[HN Gopher] Protect your privacy and your phone number with Fire...
___________________________________________________________________
Protect your privacy and your phone number with Firefox Relay
Author : mozillamaxx
Score : 110 points
Date : 2022-10-11 16:05 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.mozilla.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.mozilla.org)
| jacooper wrote:
| Call me when you remove Ganalytics from such "privacy focused
| service" (1)
|
| Will stick with Simplelogin.io, which is included for free with
| Proton Unlimited.
|
| 1: https://github.com/mozilla/fx-private-relay/issues/1639
| [deleted]
| petarb wrote:
| I can't wait for Apple to add this to iCloud
| darkarmani wrote:
| Isn't this Google Voice which was once Grand Central (12 years
| ago)?
|
| Forward your phone number to a different number through gvoice.
| For email, add a '+' symbol to your email address and filter them
| out if they get abusive.
| SadTrombone wrote:
| > For email, add a '+' symbol to your email address and filter
| them out if they get abusive.
|
| It's still trivial to parse your real email address from this.
| With Relay your real email address is completely obfuscated.
| grammers wrote:
| This looks nice. I'm currently using Tutanota and love it. Seems
| like it would be possible to connect this with Firefox Relay,
| digging into it a bit more!
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Maybe this is a good place to ask: I'm a British expat living in
| the USA, and for a while now I've wanted a service which provides
| a British phone number, and forwards calls and texts to my US
| number, while also allowing me to send texts and make calls
| "from" the UK number if I want to.
|
| It looks like I might be able to do this with Twilio, but I'm not
| a developer, and quickly got frustrated trying to build what I
| wanted.
|
| Is there a service that will do this for me at a reasonable
| price?
| MatthewMcDonald wrote:
| Check out MySudo. It doesn't _forward_ the calls and texts, but
| you can have multiple numbers that you can call/text with from
| the app.
| faultable wrote:
| only for certain regions, as always.
| imagetic wrote:
| I like what Mozilla has been doing with their services, but they
| have built a very confusing business model of many micro services
| that I just don't see a ton of people signing up for as
| independent subscriptions.
|
| Why not bundle them all as one membership? Pocket, Mozilla VPN,
| Relay, Monitor, and whatever services they can scrape up premium
| options and features for to give them value?
| groovecoder wrote:
| (Mozilla Privacy & Security ENGR) Stay tuned ... :)
| politelemon wrote:
| Since you're here looking, please could the relay custom
| domain feature support custom domains? At the moment it
| actually generates subdomains.
| groovecoder wrote:
| Yeah, "Bring your own domain" is a super cool feature idea.
| We could even re-use Acme HTTP-01 or DNS-01 challenges to
| verify the domain.
| moxieta wrote:
| i would like this too. i think you can do it with apple
| email relay.
|
| currently i have example.com as my email, which i use with
| mailbox.org, would it be possible to keep using it with
| mailbox.org and then for mozilla to allow it to be used for
| email relays? e.g.
|
| name@example.com goes to mailbox.org
|
| 3859dhtog@example.com goes to firefox relay
|
| (not currently ofc, but a future thing)
| groovecoder wrote:
| I assume this means you have an MX record at example.com
| pointing to your/mailbox.org SMTP server? AIUI, a sending
| MTA will look up the MX record for example.com by
| preference order and will deliver emails to the first
| server that accepts the connection.
|
| So it may depend if you can configure your mailbox.org
| account/server to reject connections from servers trying
| to send mail to unknown addresses? Then the sending MTA
| server might "fail over" to the Relay server instead?
| ratata wrote:
| Great to hear! One suggestion; I think it would be great to
| have an integration with smartphones Contact apps. This way a
| user can leverage autocomplete and do not disturb rules on
| mobile.
| groovecoder wrote:
| Oh interesting. Do you mind filing an issue for what you
| have in mind here?
|
| https://github.com/mozilla/fx-private-relay/issues/new
|
| FWIW, when you get a Relay number, we text you a contact
| card for it, so you can save it into your phone's contacts
| app.
| bretbernhoft wrote:
| This makes a lot of sense. But maybe it's the direction that
| Mozilla is already headed in?
| madamelic wrote:
| If y'all are interested in something like this, let me know. I
| wrote a service exactly like this [0] and it sort of flopped
| because the marketing plan was bad and I struggled to crack my
| (poorly chosen) target market of 'privacyfreaks'.
