The messaging app Signal is described by security professionals as utilizing the gold standard of cryptography. Unlike many competitors, its default is end-to-end encryption — and on top of that, the app minimizes the amount of information it stores about users. This makes it a powerful communication tool for those seeking a private and secure means of chatting, whether it’s journalists and their sources, activists and human rights defenders, or just ordinary people who want to evade the rampant data-mining of Big Tech platforms.

Signal continues to introduce privacy-enhancing features such as usernames that can be used in lieu of phone numbers to chat with others — preventing others from finding you by searching for your phone number. But the app still requires users to provide a working phone number to be able to sign up in the first place.

For privacy-conscious individuals, this can be a problem.

In response to subpoena requests, Signal can reveal phone numbers. Relying on phone numbers has also led to security and account takeover incidents. Not to mention that the phone number requirement costs Signal more than $6 million annually to implement.

Signal insists on its site that phone numbers are a requirement for contact discovery and to stymie spam. (Signal did not respond to a request for comment). Other encrypted messaging platforms such as Session and Wire do not require phone numbers.

There are some ways around Signal’s phone number policy that involve obtaining a secondary number, such as using temporary SIM cards, virtual eSIMs, or virtual numbers. But these approaches involve jumping through hoops to set up anonymous payment measures to procure the secondary numbers. And sometimes they don’t work at all (that was my........

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