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It's not public information, and it's considered identity-tied enough to be used in many forms of two-factor identification.

• moron4hire 7y ago
  It is public information, and that's why it's ludicrous that it's used for two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication is a dumb solution to a real problem. The problem should be properly solved, rather than hacked around with stupid solutions like "sending notifications to accounts that can easily be spoofed by willful actors".
  • SAI_Peregrinus 7y ago
    > Two-factor authentication is a dumb solution to a real problem. The problem should be properly solved, rather than hacked around with stupid solutions like "sending notifications to accounts that can easily be spoofed by willful actors". SMS Two-factor authentication is a dumb solution. Actual two-factor authentication like FIDO U2F tokens is a better solution. Even TOTP is better than SMS auth.
• ghaff 7y ago
  Private vs. public isn't a fine-grained enough distinction. It's not private in the sense that most people give it out to lots of people so that they can be contacted. (Of course, in the case of landlines, they're mostly listed in a public directory somewhere but I assume we're talking mobile here.) BTW, you bank account number is the same way if you write checks. So they're not private in the way that some data (like health information) that you're only going to share very selectively is private. But it's mostly not public in the sense that you'll likely put it online unless maybe it's a business phone.