5 ms·

This has some advantages but there are negatives too. Do I really want Google or Facebook to get a notification every single time I log in to a service because

This has some advantages but there are negatives too. Do I really want Google or Facebook to get a notification every single time I log in to a service because they get an email with a "magic link"? Google / Facebook already know enough about services used, do we really want to transfer even more information their way? Also, another trouble with this is the loss of anonymity. There are very few places to register an email address without an SMS number. There are few places to get an SMS without a real name and address. Yes, I'm sure there are places to get these things for someone willing to put in a lot of effort, but for everyone else, their email provider has their SMS, their SMS provider has their name and address. So by requiring email as authentication, essentially every online identity comes back to your real name and address through a small number of hops. It used to be possible to spin up a TOR session and interact with real services you would otherwise use. Between the crunch on anonymous email and cloudflare's endless captchas, TOR is increasingly useless for interacting with normal services. This is a feature, not a bug. Unfortunately it turns out that many people are abusive when anonymous and use that to their advantage so anonymity has been curbed to keep control over that problem.

jstanley 10y ago
> There are few places to get an SMS without a real name and address. I'm building a service to solve this problem right now. It works already and I hope to make it live within the month, it just wants styling and polishing. The idea is you sign up with just a username and password, no email address required. You pay with Bitcoin and can buy a mobile phone number, from a selection of countries, for ~$3/mo. You can then use the web interface to send and receive messages. Email address in my profile - please get in touch if you're interested in learning more.
- drdaeman 10y ago
  Do you have any domain name (even if it has no webserver yet) or some pre-launch page to bookmark? Don't need such service now, but I had accidental necessity in past few years. (Also, please consider submitting it to HN when you go live.)
  - jstanley 10y ago
    I bought the domain name smsprivacy.org but I could plausibly end up on a different one. I will submit a Show HN. Thanks :)
    - turkeywelder 10y ago
      If you're after either a primary or backup SMS route or numbers (especially for the UK), I may be able to assist
lostcolony 10y ago
Mail.com? Outlook.com? A lot of them, if you provide an SMS number, you'll need to verify it, but you can skip it by providing security questions or an alternate email address (that itself does not need to be verified).

jstanley 10y ago

> There are few places to get an SMS without a real name and address. I'm building a service to solve this problem right now. It works already and I hope to make it live within the month, it just wants styling and polishing. The idea is you sign up with just a username and password, no email address required. You pay with Bitcoin and can buy a mobile phone number, from a selection of countries, for ~$3/mo. You can then use the web interface to send and receive messages. Email address in my profile - please get in touch if you're interested in learning more.

drdaeman 10y ago
Do you have any domain name (even if it has no webserver yet) or some pre-launch page to bookmark? Don't need such service now, but I had accidental necessity in past few years. (Also, please consider submitting it to HN when you go live.)
- jstanley 10y ago
  I bought the domain name smsprivacy.org but I could plausibly end up on a different one. I will submit a Show HN. Thanks :)
  - turkeywelder 10y ago
    If you're after either a primary or backup SMS route or numbers (especially for the UK), I may be able to assist

lostcolony 10y ago

Mail.com? Outlook.com? A lot of them, if you provide an SMS number, you'll need to verify it, but you can skip it by providing security questions or an alternate email address (that itself does not need to be verified).