|
| If you want to re-co-found with me on marketing / sales, hit me
| up: maddie+hn[at]qnzl.co. I tried some pivots, sucked at
| marketing it, I occasionally get asked about where it went.
|
| ---
|
| If anyone wants to run their own instance using Twilio, I open-
| sourced the basic structure of my previous service [1] so it
| should be fairly plug-and-play to do this cheaper ($1 per number
| + small usage fee) and for more numbers.
|
| My caveat about this is some services will silently ignore you if
| you try to use a virtual number. It's more useful for IRL where
| you don't want to throw your real number around much.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18311146
|
| [1]: https://github.com/qnzl/twilio-basic-server
| onetimeusename wrote:
| ya that's useful. I do like this service. I have noticed more
| and more that people are asking for phone numbers for app
| registration and even in person I have seen this. A phone
| number to me is private and personal.
|
| The firefox service is priced well but 75 texts and 50 minutes
| of voice is fairly limited. The burner phone services that
| exist are too sketchy and too expensive for my taste.
|
| I don't like marketing or sales but if you could market
| yourself as a privacy focused, Free/Libre solution that wasn't
| a sketchy fly by night operation and offered more than a closed
| source phone app I would subscribe.
|
| Twilio itself seems to be oriented towards businesses and not
| individuals which is why I did not sign up with them.
| vmoore wrote:
| > this feature is available in the U.S. and Canada
|
| Bummer. Before reading this, I was so excited, since robocalls
| and sketchy SMS messages with malware payloads have plagued my
| phone for years, and now it's not available to me (I'm in the
| EU).
| moxieta wrote:
| is this usa and canada only?
|
| i can't see any option when i log on from the uk.
| Vinnl wrote:
| Unfortunately, at this time, yes:
|
| > Currently, this feature is available in the U.S. and Canada.
| As we roll out this feature, we will explore how we can expand
| this offering to outbound calls and texts, as well as to other
| regions.
|
| (Edited to add:) And I feel your pain - I'm a Relay engineer in
| the Netherlands, and I can't even use this myself... But
| unfortunately, it's not easy to offer this elsewhere at a
| reasonable price, so we're still figuring that out.
| arealaccount wrote:
| How is this different from google voice which is free?
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| Even if it was identical i'd be interested simply because it
| isn't Google. I used to have Google Voice.
| Hrundi wrote:
| Google Voice is US & Canada only, I believe.
| cmcconomy wrote:
| This service seems interesting for people who are establishing
| net new phone numbers, but for those of us who have existing
| numbers they've been using, the barn door is already open. This
| wouldn't get us off existing lists.
| srhngpr wrote:
| I think TextNow offers a better solution and I've been using it
| to do this for quite some time and it doesn't require any kind of
| forwarding. I can send/receive calls and messages directly from
| within its app and recycle numbers at any time - all for free (ad
| supported). Calls are of great quality too and it even includes
| voicemail. If I really like a number and want to lock it (to also
| receive 2FA codes), it's a yearly $7 fee. Works with area codes
| in US and Canada.
|
| I think there are other options like Fongo and probably a dozen
| other similar services that already have been doing this for some
| time. Not really seeing the value proposition of going with the
| Mozilla option here. Am I missing something?
| hguant wrote:
| I'd be more for this if Mozilla didn't have a habit of sneaking
| in actively privacy hostile "updates" and enabling them by
| default.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| We need this service available in Brazil like... yesterday.
| Robocalls are reaching unbearable levels.
| kroltan wrote:
| Yes, recently I was on a spree, receiving roughly 40 calls a
| day, I had to set my phone to not accept calls outside
| contacts, but then what is even the point of having a phone
| number at all.
| dividuum wrote:
| Wouldn't that just increase the number of calls, now that you
| can receive them on multiple numbers?
| madamelic wrote:
| In my experience: yes.
|
| The only way to really prevent it is to allowlist specific
| numbers you know will call the number and send "Number
| disconnected" signals for the rest. Eventually, the number
| gets quieter until it can be reached again.
|
| The ideal setup would be to have a private number that you
| never give out that denies anyone not on your allow then use
| throwaway numbers you can turn on and off as you need them.
|
| I used to have it where I would give numbers out then only
| have them 'active' when I was expecting a call.
|
| My original hypothesis was that the numbers were harvested,
| my new one (and likely correct) is that numbers are randomly
| dialed.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| > The only way to really prevent it is to allowlist
| specific numbers you know will call the number and send
| "Number disconnected" signals for the rest.
