@fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk @dansup@mastodon.social @Yuvalne@433.world no, my guess is that it'll use the encryption standards provided by libsignal without using signal's services.

@fishidwardrobe @dansup @Yuvalne No, it's used in Skype as well where you're not forced to link it.

@fishidwardrobe @dansup @Yuvalne Nope, the Signal Protocol isn't equivalent to the Signal Messenger. For example, the email provider Tutanota uses the Signal Protocol for end-to-end encryption and obviously doesn't require phone numbers.

Signal Messenger only uses phone numbers for sign-up and for “better” contact discovery, though they're working on user names as well.