No requirement to have your legal name in Signal. Though, I do wish it was possible to set a different name for group chats though. Happy to use my real name with friends and family, but would prefer an alias for group chats.

Your profile, like everything else on Signal, is also end-to-end encrypted. Your name and profile picture do get shared with whoever you chat with, groups or individuals. If you don't want your name and profile picture shared with randos, either don't set them or don't chat with randos.

For those that want more security:

SimpleX Chat: private and secure messenger without any user IDs (not even random)

SimpleX Chat - a private and encrypted messenger without any user IDs (not even random ones)! Make a private connection via link / QR code to send messages and make calls.

(simplex.chat)

Signal defaults to hiding your phone number since the release of user names: https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/

Signal, yes...

Or snikket (xmpp).

Or delta chat (email).

The three are good.

Simplex does not give you anymore security. It does however, provide anonymity.

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.

what's the security issue about simplex??

Let's stay in touch! I'm on Signal. Just text me on Telegram. I've got Whatsapp with ads. I'm literally on Snapchat. You can probably find me on Kik. Dude text me on Matrix. It's a Wechat feature. I'm on Simplex. You can text me on Simplex. You can go to Simplex and text me. Log onto Simplex right now. Go to Simplex. Dive into Simplex. You can Simplex me. I'm on Simplex. Simplex has it for you. Simplex has it for you.

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

I haven't used the groups, but I know you CAN opt to use usernames now.

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.

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.

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.

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.