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Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers (2016)

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Re: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers (2016)

#71

Post by semi-extrinsic »

newscracker wrote: post #37

> An individual has a phone number > Some people do not own phones, or do not wish to provide you with their telephone number when asked. Do not require a user to provide a phone number unless it is essential, and whenever possible try and provide a fallback to accommodate these users. Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram are spectacular design failures on this point because they assume that every person has a phone number…

What pisses me off to no end is the local (very popular) app Vipps for sending other people cash, e.g. to split a bill or buy something at a garage sale or whatever. Not only does it use phone numbers to identify the people you send money to, but it explicitly disallows two people with different phone numbers to have a shared bank account. Husband and wife with common debit account? Sorry, unsupported. WTF? What happens if someone switches bank (and thus account number) or phone number? Who knows, maybe you sent money to a stranger. This app is made by the banks.

Re: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers (2016)

#72

Post by distantaidenn »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #16

I have/had a Facebook account with a phone number. The account was left unused for a few years. Recently, I used my E-mail to reset its password, unfortunately, since the account was abandoned for a long time, the system flagged my activity as "suspicious" automatically, and asks me for confirmation using my phone number. But I no longer own that number. And from the customer Q&A forum, I realized I was not the only…

Storytime: I bounce between Japan and Korea for work. I was in Seoul for about a year and a half and naturally had a Korean phone number. I used this number to sign up for Line (a popular chat service in the two countries), and I also linked my email address to the account. So when it was time to move back to Japan, I naturally canceled my Korean phone service.

Fast forward 6 months, and my Line account suddenly disappears. I contact customer service, and it seems someone else had registered for Line with my previous phone number -- which was of course release when I canceled my service with the telecom in Korea. I was informed that it's Line's policy to only allow one account per phone number, and thus they deleted my old account when the other person registered. There was no way to recover it. I even reached out to one of my engineering friends that worked for Line, at the time.

Some of my friends, I only knew and communicated with through Line, and I have no way to find or contact them again.

So yeah, fxxk using phone numbers as identification.

Re: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers (2016)

#73

Post by kkarakk »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #16

I have/had a Facebook account with a phone number. The account was left unused for a few years. Recently, I used my E-mail to reset its password, unfortunately, since the account was abandoned for a long time, the system flagged my activity as "suspicious" automatically, and asks me for confirmation using my phone number. But I no longer own that number. And from the customer Q&A forum, I realized I was not the only…

Currently facing the same problem with apple and icloud, their customer support is being excruciating about it

Re: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers (2016)

#74

Post by angel2 »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #51
macintux wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heck, last time I tried to register a Twitter account I couldn’t do so without a phone number to receive a PIN, and a burner number wouldn’t do it. C’est la guerre.

I can answer my original question - Google has been actively blacklisting all forms of VoIP numbers to their best efforts, so it's almost impossible to register one account without putting in your personal information. The last time I've checked it, there's only one workaround - you can purchase a real phone number connected to a computer from a cryptocurrency freelancer developer... Many stories from the U.S media a…

"you can purchase a real phone number connected to a computer from a cryptocurrency freelancer developer..."

Where do I start looking for such a person? I very much dislike the privacy aspect of the whole phonenumber game and also the environmental impact of burner use.

Re: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers (2016)

#76

Post by komali2 »

distantaidenn wrote: post #72
segfaultbuserr wrote: post #16

I have/had a Facebook account with a phone number. The account was left unused for a few years. Recently, I used my E-mail to reset its password, unfortunately, since the account was abandoned for a long time, the system flagged my activity as "suspicious" automatically, and asks me for confirmation using my phone number. But I no longer own that number. And from the customer Q&A forum, I realized I was not the only…

Storytime: I bounce between Japan and Korea for work. I was in Seoul for about a year and a half and naturally had a Korean phone number. I used this number to sign up for Line (a popular chat service in the two countries), and I also linked my email address to the account. So when it was time to move back to Japan, I naturally canceled my Korean phone service. Fast forward 6 months, and my Line account suddenly disa…

Line is the worse violator of these principles. Last I used it, in order to install it on another device, you had to back up all that device's data (contacts, etc) to a computer, put your account on another device which then triggers a non negotiable wipe of the other device's data whenever it connects to the internet, then download the backup to your new device. Hell.

Re: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers (2016)

#77

Post by B-Con »

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #16

I have/had a Facebook account with a phone number. The account was left unused for a few years. Recently, I used my E-mail to reset its password, unfortunately, since the account was abandoned for a long time, the system flagged my activity as "suspicious" automatically, and asks me for confirmation using my phone number. But I no longer own that number. And from the customer Q&A forum, I realized I was not the only…

We're in an age where it's scary to lose access to an e-mail addresses or phone number are at the top of that list.

I don't mean to change it, I mean to lose access to it. If you change it, find a way to hold onto access to the last one.

I learned this lesson relatively easily. I had a vanity domain that also received my e-mail and I eventually replaced it with a different one. I ran the new domain and e-mail for a few years before allowing the domain registration on the old one to expire. I hadn't received (non-spam) e-mail on it in a couple years, seemed safe enough.

Turns out I've had a few websites over the year since that I wanted to login to and I needed to recover my password, either because I forgot or the site had forced a reset due to a breach. I hadn't updated my e-mail on a few of those sites.

I don't think I'll let go of a main e-mail address or phone number again.

Re: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers (2016)

#78

Post by innocenat »

distantaidenn wrote: post #72
segfaultbuserr wrote: post #16

I have/had a Facebook account with a phone number. The account was left unused for a few years. Recently, I used my E-mail to reset its password, unfortunately, since the account was abandoned for a long time, the system flagged my activity as "suspicious" automatically, and asks me for confirmation using my phone number. But I no longer own that number. And from the customer Q&A forum, I realized I was not the only…

Storytime: I bounce between Japan and Korea for work. I was in Seoul for about a year and a half and naturally had a Korean phone number. I used this number to sign up for Line (a popular chat service in the two countries), and I also linked my email address to the account. So when it was time to move back to Japan, I naturally canceled my Korean phone service. Fast forward 6 months, and my Line account suddenly disa…

You should have move your number to Japanese number though.

Re: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers (2016)

#79

Post by ThePadawan »

Between 2004 and 2007, Zurich (Switzerland) also switched dialing prefixes such that multiple phone numbers in fact referred to the same extension [0].

[0] Wikipedia unfortunately has the description only in German: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehemalige_Telefonvorwahl_(Schw...

Re: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Phone Numbers (2016)

#80

Post by distantaidenn »

innocenat wrote: post #78
distantaidenn wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storytime: I bounce between Japan and Korea for work. I was in Seoul for about a year and a half and naturally had a Korean phone number. I used this number to sign up for Line (a popular chat service in the two countries), and I also linked my email address to the account. So when it was time to move back to Japan, I naturally canceled my Korean phone service. Fast forward 6 months, and my Line account suddenly disa…

You should have move your number to Japanese number though.

I do have a Japanese number. Perhaps you meant I should have linked my account to my number here?

I'm sure there are things I could have done to prevent it from happening, but I had no reason to believe Line would simply delete my account, as it was linked to my email address. In fact, I only used the number for the initial registration. After that, I only used my email/password combo to log in.

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