So they could have replaced it with, like, email verification or something, but they instead stuck to the design that lets governments identify all users?

<Insert rampant and unfounded speculation about FBI compromise here>

Pretty sure you still need a phone number for an account, though - the usernames are just for sharing your contact with other people.

Most peoples’ phone numbers are easily linked to their identity. Which means the government knows who’s using Signal.

Usernames are definitely an improvement, but this is a fundamental limitation in Signal’s design.

One use case could be mass protests/uprisings, where you have a lot of people congregated in a small area. An increasingly popular strategy among governments these days is to just shut down the entire internet in an agitated region. Bluetooth could keep information flowing between people with only mutual contacts, as they move in and out of range.

Consider Briar.

Uses Tor. Works directly over Bluetooth/WiFi if the internet is censored or shut down. Decentralized, no accounts. No phone number required.

Of all the options available, I feel like this one is the best suited to current threats (oppressive governments with all-encompassing surveillance, and the willingness to destroy critical institutions and infrastructure).

The app is super barebones right now - feels like SMS - but it works. Main downside is that both participants have to be online at the same time (maybe group chats can work around this?), since there’s no servers.

consider: train🚆
train: go zoom 🚄
train: fit many catgirls 😽 n all my transmasc homies too 🤠 don’t forget the enbies dummy 💁
train: run on electricity ⚡ give a hoot! 📣

🚆tra(i)ns 🏳️‍⚧️

✨ watching my life pass me by 💫

Just like my history with my mental illness affects a small populace. Why should the world have to bend to my problems?

Because you matter, and your problems matter >:3

I know it can be hard to feel that way, but the way I see it is - after everything they’ve taken from us, we can’t let them take our self-worth! Most cis people and most abled people I know aren’t ashamed to expect the world to work for them; we don’t get points for expecting nothing for ourselves.

I would never expect the intolerable, ignorant, racist, or cruel people to bend their beliefs for me. Its a waste of my energy to want that.

I don’t expect them to do that. I don’t need them to do that either. I need them to shut up and fuck off. You know, the exact same thing they want the people they oppress to do >:3

As for it being a waste of your energy… that’s your call, but personally, I wouldn’t be able to keep going if I couldn’t imagine a world where the bigots consistently lose. I haven’t yet “found my tribe” with people who understand and accept me, and it’s not likely to happen in the near future; so the hope that a better world is possible, and that I could help build it, is basically all I have left - and yet, it’s been enough to get me this far. Who knows, maybe it’ll do something for you.

Especially because you shouldn’t give a fuck about how people perceive you. You should be whoever you are and not care about labels.

Unfortunately we are social creatures with a need for acceptance and belonging. We can survive without those things, but it isn’t really living. Take it from someone who spent most of their life living like a hermit.

Having someone recognize your gender is one of the most basic kinds of acceptance. Social interactions tend to feel pretty hollow and superficial when you know that the other person doesn’t know/care who you really are. (Again, ask me how I know 🙂)

Hi, Centrist! I’m Offended!