I saw some threads here about Telegram and piracy stuff being banned. So, as an experimental alternative, I created a public Signal group for piracy.

Maybe it’ll be useful?

Before joining

Signal supports usernames and hiding telephone numbers. Here’s a blog entry on how to do so. You might want to:

  • set a username
  • change your profile name (these are two separate things!)
  • hide your phone number
  • Untold1707@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    You might try a Matrix group instead. Doesn’t require a phone number and supports more than 1000 users unlike Signal. Search is bad though unfortunately.

  • Wistful@discuss.tchncs.de
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    3 months ago

    What is even the point of “piracy groups”? What exactly can you find there that you cannot in other places designed for that, e.g., trackers, usenet, forums…?

    • curry@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      It’s like having a discord ‘server’. Nothing gets actually talked about, noteworthy stuffs are hidden beyond layers of clunky mobile UI and everyone’s phone numbers are leaked in the process.

    • adr1an@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      I don’t know this group but I am on a telegram group that shares movies produced in my country of origin. It’s quite niche, I never saw any tracker that does the same. I doubt it for usenet but never looked into it. Anyway, my point is that some layman uploaders use whatever is at hand and not necessarily have much preparation or technically involved solutions…

    • uiiiq@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      The phone number is not connected to the messages. That’s the only thing they have. It is the best app for privacy.

      • liveinthisworld@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        Arguable in it being “the best app for privacy”. Can you link to a source which shows that phone numbers are not linked to accounts? (Why do they need them anyway?)

        • uiiiq@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          They have published requests from the law enforcement and their responses to these requests. The only unencrypted data they have is the phone number, a date of sign up and a date of the last login. That is it, everything else is encrypted and they cannot access it whatsoever.

            • ladfrombrad 🇬🇧@lemdro.id
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              3 months ago

              No you don’t.

              I can go to the corner shop/local garage right now, buy a SIM card for 99p and then buy a top-up voucher in cash to have a completely anonymous phone number.

              Albeit is the UK in Europe again? 🙈

              edit: where I would be worried if my privacy was on the line is I could also go to the local pawn shop / Cash Converters to ensure that SIM card isn’t associated with an IMEI I’ve previously used and buy in cash a cheapo phone.

            • uiiiq@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              So what? The law enforcement knows you have an account and knows the sign up date and last login. That doesn’t affect your privacy whatsoever. Besides, Europe isn’t a monolith. You can absolutely buy and use a SIM card without disclosing your name in some countries.

                • Ajen@sh.itjust.works
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                  3 months ago

                  You also don’t need to show any ID for a business to meet “know-your-customer” regulations. Can you get a phone number without revealing your identity?

            • blicante@moist.catsweat.comOP
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              3 months ago

              Sometimes, but that’s it. Authorities and signal itself can only say “this number has account with us since $signupDate and used it last on $usageDate”. Signal can’t say “we know $number is talking to $otherNumber” nor can they say “$number is in $group talking to $users”.

      • ancoraunamoka@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        how is it not?

        • the worst kind of opensource, where you are not allowed to run the software yourself (or even fork it)
        • not indexable
        • requires signup with personal informations
        • forever tied to a single identity
        • not exportable to other services
        • no open formats for its storage

        it’s a shitty service, by a shitty person. I know Moxie personally, and he is basically Elon Musk if he didn’t make it

        • hedidwot@lemmynsfw.com
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          3 months ago

          Great… Signal is imperfect.

          Can you suggest a perfect alternative?

          At this point I’m just happy my family have tolerated it to the point we’re not using Facebook Messenger, Google chat (it whatever it’s called this month) and WhatsApp.

          The xmpp or whatever other convoluted alternative you’re about to recommend is not something I’m going to get 20 or 30 family and friends to switch to.

          Signal is imperfect… But not as bad as many other options.

          • ancoraunamoka@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 months ago

            here we are talking about piracy, especially the topic of discussing piracy. Just use a forum, even something like lemmy. Here you have everything you need, but without contributing to a piece of shit like Moxie nor putting everything behind a walled garden like discord (or any other chat software for this matter)

  • lemmus@szmer.info
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    3 months ago

    The problem is Signal supports up to 1000 people group chat, so it’s better to find something different

  • GlenRambo@jlai.lu
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    3 months ago

    Tracker Control is blocking me from joining. Weird that Molly (its a hardened signal fork) is showing amazon is being contacted when trying to join the group.

    I can unblock it but its weird. I also noticed the other domains its been trying to (unsuccessfully) contact.

  • electricprism@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    I thought signing up for Signal required a phone number and phone app – and all phones have IMEI besides many other nightmare anti-features.

    For the normies it’s fine but tbh I’m not sure it’s as advertised.

    What ever happened to that odd old app called tox?

    Honestly I could see a version of DeltaChat + GPG make some gains in popularity but I would argue the email relay servers and spam lists are rigged for max surveillance.

    Are we at the point where tech from 20 years ago may be the way lmao.

    XMPP, IRC, ICQ /s

    Matrix is probably the best bet but some of their apps and clients seem like dogshit. And I am saying that as someone who uses them daily. And the whole “server” thing is a PITA, or it used to be at least.

    I guess we’ll just have to use carrier pidgin and cypherto encrypt the cat gifs /s

    • Negligent_Embassy@links.hackliberty.org
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      3 months ago

      Yeah, for me personally I’m sticking to simplex. I can get an anonymous sim card, but none of the people I’d be talking to would do that. I don’t want this relationship/network map out there at all if I can avoid it.

      • Tregetour@lemdro.id
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        3 months ago

        What makes you think Signal is maintaining relationship maps, and secondly, even if it is, is there any evidence they’re included in LEO subpoenas?

        • Negligent_Embassy@links.hackliberty.org
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          3 months ago

          There is no evidence. safety is about staying multiple steps ahead and risk mitigation when possible.

          Centralized servers are a single point of failure that could be compromised in the future.

          My contact’s devices they use signal on are insecure and could be easily compromised in the future.

          SMS/Cell network in general are insecure as hell and I avoid it as much as possible.

          Why would I expose all that sensitive data when there’s literally no need to? Simplex works great for me.

        • oldfart@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          They pinky promise they don’t maintain these relationships. Maybe even they really don’t. But they have the ability to, if they were to change their mind, and that’s the problem.

          Use secure protocols which don’t give anyone that ability.

  • Melody Fwygon
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    3 months ago

    Keybase is better than Signal. You may not like it’s current owners but it still works, still functions, and can be used to chat privately. It’s entirely OSS on the client side; and server-side software isn’t provided; but with an open Client; it’s likely trivial to reverse and re-implement your own. (Keybase itself doesn’t provide their server code; it’s private due to abuse constraints)

    Keybase is End to End Encrypted. It may not be as “feature rich” but all features are private.

    I’m not sure if it’s indev anymore though; and it does allow you to be as public or as private as you’d like to be about your identity.