|
| That's my tactics via an app.
| rsync wrote:
| This is my 2FA Mule. There are others like it, but this one is
| mine:
|
| https://kozubik.com/items/2famule/
| janalsncm wrote:
| It would be great if someone could package several virtual
| services into one app. Virtual cc number, virtual email address,
| virtual phone number all with one click. That way I can sign up
| for some in-store membership with working info, get the discount,
| and never worry about my info being compromised.
| auslegung wrote:
| I use Fastmail for what they call Masked Email, and Privacy.com
| for unique debit cards for shopping online. They both integrate
| with 1Password. So when I sign up for a new account, 1Password
| generates a Masked Email, a random password, and a unique debit
| card, and saves it all, and I LOVE IT!
|
| Fastmail referral url: https://ref.fm/u26310488
|
| Privacy.com referral url: https://privacy.com/join/JCPFN
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| This is cool. I've recently been thinking about getting a
| "burner" number for sharing outside my immediate circle.
|
| Same for email - the idea would be to have a phone/email for
| public consumption and then a separate address and number for my
| inner circle of family/friends.
| nicholasjarnold wrote:
| Same. Though for email there are good services like Fastmail
| (and likely many others) which already offer this and other
| benefits for a nominal subscription fee.
|
| I haven't implemented this idea yet, but what stops us from
| just buying Twilio credits, getting a number through them and
| then writing a bit of glue code to their API to pull down SMS
| messages (for things like 2-factor codes, etc) and route them
| wherever we find personally convenient? Maybe Twilio is also
| selling our customer data paired with these numbers to data
| brokers, though, IDK. It's just a fleeting idea I've had.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| > what stops us from just buying Twilio credits, getting a
| number through them
|
| I was considering exactly this, or potentially getting a
| second mobile number via eSIM on my phone (which feels a bit
| more "permanent" but that might be delusion...)
| madamelic wrote:
| Here you go: https://github.com/qnzl/twilio-basic-server
|
| Go wild. Gets you like 90% of the way there.
| jacooper wrote:
| License please!
| nicholasjarnold wrote:
| Thank you! I'm going to check this out. A question about a
| comment you made elsewhere herein:
|
| > My caveat about this is some services will silently
| ignore you if you try to use a virtual number. It's more
| useful for IRL where you don't want to throw your real
| number around much.
|
| How, specifically, do other services detect this? Is it
| like with IP address space where it's possible to determine
| things like "this C block belongs to Entity X, Inc"? Are
| you aware of mechanisms to avoid this detection/blocking
| that don't require using a "real" number.
| madamelic wrote:
| > How, specifically, do other services detect this?
|
| I don't actually know specifically. I assume there are
| two different ways:
|
| - The service is using Verify / Authy, which is owned by
| Twilio so likely Twilio themselves discourage it
|
| - Looking up the number either through Twilio or some
| sort of central subscriber database. All virtual numbers
| are described as virtual numbers.
|
| > Are you aware of mechanisms to avoid this
| detection/blocking that don't require using a "real"
| number.
|
| Definitely gets into ethically gray areas since that
| would be super useful to nefarious people. I don't
| actually know for sure. I know from the recent Blizzard
| mobile 2FA controversy that this issue expands to also
| prepaid phone numbers.
|
| So I don't know of a definitive way to get around it
| beyond using a postpaid number.
|
| Somewhat related, near the end of my above mentioned
| service, I had pivoted into trying to launch a "21st
| century phone service" complete with SIM cards provided
| by Twilio.
|
| The issue? They were still considered virtual numbers. At
| the time, in Twilio's defense, I was somewhat misusing
| their service because their SIMs were intended for IoT
| purposes not actual cellphone usage. That's all to say,
| it's likely provider / subscriber level vs something you
| can individually spoof.
| blep_ wrote:
| Twilio, at least, has an API specifically for looking up
| the carrier of a phone number. (You can't do it based on
| number ranges, because portability.)
| srhngpr wrote:
| Simple and free solutions exist for this exact purpose:
| TextNow, Fongo, etc. See:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33169096
| returnInfinity wrote:
| If you put your real phone number in your Resume and share it
| with a recruiter, consider your phone number public.
|
| Also LinkedIn will give away your contact details.
|
| Your Bank or any service important to you may get hacked and
| your phone number leaked.
| lucb1e wrote:
| I feel like we have very different expectations of what
| recruiters can and will do with personal information. I'm
| from within the EU, you?
