https://www.truecaller.com/ gives the name of phone owner
Phone numbers are not proper verification
41–50 of 159 posts
Re: Phone numbers are not proper verification
#42Saying phone numbers are no proper verification because some people refuse to have mobiles is like saying fingerprint verification is no proper verification because some people don't have fingers... Well, no. It's worse. You've chosen to be a "nomad", "outcast", whatever it is, well, then live by your word.
So you are saying it's serious and an alternate solution should exist.
Re: Phone numbers are not proper verification
#43Saying phone numbers are no proper verification because some people refuse to have mobiles is like saying fingerprint verification is no proper verification because some people don't have fingers... Well, no. It's worse. You've chosen to be a "nomad", "outcast", whatever it is, well, then live by your word.
Interesting conclusion and now i am curious what the police/visa offices do with people without fingers. Most likely they offer a alternative, which is all i am ranting for here.
If i choose to have "less" security by using email (in fact its more, but thats a different topic) it should be my choice. I should not be forced to own a fixed telephone number, especially for services that just dont know any better. I should also not be forced to give away possible access to my accounts just because i tend to change phone numbers.
Edit:// To your edit. With "nomad" i dont mean i live like a outcast. I am currently living as digitalnomad. I have a home address and earn money, i just dont have a fixed telephone number anymore.
Re: Phone numbers are not proper verification
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a mobile phone number, but it's VoIP and can't receive SMS. That excludes me from many types of services that absolutely want to send an SMS. Extra bonus, I moved out of my country of origin a few years ago. The Visa card I have from a bank in my country of origin needs 2FA to be used to purchase things on the net. The second factor is a code sent by SMS. Even if I had a phone number that can receive a SMS, th…
Welcome to my world. I have to call my mum when i want to spend something on my credit card because she now receives the verification SMS. Not to mention that i had to lie to them as have a friend from my home country call them (imposing as me) to change the phone number (which is most likely illegal in itself) because they could not accept calls from my current country...
I was an exchange student in CA for a year. During my year, I had to interact with my very local and small bank in Norway.
I managed to persuade one employee to change the attached cellphone number to my temporary american one, but they initially didn't think it work.
It was a great day when I got access to my money again.
Re: Phone numbers are not proper verification
#45This is a rant about an edge case: sure, it sucks for the author but even now few people move more than a few miles of where they are born. Expecting a Swiss institution to seamlessly support banking from Thailand is, unfortunately, unrealistic. In the pre-internet age I doubt supported well either. Seems like the author should have talked to their bank about how extra-territorial access works before moving rather th…
Thanks for your input. Obviously i did, i just did not expect loosing my sim card in the first week. My bank changed my account to paper TANs and i hope they will still support that for a while, after that i could probably opt in to carry a additional card reader device and auth that way.
Obviously i am a edge case. But while trying to fix my issue i encountered several companies who never even though about this kind of case. This is really all i want to reach here. Make people, especially those who implement such systems, think about a alternative or at least a proper workflow to fix issues like this.
I have access to everything i need now, its not like its unsolved and i am crying for help. It sucks that i cant enable 2FA on several sites, but well, for now i have to live with that.
Re: Phone numbers are not proper verification
#46I know life can be frustrating when you don't fit the conventional profile. It's been the same for me.
But organisations like banks need to have systems that adequately balance security, usability and ubiquity, and it turns out that phone number authentication is optimal across those criteria.
Of course it's not perfect, but empirically it works better than the alternatives (otherwise they'd already have changed it), so we're stuck with it, no matter how much it might frustrate the likes of you and me.
I'm finally old enough to realise that for certain things, like banking, the world is better off that way, else it would would descend into chaos (even more than it already has), and nobody would be able to get anything done.
And maybe it's only possible for people like us to get away with existing on the fringes thanks to the fact that most people are keeping society going by getting things done, and for that reason it's perhaps justifiable that for things like this it's up to us to find a way to fit in with their ways of doing things.
Re: Phone numbers are not proper verification
#47Saying phone numbers are no proper verification because some people refuse to have mobiles is like saying fingerprint verification is no proper verification because some people don't have fingers... Well, no. It's worse. You've chosen to be a "nomad", "outcast", whatever it is, well, then live by your word.
Interesting conclusion and now i am curious what the police/visa offices do with people without fingers. Most likely they offer a alternative, which is all i am ranting for here. If i choose to have "less" security by using email (in fact its more, but thats a different topic) it should be my choice. I should not be forced to own a fixed telephone number, especially for services that just dont know any better. I shou…
If people had the choice of not using a mobile phone when creating and account, 1) recovering lost accounts would be much harder (and that's actual support, it costs them money, so they want to avoid it) and 2) fighting spam would also be harder (everybody gets to create an account and send mail with it? Wow, that's really going to cost them money!)
Anyway there are mail providers who won't ask you for a mail. Protonmail and GMX come to my mind.
Re: Phone numbers are not proper verification
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My inner tin foil hat says Google wants a phone number for other purposes. Just like Twitter these days. "Telephone number is optional and for your security". 2 minutes later my new accounts are always locked and i need to provide a telephone number to enable it again. They used SMS until recently, now they use a call service which only works with a fraction of numbers. (Tried 2 thai, 1 cambodian number, none accep…
Steam does this as well. Even if you add your phone number after a lot of nagging, Steam still keeps bothering you to install their Android or IOS authenticator software (even if you can't). I wish Steam would consider Fido U2F as well, but getting through to anyone who can influence this at Valve is nigh impossible. It seems to be the industry status quo now to assume that everyone uses a smartphone running either A…
Steam, at least, does not seem to have a issue sending me emails. Sure it annoys me to use their app or whatever, but i can choose to only receive emails. Which is really all i actually want :)
But i agree on everything said
Re: Phone numbers are not proper verification
#49Phone numbers work between phone companies. Are they administered by the government or other central organization? I wonder if you could own phone numbers if you bought them straight from the source.
If affordable that would be interesting indeed. If i could own it on similar terms like a domain and just choose my provider, but still _own_ it for most part.
Right now it is usual that you can keep your number with other providers, but you still never actually own it.
Re: Phone numbers are not proper verification
#50In the UK mobile networks are required to offer number portability[1]. I don't know if that means a mobile network can take your number away, but just like managing the registrar on a domain, you can manage the portability of your number. [1] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/inform...
You can in most countries as far as i know. But in my example i quit my account (so made it prepaid essentially) and lost the SIM card, which means i lost my account forever. Now it waits for the simcard to invalidate and then will most likely sell the number again. It was a "easy number" (as in people remember that number after telling them once) so i assume it will be resold rather fast. But just because you can do…
You can change them, you just have to change them in those services too. Same as with email, or any other authentication mechanism, really.