has to be a problem.
Spite. That's why.
I hope it develops a healthy community and we get some good software out of it.
Thing is, their license denies that outright.
- No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form.
- No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of the software.
- Official Distribution: Only the maintainers of the official repository are allowed to distribute the software and its modifications.
Of course, this license is in direct violation of GitHub's ToS, which states that by hosting publicly on GitHub you accept that anyone can see and fork your code.
Says right there in the subpoena "You are required to provide all information tied to the following phone numbers." This means that the phone number requirement has already created a leak of private information in this instance, Signal simply couldn't add more to it.
Additionally, that was posted in 2021. Since then, Signal has introduced usernames to "keep your phone number private." Good for your average Joe Blow, but should another subpoena be submitted, now stating "You are required to provide all information tied to the following usernames," this time they will have something to give, being the user's phone number, which can then be used to tie any use of Signal they already have proof of back to the individual.
Yeah, it's great that they don't log what you send, but that doesn't help if they get proof in any other way. The fact is, because of the phone number requirement, anything you ever send on Signal can easily be tied back to you should it get out, and that subpoena alone is proof that it does.