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As I said, not defending them. They are likely doing dozens of other things as well. But using phone numbers is a quite effective method of hindering spam/bot a
by spurgu 4y ago
As I said, not defending them. They are likely doing dozens of other things as well. But using phone numbers is a quite effective method of hindering spam/bot account creation - in most countries in Europe at least getting a prepaid SIM requires ID nowadays. Not that Twitter would go as far as to inquire ownership records of phone numbers... but/so you could still go and buy 100 SIM cards if you wanted to, but it'd be way more expensive than just spawning new email addresses.
- mccorrinall 4y agoNo spammer ever buys sim cards in store with ID. 5sim.net apparently has direct SS7 access and nearly infinite numbers and offers bulk purchases for receiving SMS. Even for countries like Germany, where ID authentication is mandatory to get a phone number. They have thousands of +49 numbers. Costs only a few rubles. If you convert it to euros it’s between 1-10 cents, depending on the service and country. The bottom line is: IDs for sim cards are useless.
- spurgu 4y agoOh, that's interesting. I wonder how they get past regulation in countries like Germany as you said. I'd assume they'd have to be registered as an official operator there? PS. I wasn't aware of SS7, reading up on it now.