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Never use your real phone number with services like Facebook. They don't need to know your phone number.
by dheera 6y ago
Never use your real phone number with services like Facebook. They don't need to know your phone number.
- gentleman11 6y agoA lot of big platforms refuse you service without doing so now. Facebook even uses your 2fa number as data about you
- dheera 6y agoRegister a virtual number and shove it to them. Use U2F if you can. Don't give in.
- eitland 6y agoGood luck getting a virtual number in lots of countries including Norway :-/
- mgbmtl 6y agovoip numbers (with sms support) do not work with Facebook, when creating a new account. My teen kid could not create an account, shrug..
- dheera 6y agoThey do for some VOIP numbers. Not saying which ones publicly on HN lest a FB engineer be watching.
- 3np 6y agoGetting a phone number (virtual or not) in many countries require full KYC including government ID The only prepaid SIM cards you can get without the full procedure are data only Increasing amount of services do either/or of country restriction and detecting and blacklisting virtual numbers.
- bArray 6y agoIt's not really an option these days, most services _require_ a phone number and for some reason that is completely unknown to me, a phone number is considered as secure as a password or email address - despite sim jacking and generally losing access to your number when changing contract being very known problems. You could use a fake phone number service, but ultimately somebody else could just use this to login to your account. You also can't guarantee you are able to use that phone number again when you need to get back in. The only real option is to not use the service at all, which is easier said than done when your family, friends and even employers use (and require you to use) the service.
- sellyme 6y ago> most services _require_ a phone number Define "services". In the last decade I have signed up for exactly 1 service that required a phone number (Telegram), and somewhere in the region of 8,000 that didn't.
- 3np 6y agoIn my country: banks (online or not) All major IM platforms (WhatsApp, Signal, LINE) Any dating app I ever tried to use
- bArray 6y agoAs echoed by 3np, most things I need to use (banking, social media, chat apps, video tools, etc, etc) require a phone number. I'm glad it's still possible for some people to live their lives without this requirement, but it's getting worse and I suspect these days are numbered (pun intended).
- haecceity 6y agoHacker news is going to start requiring 2FA soon.
- dheera 6y agoWell if they do it better not be phone-based. I should not be required to have a mobile phone and even if they do they shouldn't need my phone number. Pick a different 2FA method.
- durnygbur 6y agoIn the last few years there had been a wave of new regislation around Europe requiring phone number to be associated with personal identity number, otherwise existing numbers were deactivated. Simultanously various services (including banks) started to require phone number to create new accounts and for existing accounts to increase "security".
- lookalike74 6y agoAgreed. For Facebook I use a single-purpose email address that I don't check (but can) and voip/app telephone # that isn't connected to my real telephone. And I've never regretted it.