A phone number uniquely identifies a person because in most of the world you need a government ID to get a phone number or a SIM card.
Which means that if one account is compromised, then everyone that person talked to is also compromised. You know what they talked with whom. It's an incredible security risk that Signal devs refuse to acknowledge or fix.
The biggest security issue in Signal is the requirement for phone numbers and SIM cards. This basically forces all Signal users to identify themselves, and makes Signal highly vulnerable to government spying.
Signal has too many red flags, but the biggest one is phone numbers and SIM cards. No application that wants to be secure against nation state spying relies on these.
I agree that there are workarounds, but I find it frustrating that Signal devs are ignoring very obvious security and privacy issues like this. It erodes trust and my enthusiasm to use Signal.
It's the frustration of European elites who realized that they can't control the narrative anymore. Gaza is one prominent example, but not the only one.
European elites are worried about losing control, and they are responding by restricting freedoms.
The Palestine/Gaza issue is one concrete example: European elites are very pro-Israel and pro-Genocide. But they have completely failed to control the narrative and European populations are not as pro-Israel as their elites.
A phone number uniquely identifies a person because in most of the world you need a government ID to get a phone number or a SIM card.
Which means that if one account is compromised, then everyone that person talked to is also compromised. You know what they talked with whom. It's an incredible security risk that Signal devs refuse to acknowledge or fix.