|
| Not that they don't share your email to other persons working
| for the same company (I've had some name I never heard of
| from RecruitCorp email me seven years after I last talked to
| someone from RecruitCorp), or I could imagine they keep their
| contacts when moving into / out of self-employment, but
| that's a far cry from public.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Not worth it. I have a Google Voice number (free, easy, good
| UX). Now it's a constant juggle of "which number did I give".
| Especially since you presumably have already given away your
| current number. Even if you go all-in on burner number, there's
| a question of longevity and risk. Do you give it to government?
| Do you give it to banks? Etc
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Yeah, very good points. I hadn't thought of the "which number
| did I give" complication.
| kroltan wrote:
| I do the same thing with e-mail addresses, and solve this
| by storing it in my password manager.
|
| Phone numbers don't quite have the same dynamic, but just
| having the ability of throwing a given problematic number
| away would already solve so much.
| jaclaz wrote:
| I don't understand the idea behind it.
|
| Now:
|
| 1) You give your real number to someone.
|
| 2) Somehow your real number goes into a list used by robo-
| callers.
|
| 3) A robo-call arrives on your real number, disturbing your
| peace.
|
| After:
|
| 0) You give Mozilla 3.99 or 4.99 US$/month
|
| 1) You give your Mozilla number to someone.
|
| 2) Somehow your Mozilla number goes into a list used by robo-
| callers.
|
| 3) A robo-call arrives on your Mozilla number, that promptly
| relays it to your real number, disturbing your peace.
|
| You cannot change your Mozilla number, so it is basically an
| "alias" number, where is the advantage?
|
| Stopping paying so that the number becomes invalid?
|
| But then you won't be reachable anymore by the people you gave
| that number to.
| balderdash wrote:
| Totally agree, this should be a telephone version of a spam
| folder. I have a legacy google voice plan that I use for this,
| but would be happy to pay a couple bucks a month to Mozilla for
| a comparable service.
| lalopalota wrote:
| If you get a spam call / text, you can block that number from
| calling / texting you again.
|
| I can already do that on my phone, and it is kind of useless
| due to caller-id spoofing that most robocallers use.
|
| Also, probably wont work for services that require a phone
| number but don't accept VOIP numbers.
|
| I wish the article addressed these issues.
| jaclaz wrote:
| >If you get a spam call / text, you can block that number
| from calling / texting you again.
|
| >I can already do that on my phone, and it is kind of useless
| due to caller-id spoofing that most robocallers use.
|
| Yes, I cannot see in which way this "black-listing" on
| Mozilla is different/better.
| Zak wrote:
| > _Also, probably wont work for services that require a phone
| number but don 't accept VOIP numbers._
|
| I'm running into an increasing number of these, and it's
| annoying because I use Google Voice as my primary phone
| number. Using VOIP is important for me because I travel
| frequently between the US and EU.
|
| Aside from being inconvenient for me, I take blocking VOIP as
| a red flag that the service might want to misuse my phone
| number.
| smileysteve wrote:
| I effectively did this with Google Voice back when.
|
| I would give marketers my Google voice number, it had better
| interface (and on cloud instead on device) contact management.
| I could send non favorites to a voice identification prompt
| (voiding all slow recordings or agents making multi calls that
| have a pickup delay) and for the final small percentage voice
| transcripts that I could determine if important.
|
| Or for craigslist, I could forward calls to a phone for a short
| period of time, then turn off forwarding.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| I still use google voice like that, give it out when I
| absolutely have to give a phone number (because they verify
| by text or whatever) but have the app set to silent.
|
| Google does a really good job of filtering out the
| telemarketing calls so the rare message is usually valid.
|
| Pretty much the only time I have to open the app is this one
| stupid company ( _cough_ Walmart _cough_ ) which insists on
| doing 2FA via text every single time I want to check the
| balance on my prepaid debit card.
| neogodless wrote:
| From the article
|
| > If you find yourself receiving too many unwanted spam calls
| or texts, you can easily turn it off for all phone numbers or
| select the specific ones you want to block.
|
| So it sounds like if your aliased phone number has issues, you
| can block those specific ones. In theory, you can do that now
| from your phone, for individual numbers, but it isn't applied
| if you switch devices. So it's a very moderate improvement.
