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Tangentially related, I have to take issue with this: > addressing with user-owned identifiers like phone numbers Phone numbers are owned by telecoms, not use

by Zak 9y ago

Tangentially related, I have to take issue with this: > addressing with user-owned identifiers like phone numbers Phone numbers are owned by telecoms, not users. Sometimes they're transferable between telecoms, but not always. I, in particular travel internationally often and do not maintain phone service in the same country continuously. I've had to change phone numbers with Signal and Whatsapp a couple times now and have not found it to be a particularly friendly experience. I got a free Google Voice number and might use that in the future, but I had to tie that to another US-based phone number. What will happen if someone else starts using that number, especially if they also connect a Google Voice account to it? I don't know that I have a better design in mind, but using a phone number as an identity has some nasty edge cases.

amphibian87 9y ago
Turn message forwarding off and nothing will happen, I've lent my cell # to broke friends afew times to make a Google Voice account, and have a Voice number myself for Craigslist exchanges, lapses between paying my carrier, etc
- gcb0 9y ago
  you seem to miss the point. 1) get US phone 2) register google voice to US phone 3) stop paying for US phone 4) you can't de-register you US phone, unless you register a new one 5a) if you never sign up for a US phone, anybody can get assigned that number and click "forgot password" on your google voice. 5b) you get a new US phone: go to 2. that is true for every single service that ties you up to a phone number or that has phone number as recovery option.
  - jdeibele 9y ago
    Pay $20 and you get the number permanently. I've set up my kids' soccer club and my son's Cub Scout Pack with voicemail-only numbers. Callers leave a message and a recording and a transcription is forwarded to the appropriate person via email. I've also read using Google Voice is highly recommended for things that require a voice or text number since it's very difficult to get hold of someone at Google that can be socially engineered. Much easier to scream at somebody at Verizon, etc.
    - xorcist 9y ago
      Where can I get a permanent (US) number anywhere? The cheapest I've seen slightly below $2/month, but all the super cheap carriers are very volatile businesses and you can't expect to keep them more than a few years. Seeing as you don't really own phone numbers in the sense you own domain names, any permanence is limited by the life span of your service provider.
      - ForHackernews 9y ago
        Google Voice will let you pay $20 to "buy" a phone number (either a GV number they assign, or another number you port in), which is then yours forever (subject to Google's arcane EULA, I'm sure).
        nasredin 9y ago
        ...it's yours forever until it becomes Google's forever ;)
  - ultimape 9y ago
    I currently have my google voice number only and not tied to a landline or cell number. When was the last time you tried #4, because it's been like this for me for a year or more.
xorcist 9y ago
> addressing with user-owned identifiers like phone numbers Don't take things like that too seriously. That's just the result of the reality distortion field that comes with sitting on top a huge database of phone numbers.
tommorris 9y ago
> I don't know that I have a better design in mind Simple: usernames. Humans are not phone numbers. Phone numbers are the IP addresses of legacy phone networks.
- nasredin 9y ago
  Obligatory plug for Tox. http://tox.chat http://tox.chat A lot of countries require require registering the phone number to your name. Relying on phone numbers as uniqie identifiers especially in "crypto" hipster apps (Signal) is stupid bordering on malicious
  - tommorris 9y ago
    The reason people use Signal over WhatsApp is partly because of a perception it is more likely to be good against malicious state-like actors: tyrannical regimes etc. If said malicious actors pwn the phone of the person you were talking to, suddenly they have a pretty good way of mapping a contact called "My Best Friend" to a human through billing records. Or even easier, they type the phone number into Google and find that the Syrian dissident they've just arrested has been corresponding with the NYTimes or BBC. If they know only that they are talking to anonymoushackzor@gmail.com they could, uh, get Google to release their IP address. Google are fairly unlikely to honour a legal demand for disclosure from Libya or North Korea or some other tyrannical/fucked-up hellhole. I like Signal, but I'm not totally sure about the threat model.
- Zak 9y ago
  Usernames do not solve the problems described in the link: * They're not portable. My username here is Zak. It is on reddit as well, but I think that's the only other place. If I don't discover a service within it's first week of operation, I won't get that username, and many won't allow it because it's "too short". * They don't tap into users' existing contact lists. I've discovered several people I know using Signal because I had their phone numbers stored in my phone's contacts. But if a new communications protocol is to replace the legacy phone network, which I consider desirable, it probably shouldn't use identifiers tied to the legacy phone network.

