To my understanding, Signal requires that you have a physical phone to use the desktop version. Is there any way to scan the QR code without a physical device? I’m trying to make an anonymous Signal account.
My idea:
1.) Set up Android VM on Linux laptop
2.) Use laptop camera to scan the QR code on my desktop
You can’t make an anonymous Signal account, it is one of the biggest red flags that Signal has. You need a phone number.
I wonder…does it need to be a real phone number, or can it be a virtual phone number that forwards?
You just need to authenticate once, right? Then you can drop the burner number and you’re clean?
EDIT: Yup!
this stopped me from joining and it makes me wonder why it’s so heavily endorsed in privacy circles.
Because privacy is a spectrum, and it makes a good stepping off point for the people that still use text messages and social media chat clients to stay in touch. I can’t convince half of my nerd friends to leave Discord for literally anything less shit, but I can convince even my tech-averse mother to use Signal instead of FaceTime.
I think Signal is still better that Whatsapp. But it is not the magic app that Signalbroa hype.
haven’t tried either because of my paranoia (lol) and never heard of signalroa, thanks for making me aware.
is that a thing or just a typo for signalbros?
a typo; i cruise lemmy left the left hand and work with the right hand. lol
I use it but just barely because it is better than things like discord for mildly sensitive stuff
signal-cli software can do this without physical phone. https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Linking-other-devices-(Provisioning)
Just use android on Linux: waydroid
The anonymous part will depend on how you get your sms verification.
In my experience it won’t let you make a new account if it can’t access the SMS stack on the phone itself to see the confirmation code come in, so you’d need to somehow get the Signal confirmation code forwarded from a real number into Waydroid or whatever you’re virtualizing in. Not sure that is possible, but it may be. There would still be a 1-1 phone number to account association, though.
I’ve used Signal with Google Voice before installed on separate profiles
Virtualbox would allow you to forward the webcam device to the webcam so you can use it as a regular camera on your virtual android. You then just need to figure out how to scan the qr code. If you search deeply enough, you will find ways to. Make android use an image or video as the camera source.
Also OBS studio with the virtual camera extension lets you use its output as a camera input in other programs so you can pass literally anything to the camera.
