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If people had the choice of not using a mobile phone when creating and account, 1) recovering lost accounts would be much harder (and that's actual support, it

If people had the choice of not using a mobile phone when creating and account, 1) recovering lost accounts would be much harder (and that's actual support, it costs them money, so they want to avoid it) and 2) fighting spam would also be harder (everybody gets to create an account and send mail with it? Wow, that's really going to cost them money!) Anyway there are mail providers who won't ask you for a mail. Protonmail and GMX come to my mind.

herbst 10y ago
Valid arguments indeed. Many roll well with not allowing common mail providers (there are available lists) and as i own my own domains i welcome that. If they require telephone number i would at least expect them to support a wide range of providers and not only some. Like i really cant get over the fact that Twitter locks out the most popular Thai provider. They however could also send me a letter, or have me auth with Authy/Google Auth to make a single identity system. Maybe even requiring my passport number + name. Its not like phone would be the only solution. And yeah i see that may is hard for small providers, but it shouldnt be hard for bigger ones. Or like in Twitters case, its not about having a single account anyway, you can have hundreds with the same phone number, but not a single with a thai phone carrier. Edit:// To clearify i personally have no issue with initial confirmation over SMS, i mean i own a phone number most of the time. I just not own it for longer than a month, so it is not valid for me for further authentication.
- akjainaj 10y ago
  You live in Switzerland. If you can create a phone number with a Thai carrier from there, I am sure you understand why Twitter refuses to deal with such a carrier.
  - herbst 10y ago
    I dont. I live in Thailand right now, tomorrow maybe in Vietnam. Right now i might be a edge case but remote work is growing fast. You can create throwaway SMS numbers for a few cents with several online providers, some even accept Bitcoin payments and dont ask for a name and Twitter accepts them happily. Its just the third party provider they use that did not implement that specific carrier yet. Edit:// Also i am curious now why you think i had a thai phone number while living in switzerland? :D There are countries like austria that dont even ask for a passport for prepaid directly next to it, why would i go thai?
    - akjainaj 10y ago
      The "about" section of your website says you live in Switzerland. At least here it's not legal for a mobile operator to give you a phone number if they don't have your ID (not even a prepaid number) so I supposed it was the same in the whole EU. Therefore I imagined you heard somewhere there's an operator in Thailand that lets you get a number without giving an ID, maybe even for free, so you wanted to get one to auth in Twitter. But such a system would be abused by spammers so Twitter had blocked that operator already. Yes, quite the elucubration, I know.
      - herbst 10y ago
        Ah ok lol i see. I think i wrote "based in Switzerland" which mostly means thats where i store my desktop pc :) Actually in thailand, cambodia, vietnam and so on you also have to provide your passport. The only place that i know of that does not (until recently at least) is Austria. Most webservices dont require a passport tho, even for european numbers. But i have no idea about the legality so no idea.

herbst 10y ago

Valid arguments indeed. Many roll well with not allowing common mail providers (there are available lists) and as i own my own domains i welcome that. If they require telephone number i would at least expect them to support a wide range of providers and not only some. Like i really cant get over the fact that Twitter locks out the most popular Thai provider. They however could also send me a letter, or have me auth with Authy/Google Auth to make a single identity system. Maybe even requiring my passport number + name. Its not like phone would be the only solution. And yeah i see that may is hard for small providers, but it shouldnt be hard for bigger ones. Or like in Twitters case, its not about having a single account anyway, you can have hundreds with the same phone number, but not a single with a thai phone carrier. Edit:// To clearify i personally have no issue with initial confirmation over SMS, i mean i own a phone number most of the time. I just not own it for longer than a month, so it is not valid for me for further authentication.

akjainaj 10y ago
You live in Switzerland. If you can create a phone number with a Thai carrier from there, I am sure you understand why Twitter refuses to deal with such a carrier.
- herbst 10y ago
  I dont. I live in Thailand right now, tomorrow maybe in Vietnam. Right now i might be a edge case but remote work is growing fast. You can create throwaway SMS numbers for a few cents with several online providers, some even accept Bitcoin payments and dont ask for a name and Twitter accepts them happily. Its just the third party provider they use that did not implement that specific carrier yet. Edit:// Also i am curious now why you think i had a thai phone number while living in switzerland? :D There are countries like austria that dont even ask for a passport for prepaid directly next to it, why would i go thai?
  - akjainaj 10y ago
    The "about" section of your website says you live in Switzerland. At least here it's not legal for a mobile operator to give you a phone number if they don't have your ID (not even a prepaid number) so I supposed it was the same in the whole EU. Therefore I imagined you heard somewhere there's an operator in Thailand that lets you get a number without giving an ID, maybe even for free, so you wanted to get one to auth in Twitter. But such a system would be abused by spammers so Twitter had blocked that operator already. Yes, quite the elucubration, I know.
    - herbst 10y ago
      Ah ok lol i see. I think i wrote "based in Switzerland" which mostly means thats where i store my desktop pc :) Actually in thailand, cambodia, vietnam and so on you also have to provide your passport. The only place that i know of that does not (until recently at least) is Austria. Most webservices dont require a passport tho, even for european numbers. But i have no idea about the legality so no idea.