|
| Additionally, your existing phone number is probably already
| overwhelmingly accessible to robo-callers, i.e. the cat is
| already out of the bag.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| I think the idea is to give your real email and phone number to
| real friends and family; then you use the relayed one with
| online services who might sell or lose the data. Then you could
| presumably ditch the related info after the spam gets to be too
| much? Or maybe you just do it to be more anonymous?
|
| It's like the concept of a "burner phone" I think
| barbazoo wrote:
| That's what I thought too but then I read about what is
| actually offered:
|
| > You only get one phone number mask at this time. Once you
| choose your phone number mask, you cannot change it later.
|
| That makes it impossible to use as a "burner" number.
| jaclaz wrote:
| But - originally - you give a number (be it real or Mozilla
| or "burner") in order to be contacted by someone (and then
| _somehow_ it was leaked to the robocallers).
|
| The moment you change or abandon the number (be it Mozilla or
| "burner") that someone won't be able to contact you anymore.
|
| But if you keep it, with the burner at least that someone
| will still be able to call you at the end of the month (when
| the the robocallers will have already eaten the 50 minutes
| allowed by Mozilla).
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| But if you can use a unique number per service, you now
| know which company is selling your PII and you could
| address that either by switching to a competitor or,
| depending on the legal specifics, sue/expose them.
| jaclaz wrote:
| From what I understand it is not "unlimited" numbers,
| just one, as said an "alias".
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| That's a shame, it wasn't entirely clear from the article
| but I assumed it must be multiple numbers since it didn't
| seem to me like it would be all that useful otherwise.
| ridgered4 wrote:
| Unfortunately this only gives you a single unchangeable
| mask number.
| im3w1l wrote:
| It would kind of make sense if you could "open" the relay
| when you need to 2fa, and then you close it again after.
| With this usepattern you would only need one alias, that
| would be closed 99.9% of the time.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| textnow.com is free and what I have been using for years.
| janalsncm wrote:
| That was my thought. Unless I can create multiple numbers and
| disable them at will, this is quite flawed.
|
| With a virtual cc number, I create a new number on demand for
| each service I need, and disable it after I don't need it
| anymore.
|
| With virtual email addresses, I create a virtual address and
| delete it after I don't need it anymore.
|
| Unless there is a phone number analog, a single number is only
| useful until that number is compromised. Which could be day 1.
| nicholasjarnold wrote:
| Maybe you use it as part of a multi-layered approach to
| personal digital privacy.
|
| Without having hired a lawyer to dissect the TOS and Privacy
| Policy for Mozilla's new service here, I'm going to assume for
| the sake of argument that they will not sell the data to
| brokers. If that is true, then it's one more way to try and
| keep your true PII out of circulation. For instance, maybe you
| pair this with a high quality VPN offering, browser plugins or
| whole-network based stuff like pi-hole/etc along with also
| using aliased credit card numbers through services like
| Privacy.com or other similar offerings. Then when you "sign up
| for an account" or "make online purchase" you could use name
| like John Smith, private/aliased email, etc etc... This just
| puts distance between your activity and your true identity.
|
| With all that setup you have at least _some_ chance of evading
| a decent amount of the persistent and invasive tracking that is
| beginning to be top of mind for many people.
| madamelic wrote:
| Service-unique email / username + service-unique credit card
| is good enough for, I'd estimate, 95% of people.
|
| You are trying to avoid wholesale scoops of info and
| automated credential stuffing. If your threat model is people
| specifically seeking out and targeting you: godspeed.
| ridgered4 wrote:
| Yeah, I'm a little confused on the use case for this. I guess I
| could put all of the annoying services that demand a phone
| number for totally-only-security purposes-trust-us into a
| "bucket" number. It doesn't sound like it is a feature but I'd
| prefer that calls and texts to that number just be outright
| ignored unless I've turned the number on temporarily for
| verification. But since they have started rejecting VOIP
| numbers for verification, and now even prepaid phone numbers
| (!) for verification I feel like this probably won't work for
| that either.
|
| I personally only use prepaid cards so a service that makes
| them appear like post paid might be useful on its own though.
|
| The fact that you only get one number and you can't change is
| seems to blunt some of the utility. Ideally you'd want a
| separate number for each service and to have them all turned
| off, to block identifying you as the same user of different
| services. Not quite as easy to do with finite numbers as with
| email address suffixes.
|
| I wonder if you could use this like 5sim or other shady text
| verification services by just remaking a monthly account. I
| suspect that is not the idea here and probably forbidden,
| otherwise they'd let you change numbers.
