3 ms·
As someone who changes phone numbers periodically, I couldn't agree more. The worst part is all the services who use it as the only identifier. Services like Wh
by Legogris 10y ago
As someone who changes phone numbers periodically, I couldn't agree more. The worst part is all the services who use it as the only identifier. Services like WhatsApp, Signal, etc should AT LEAST offer an alternative means of identification, be it a user-chosen handle or an email address.
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoDon't they use phone numbers exactly because they are hard to get/change. A phone number, at least in the UK, means you've been pre-verified in some way - users can't in general generate new phone numbers like they can email addresses. Thus, less problems with anonymous users (eg trolling, spamming) and less abuse from named users as they can usually be traced using the phone number.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Legogris 10y agoI travel a lot and in many countries a prepaid SIM (which will expire after as little as a month without use or top-up) is the cheapest way to go. Most countries are moving towards requiring identification before activating a SIM card, like you say. For example in Vietnam, this has only become a thing in the past month or so and it is not enforced in practice in many unaffiliated corner stores. Last month, I just walked into a corner store paid a couple of bucks to get a preactivated SIM card with a couple of GB in two minutes.
- tyingq 10y ago>A phone number, at least in the UK, means you've been pre-verified in some way This seemed interesting to me, so I tried signing up for a UK voip number at the sipgate.co.uk site. They do ask for an address, but they accept anything valid, like the address of a university. Had a 056-0003 XXXX phone number in less than a minute.