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   Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 27-Feb-2026 01:21:53 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

   Can you run Signal with basically no iOS or Android devices right now and still do the (mandatory) prove-your-phone-id steps?

   It feels like very near future I, and everyone else who cares about computing autotonomy, we're all gonna have to start runnin' the Linux phones, no matter how non-ideal that user experience is right now

   • Embed this notice
     Sumana Harihareswara (brainwane@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 27-Feb-2026 01:21:52 JST Sumana Harihareswara

     in reply to

     @cwebber I once talked with someone who had set up a Signal account while trying not to use any Android or iOS devices. I believe part of what they did was use some emulation, including the Android SDK. There's a step where one has to scan a QR code. To get around that: the SDK includes a sandbox for testing camera functionality, and lets the user "walk" around a little "room" -- and you can put specific images on the "wallpaper".

   • Embed this notice
     Gert V 🇵🇸 (gert@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 27-Feb-2026 01:51:59 JST Gert V 🇵🇸

     in reply to

     @cwebber We've also noticed that if AWS goes down, Signal does too.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 27-Feb-2026 03:23:58 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @cwebber There is no special device permission to verify the ownership of the phone number. It's based on SMS. AIUI you've always been fine running Signal on a different phone than the one your SIM is in. Same should work with real full client on non-Android Linux.

   • Embed this notice
     bhyoram (bhyoram@todon.eu)'s status on Friday, 27-Feb-2026 03:33:05 JST bhyoram

     in reply to

     @cwebber It can be done with flare (https://flathub.org/en/apps/de.schmidhuberj.Flare) and with signal-cli.

   • Embed this notice
     infinite love ⴳ (trwnh@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 27-Feb-2026 03:45:52 JST infinite love ⴳ

     in reply to

     @cwebber the prove-your-phone-id and ios/android requirement is precisely why i don't use signal 🙃

     i really hate how certain parts of society require a phone number at all. i have a google voice number from like 17 or 18 years ago at this point that i got before i even had a phone. i would prefer not to use it, but unfortunately my medical provider requires sms 2fa and only supports sms 2fa. banks are also notorious for this.

     Christine Lemmer-Webber repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     LibbyF (faith@chaosfem.tw)'s status on Friday, 27-Feb-2026 03:45:52 JST LibbyF

     in reply to

     • infinite love ⴳ

     @trwnh @cwebber
     Does anyone else give a landline/VoIP number and get the response "no, I need your _phone_ number!" (meaning mobile)?

     Personally I hate the increasing demands on a high-risk spof which is easily stolen or broken.