Ephemeral usernames instead of phone numbers safeguard privacy — and makes the Signal messenger app even harder to subpoena.
    • ryannathans@aussie.zone
      6·
      4 months ago

      Doesn’t really matter with them being non unique. Multiple people can have the same username, there’s a randomly generated number that goes with it

        • akilou@sh.itjust.works
          52·
          4 months ago

          You shouldn’t be forced to be anonymous. If you want to pick the same username, you should be able to. But even so, there’s still a required number at the end. So unless your username elsewhere ends in 2 digits and isn’t already taken, then you can’t pick it anyway

          • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
            5·
            4 months ago

            The best compromise might be similar to how it works currently

            Right now you enter your username, and then a number is randomly generated but you can change it manually.

            Randomly generate both, and allow the user to change both

      • olicvb@lemmy.caEnglish
        9·
        4 months ago

        guessing it would mean that people wont be using the same username as they do on every other account. So if doodlebop69 can’t be traced from signal they could go to google and find the same doodlebop69 to grab their information from

        • akilou@sh.itjust.works
          31·
          4 months ago

          But doodlebug69 needs to accept a message from you before you can see their profile info.

          • Baguette@lemmy.ml
            4·
            4 months ago

            They have the username already, they don’t need to see their profile info to search for a username

    • pedroapero@lemmy.ml
      1·
      4 months ago

      It generated a suffix of two digits when I tried (you can set it explicitely but it is mandatory).