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The article states and asks: > I had a new IP > I had a newly installed operating system and browser. > What exactly about my behavior is unusual? It's not

The article states and asks: > I had a new IP > I had a newly installed operating system and browser. > What exactly about my behavior is unusual? It's not that this behavior is unusual (though, it is), it's that this behavior looks exactly like a bot. It's sad, but this is the state of the world now. If you're a big actor like Twitter, you end up blocking anything that looks like a bot, with an escape hatch a user can't do. Phone numbers are the an option for that, and it not doubt helps block other cases Twitter wants to block as well.

munk-a 8y ago
Right now that may be the case but, I'm curious if this might cause some small nation with an international code to succumb to the massive amounts of money spammers will start offering for large banks of phone numbers... Looking at you British India Ocean Territories...
- banana_giraffe 8y ago
  I'm sure you're right. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to learn it's already started. The escalating warfare will continue. I'm not sure where it'll go from here, but I'm sure it won't be fun for people that value privacy.
- jonas21 8y ago
  Once they noticed, they'd probably disallow that country code for verification. And if legitimate users from that country started complaining, I feel like "maybe you should ask your government to stop selling you out" would be a perfectly reasonable response.
ALittleLight 8y ago
Why not just captchas and a classifier looking for bots in the sign up process? That, plus better detection and removal of bots seems like a "good enough" option that wouldn't inconvenience real users.
- j16sdiz 8y ago
  Captcha factory are cheap. You can find people solving 1000 recaptcha for $2.99, with API access.
chimi 8y ago
The good news is, eventually it'll just be so loaded with bots that we can stop talking about Twitter all together.
freeflight 8y ago
It is kind of weird to consider not having a static IP as "suspicious" as dynamic IPs are the de-facto standard with most ISPs in my country, you actually have to pay extra if you want a static IP.
- bgeeek 8y ago
  Oh, I don't know. I get 1 free static IP with my ISP.

munk-a 8y ago

Right now that may be the case but, I'm curious if this might cause some small nation with an international code to succumb to the massive amounts of money spammers will start offering for large banks of phone numbers... Looking at you British India Ocean Territories...

banana_giraffe 8y ago
I'm sure you're right. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to learn it's already started. The escalating warfare will continue. I'm not sure where it'll go from here, but I'm sure it won't be fun for people that value privacy.
jonas21 8y ago
Once they noticed, they'd probably disallow that country code for verification. And if legitimate users from that country started complaining, I feel like "maybe you should ask your government to stop selling you out" would be a perfectly reasonable response.

ALittleLight 8y ago

Why not just captchas and a classifier looking for bots in the sign up process? That, plus better detection and removal of bots seems like a "good enough" option that wouldn't inconvenience real users.

j16sdiz 8y ago
Captcha factory are cheap. You can find people solving 1000 recaptcha for $2.99, with API access.

chimi 8y ago

The good news is, eventually it'll just be so loaded with bots that we can stop talking about Twitter all together.

freeflight 8y ago

It is kind of weird to consider not having a static IP as "suspicious" as dynamic IPs are the de-facto standard with most ISPs in my country, you actually have to pay extra if you want a static IP.

bgeeek 8y ago
Oh, I don't know. I get 1 free static IP with my ISP.