| Vinnl wrote:
| (Relay engineer here.)
|
| This is definitely just the first step; we've got lots of ideas
| for additional protections we could add, and are monitoring
| usage and feedback [1] to inform our roadmap.
|
| What this first version gives you is a way to add a tier of
| trust to your phone number: your Relay number for untrustworthy
| partners, and your true phone number for important things. That
| means that data leaks of untrustworthy services can no longer
| be linked to the important ones through your phone number.
| Additionally, if you receive a phishing call to your Relay
| number, that's an extra red flag that it might not be who they
| say it is.
|
| But again, there is more to come, so stay tuned.
|
| [1] See also
| https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/firefox-relay-pho...
| stuckonempty wrote:
| What are the benefits of Firefox phone relay then versus a
| free google voice number I use just for spam ("untrustworthy
| partners")?
| Vinnl wrote:
| I'm not terribly familiar with Google Voice (it also isn't
| available in my country...), but they look similar in terms
| of functionality at this point in time. For me personally,
| the primary reasons to go with Relay would be that I'm
| already trying to move away from Google as much as possible
| for privacy reasons, that I'm already using Relay for email
| masking, and that Relay is explicitly focused on the
| privacy use case and will keep evolving in that direction.
| stuckonempty wrote:
| I can relate to the privacy-focused goal of getting away
| from google however Google Voice is free. Sadly I think
| having a competing free Google product that accomplishes
| most of the same things is going to hurt adoption of the
| Firefox relay product (which is paid)
| tjoff wrote:
| > _Next, you will be prompted to verify your true phone number
| where the calls and texts will be forwarded to via text message.
| After verification, we will generate your phone number mask._
|
| Doesn't feel necessary to me really. I've never ever been in the
| need for an incoming call, just for sms. And I'd much rather have
| them sent to an email rather than my actual phone too (and then I
| wouldn't need to share my phone number with this service either).
| That would be a real use-case for me. But paying a monthly
| subscription for that twice a year sms isn't that great either.
|
| I currently have a pre-paid sim and an old phone for this
| usecase. It kind of sucks and I don't have access to it when I'm
| not home (sure, there are ways to sync this but haven't felt a
| big enough need for it yet).
| crackercrews wrote:
| > Each month you will receive up to 50 minutes for incoming calls
| and 75 text messages. All phone number masking plans will include
| unlimited email masking. The cost is $3.99 a month for an annual
| plan or $4.99 a month for a monthly plan.
|
| So you pay $4-5 per month and you're still limited? I was
| expecting there would be some free amount and after that it's
| paid.
|
| Will this SMS work for account verification?
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Google Voice numbers are reported as landlines, there seems to
| be some way to verify that a number is actually mobile. Very
| likely that Mozilla's report as landline. Banks (capital one)
| have definitely balked at my google voice number.
|
| What these burner numbers are great for are rewards programs. I
| sign up for every one I can with my GV number!
| mdasen wrote:
| When I look up my Google Voice number, it shows up as VoIP
| (not quite landline) with the carrier being Grand Central -
| SVR. It seems likely that Mozilla's service will similarly
| show up as VoIP. Some places are filtering VoIP numbers from
| their SMS verification schemes, but most places will let you
| sign up for promotional texts from a VoIP number.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Where can you "look up" your number?
|
| There was something recently around a game which was able
| to detect if a user's phone number was on a prepaid or
| postpaid plan. I had no idea carriers share this
| information with others.
| crackercrews wrote:
| What about account verification for Twitter/etc.?
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| google voice numbers are identified as the voip number they
| are (bandwidth dot com etc) and virtually nothing takes them
| for identification
| crackercrews wrote:
| I'd be very interested to know if they work for SMS-only
| applications. I guess it's only $5 to try and find out. If
| anyone has tried, please report back!
| gruez wrote:
| >Very likely that Mozilla's report as landline.
|
| I doubt it. It looks like they're using twilio under the
| hood, and those are most definitely detected as VOIP numbers.
| ronnocoep wrote:
| Craigslist used to have a free service similar to this called
| 'Craigs Number'. Worked well and was free. Come on Mozilla, you
| can do better.
| sneak wrote:
| Spam calls are not the reason it is bad to give your number out;
| it isn't related to calls at all.
|
| Your number is your permanent cross-app, cross-company tracking
| identifier. It is a lookup key for your name, address, income
| bracket, email, spam history, etc.
|
| This is why so many apps require it during signup.
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