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When companies like Facebook send SMS they do it through a third party provider who talks to the operators (e.g. Twilio). To Facebook, all that is just a black
by lucaspiller 12y ago
When companies like Facebook send SMS they do it through a third party provider who talks to the operators (e.g. Twilio). To Facebook, all that is just a black box - if they are lucky they get a callback saying the message has been delivered, but that's usually about it. It's not possible unless you have cooperation with each of the telecom operators to find out where that number is currently registered (i.e. which base station).
Even then as with everything telecoms related, everyone does things slightly differently. They would need to reimplement it for every single operator - even then I doubt it would be 100% accurate, especially once you take roaming into account.
- jotm 12y agoDoesn't Facebook see the country code of the phone number on the registration page?
- abalone 12y agoPerhaps they are U.S. numbers with support for overseas roaming. Only the carrier would know the final location. I'm curious how they can do this so cheaply though. Maybe they're using a sketchy carrier that FB could flag for further review.