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Why is it that the most dramatic stories of people's digital lives being lost/broken usually seem to revolve around a compromised mobile phone number? Mobile ph

by bArray 7y ago

Why is it that the most dramatic stories of people's digital lives being lost/broken usually seem to revolve around a compromised mobile phone number? Mobile phone numbers are not unique (they are recycled) and are terrible security (mobile phone companies are careless). I change mobile numbers at least once a year and most years I end up receiving calls/messages on behalf of the previous owner. I refuse to connect my mobile phone to these services. It seems like one of the most important lessons of computer security has already been forgotten: It's only as good as the weakest link. Not only this but decentralization/redundancy is often better than centralization/dependency. For example, I'm not sitting awake at night worrying over some semi-pseudo password I generated for an old unencrypted forum run on some random persons server.

Zancarius 7y ago
> I change mobile numbers at least once a year and most years I end up receiving calls/messages on behalf of the previous owner. I had something very similar happen when I got a new number. I kept getting calls for the previous owner from what I assume to have been a bank, a library (for passed-due books no less; left a voice mail), and random people trying to contact this person. Not long thereafter, I started getting text updates from Facebook any time one of their contacts posted something. Facebook fortunately disables this with the text message STOP (IIRC) [1], but it bothered me that a nefarious actor could have passively collected the names of this person's contacts, messages, or more. Not quite sure what to do, I did end up calling most of them back to inform them they had the wrong number, if they left a voice mail. The calls stopped about a year and a half later, and while I was somewhat annoyed at the time, in retrospect it could have been much worse! [1] https://www.facebook.com/help/225089214296643 https://www.facebook.com/help/225089214296643
tedunangst 7y ago
Because every time you login to gmail without a phone number there's a big "add your phone number for super security!!" pop up on the screen. People do what the google tells them to do.

by bArray 7y ago

Zancarius 7y ago

> I change mobile numbers at least once a year and most years I end up receiving calls/messages on behalf of the previous owner. I had something very similar happen when I got a new number. I kept getting calls for the previous owner from what I assume to have been a bank, a library (for passed-due books no less; left a voice mail), and random people trying to contact this person. Not long thereafter, I started getting text updates from Facebook any time one of their contacts posted something. Facebook fortunately disables this with the text message STOP (IIRC) [1], but it bothered me that a nefarious actor could have passively collected the names of this person's contacts, messages, or more. Not quite sure what to do, I did end up calling most of them back to inform them they had the wrong number, if they left a voice mail. The calls stopped about a year and a half later, and while I was somewhat annoyed at the time, in retrospect it could have been much worse! [1] https://www.facebook.com/help/225089214296643 https://www.facebook.com/help/225089214296643

tedunangst 7y ago

Because every time you login to gmail without a phone number there's a big "add your phone number for super security!!" pop up on the screen. People do what the google tells them to do.