by Zak 9y ago

amphibian87 9y ago

Turn message forwarding off and nothing will happen, I've lent my cell # to broke friends afew times to make a Google Voice account, and have a Voice number myself for Craigslist exchanges, lapses between paying my carrier, etc

gcb0 9y ago
you seem to miss the point. 1) get US phone 2) register google voice to US phone 3) stop paying for US phone 4) you can't de-register you US phone, unless you register a new one 5a) if you never sign up for a US phone, anybody can get assigned that number and click "forgot password" on your google voice. 5b) you get a new US phone: go to 2. that is true for every single service that ties you up to a phone number or that has phone number as recovery option.
- jdeibele 9y ago
  Pay $20 and you get the number permanently. I've set up my kids' soccer club and my son's Cub Scout Pack with voicemail-only numbers. Callers leave a message and a recording and a transcription is forwarded to the appropriate person via email. I've also read using Google Voice is highly recommended for things that require a voice or text number since it's very difficult to get hold of someone at Google that can be socially engineered. Much easier to scream at somebody at Verizon, etc.
  - xorcist 9y ago
    Where can I get a permanent (US) number anywhere? The cheapest I've seen slightly below $2/month, but all the super cheap carriers are very volatile businesses and you can't expect to keep them more than a few years. Seeing as you don't really own phone numbers in the sense you own domain names, any permanence is limited by the life span of your service provider.
    - ForHackernews 9y ago
      Google Voice will let you pay $20 to "buy" a phone number (either a GV number they assign, or another number you port in), which is then yours forever (subject to Google's arcane EULA, I'm sure).
      - nasredin 9y ago
        ...it's yours forever until it becomes Google's forever ;)
- ultimape 9y ago
  I currently have my google voice number only and not tied to a landline or cell number. When was the last time you tried #4, because it's been like this for me for a year or more.

xorcist 9y ago

> addressing with user-owned identifiers like phone numbers Don't take things like that too seriously. That's just the result of the reality distortion field that comes with sitting on top a huge database of phone numbers.

tommorris 9y ago

> I don't know that I have a better design in mind Simple: usernames. Humans are not phone numbers. Phone numbers are the IP addresses of legacy phone networks.

nasredin 9y ago
Obligatory plug for Tox. http://tox.chat http://tox.chat A lot of countries require require registering the phone number to your name. Relying on phone numbers as uniqie identifiers especially in "crypto" hipster apps (Signal) is stupid bordering on malicious
- tommorris 9y ago
  The reason people use Signal over WhatsApp is partly because of a perception it is more likely to be good against malicious state-like actors: tyrannical regimes etc. If said malicious actors pwn the phone of the person you were talking to, suddenly they have a pretty good way of mapping a contact called "My Best Friend" to a human through billing records. Or even easier, they type the phone number into Google and find that the Syrian dissident they've just arrested has been corresponding with the NYTimes or BBC. If they know only that they are talking to anonymoushackzor@gmail.com they could, uh, get Google to release their IP address. Google are fairly unlikely to honour a legal demand for disclosure from Libya or North Korea or some other tyrannical/fucked-up hellhole. I like Signal, but I'm not totally sure about the threat model.
Zak 9y ago
Usernames do not solve the problems described in the link: * They're not portable. My username here is Zak. It is on reddit as well, but I think that's the only other place. If I don't discover a service within it's first week of operation, I won't get that username, and many won't allow it because it's "too short". * They don't tap into users' existing contact lists. I've discovered several people I know using Signal because I had their phone numbers stored in my phone's contacts. But if a new communications protocol is to replace the legacy phone network, which I consider desirable, it probably shouldn't use identifiers tied to the legacy phone network.