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A 10-Digit Key Code to Your Private Life: Your Cellphone Number
- gcb0 10y agoonly if you are dumb (or blind by the san-francisco alternate reality) enough. sadly, the alternative is to have to, over and over again, skip the page your service providers ask for your phone after every login. Even after you have something actually secure like OTP generation keys exchanged.
- walterbell 10y agoThere are VOIP providers which offer free inbound numbers with voicemail and per-minute calling, no need for a monthly fee.
- keehun 10y agoCould you give a few names? I would love to check them out.
- ktta 10y agoWell for one, google voice[0] is free in US (for calls within US, outside US, 1c per min ). You can receive/send messages and calls from the hangouts app, chrome extension, and the website. beware, though, you can't totally replace your phone since some services recognize it as a VoIP number and refuse to take it as a legitimate 2FA. You do need an existing phone to get a number, which is probably better than giving your CC info to some VoIP service. And by some, I mean (for me atleast) wells fargo, and azure. [0]:https://www.google.com/voice https://www.google.com/voice
- techsupporter 10y ago> some services recognize it as a VoIP number and refuse to take it as a legitimate 2FA This bothers the crap out of me because a) when I'm signing up as a new customer, the company with whom I am establishing a relationship should be able to verify that I am me and then believe whatever phone number I give them and b) my "VoIP service" is more secure and less well-known than my mobile phone provider, thus reducing the attack surface for those numbers.
- closeparen 10y agoPossibly an anti-spam measure. If it needs to be moderately difficult to create thousands of accounts, requiring a phone number and cutting off well known bulk suppliers of phone numbers is likely an effective strategy.
- walterbell 10y agoThe first page is a good start: http://www.google.com/search?&q=free+incoming+voip+calls http://www.google.com/search?&q=free+incoming+voip+calls
- aclimatt 10y agoThis looks like a piece of submarine advertising for Sideline. A seemingly interesting service, but pretty blatant sales pitch.
- gnicholas 10y agoI had the same feeling, especially with no mention of Google Voice, which has offered a similar ability for nearly a decade (within Google and as Grand Central prior to that). I'm sure there are other alternatives also, but there's no excuse for not mentioning Google's longstanding service.
- reitanqild 10y agoRemember one HUGE disadvantage of Google Voice: for many of us it was never available.
- bbcbasic 10y agoWell it gets a mention after a sizable chunk of article and the service is freeish anyway.
- devereaux 10y agoWhile it may read as an advertisement, I see that as a warning. Keep separate phone numbers to maintain separate profiles (ex: one for healthcare, one for banks, one for social medias). Don't give your permanent phone number. Don't share the number between class of services. And above all, don't give other people number!! Fun thing: the other day, I was asked my phone number at my family doctor. I gave a cellphone number. Then they asked for an "emergy contact" phone number. My answer: 911. They insisted. So I explained that in case of emergency, I want them to call 911. Seriously, don't try to call anyone else. Their answer: but what if we really need to reach you? My answer: I already gave you my cellphone number. Call me on my cellphone if you really need to reach me.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoThat isn't what emergency contact means in this context.
- ars 10y agoYou missunderstood them. The number they are asking for is: if you are seriously sick and they need to call someone to ask them how to treat you, who should they call? They aren't trying to to contact you. They are trying to contact someone on behalf of you. You should call back, apologize for your snark and give them a useful number (unless you truly have no family or friends at all).
- ekianjo 10y agoHe mentioned "dont try to call anyone else"
- yardie 10y agoAnd when the first responder arrives and asks what medications you are on, unconscious you will say?
- Nexxxeh 10y agoMaybe he has no allergies, isn't on any medication, or he wears a medical alert bracelet thing. If you don't have someone in your life that's reliable, it's more dangerous to list someone unreliable. My mom would be a reasonable emergency contact for me. My pop would be an awful one for me because he can't remember his own allergies and meds schedule, let alone mine.
- techsupporter 10y agoI wish ring.to was still a going concern for new users. They (Bandwidth.com) closed it to new users but existing users can stay on--ostensibly for money someday in the future--and I'm glad we've not been booted. I have six numbers parked there and only rarely give out my real mobile number. I can exchange SMS (and MMS!) with these numbers, make and receive phone calls, and short codes even work. To me, having alternate numbers to give to companies for "security" or "identity verification" is like having a password manager: it means not having all of my eggs in one basket. (Plus, as a kind-of-bonus, ring.to has no live customer support so--as long as nothing goes wrong and I need to talk to them--there's nowhere to socially engineer to port a number away.)
- jstanley 10y agoI run https://smsprivacy.org/ https://smsprivacy.org/ (anonymous SMS phone numbers). You can't make calls but "a password manager for phone numbers" is a great way to describe it.
- BobCat 10y agoAnd to think we used to have books full of these secret numbers...
- oxplot 10y agoFYI: you can search for someone on Facebook (and perhaps elsewhere) by their cell phone.
- a_imho 10y agoThis could have been written 10 years ago (aside from the pitch), the giveaway is it not mentions Web 2.0. People by large still don't care.
- maxerickson 10y agoGotta love the optimist that thinks email addresses are less likely to be associated with their data profile. Nice to see a little progress on the language front: The total losses in the United States from stolen identities used in crimes like credit card and loan fraud Be sure to read the applicable 8000 word privacy policy before thinking Sideline is giving you any privacy. They share the number pair with the cell phone operator in order to make the service work, so be sure to read their privacy policy too. Oh, and make sure to understand them well and keep up with any changes.
- strgrd 10y agoBlockchain
- owly 10y agoHow many people are concerned about the data tied to their phone number but still use facebook?