this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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Privacy
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And how can a VM or emulator NOT do this?
Anything that can compute can do it. The important part is that it has an associated non-insignificant cost.
Exactly! ANYTHING THAT CAN COMPUTE CAN DO IT. Few things have a uniquely identifying piece of information with other levels that are barriers to entry...like a phone number. The idea is to STOP bots from signing up to Signal.
Are you missing the point maybe?
Nah bro, you are.
It's ALSO possible to generate virtual phone numbers for a small cost.
Using a cryptographic PoW is a different small cost.
Either way, it only takes a small cost to prevent mass bot registration.
You're treating processing power and time as if it is 100% free just because it can be done in a VM. But it doesn't matter if it is a VM. It is still going to require at least some certain threshold of processor time, and that processor time has a real cost. For the kind of place that can just spin up thousands of VMs and use it to do massive bot registration... they could just be mining bitcoins instead.
It's not just whether you can do this. It's how much value it has vs what ELSE you could be doing with the time and energy. A Signal account is already worth vanishingly little as a spam tool, they just need to give it enough of a cost to make it not worthwhile.