But they must still have your phone number and associate it with your username. So it would still be easy for a government organization to force Signal to give up the identities of all people who join a group.

Simple-X ?
GNU-Jami ?

what's the security issue about simplex??

Wrong. Signal servers don't know of group members.

There is no security issue that I'm aware of.

the produce aisle must be hell for you

Really? That's interesting. But the group membership list must be persisted somewhere, no? Otherwise, you wouldn't know where to send and receive messages. So where is it persisted then?

And also, how would you add someone to a group? When you add a new user to a group, would he be able to view all previous messages? Is it possible for this to scale to, say, a thousand or a million users?

My username is my name. As is my profile.

I mean, if you're using your name as your username, you can't really complain that Signal doesn't let you be private. That's on you.

They can't get your username from your phone number (but they can b'get your phone number from your username)

1. No, that's not on me. Signal should let me join groups without my username (this is what SimpleX does)

2. The point is not to blame Signal, the point is to highlight that it's not safe to join these activist groups with Signal for this reason, and political action groups should not be using it for this reason, unless you use it exclusively for this purpose, which is also not good, because then it means you're not using it for your personal communications.

Or you could....you know....
NOT use your name as your screen name. That's like buying a hammer and complaining that the nail remover side isn't efficient at removing screws. Well.....yeah. You're not meant to use it that way.

If you actually read my comment before replying to it, I already addressed this. I use Signal in my personal and professional life. I do not want my clients to message me and see my ID as fucking xX_StarLord_69_Xx. Nor my family. It would be very confusing to them. If Signal gave me an option to use multiple profiles (like SimpleX does) I would, but it doesn't.

I wish Signal had an option to create forums. With forum Like ui with threads its easier to organize things and keep up with projects over long periods of time.

And if you read what I said, YOU'RE USING IT FOR THE WRONG PURPOSES!!!

LOL you think messaging friends, family and clients is "the wrong purpose"? According to whom?

Edward Snowden.

You don't know what you're talking about.

You're using a messaging app that was built with the express intent of being private and encrypted. You're asking why you can't have a right to privacy when you use your real name as your display handle in order to hide your phone number.

Yes, it does hide your phone number, by using your screen name as your identity.

If you then use personal details as your screen name, you can't get mad at the app for not hiding your personal details. That's not how this app works. That was never how this app worked.

Chatting with your friends and clients isn't what this app is for. This isn't facebook. There are other apps for that. This isn't that.