Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#211

Post by brownbat » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:00 AM UTC

H1Supreme wrote: post #132

packet_nerd wrote: post #118

My wife and I cancelled our phone services a while back to save money since we rarely if ever have to call anyone and just use messaging to keep in touch with each other and friends. What are people like us supposed to do? I do have a Google voice number, but I noticed one or two places recently that won't accept that anymore.

> I do have a Google voice number, but I noticed one or two places recently that won't accept that anymore. Mind sharing where? I've use my Google Voice number exclusively for 6 or 7 years now. Can't say I've ever ran into such a thing.

Sites that require phone number verification often block numbers allocated for VoIP services for fear of spammers. YMMV if you've tethered your GV number to a physical device at some point.

I've run into this semi-frequently over the years, and it's always extremely frustrating when it happens, but somehow I can't remember exactly where either.

Old references online point to Facebook, Line, and Snapchat: https://www.reddit.com/r/Googlevoice/comments/3uv3mt/google_...

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#212

Post by acct1771 » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:00 AM UTC

packet_nerd wrote: post #199

baroffoos wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't any good way to maintain perfect privacy while also rejecting bots/trolls with 20 accounts.

Here's an idea that I thought of.. Suppose WebAuthn was the standard authentication scheme everywhere. People used a series of tokens (Yubikeys, phone apps, etc.) with private keys which they use to authenticate to services. The government runs a department where you present them proof of your identity and the public keys from your Yubikeys/whatever, and they would publish a cryptographically signed electronic messag…

This reminded me of something I recently learned of, SQRL, a 77 digit numerical identity for web service authentication.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#213

Post by bigiain » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:00 AM UTC

1over137 wrote: post #191

reshie wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

throwaway numbers can mean many things even a 5 dollar sim. some services even let you change phone numbers on a whim cell numbers are mobile in more than one way and very easy.

Many places I've been won't let you buy a SIM without showing id.

Yeah. I think while not nation-state-secure, you can still improve your PII exposure to Facebook/Twitter/Google et al by buying/activating a SIM/phone-number and only using it one time for the purpose of creating an account.

I don't _think_ Twitter or Facebook are doing backroom deals with every prepaid sim vendor to be able to tie that phone number back the the identity used to register the sim card.

I wouldn't suggest you use this to register your Dream Market vendor account, but I doubt you'll end up with targeted advertising based on your other real-world web/app behaviour based just on the ID provided for a single-use burner SIM...

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#214

Post by tyingq » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:06 AM UTC

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #206

tyingq wrote: post #59

I don't use Twitter much, but every time I click on a Twitter link from my Android phone...it pops an error page. The page says either something about an error, or that I'm rate limited. A page refresh usually then works fine and displays the page. Is this related to similar attempts to block bots/spammers? Or maybe just something wrong on my end?

Ok it’s not just me. Twitter works fine on my desktop, but whenever I seem to use it on mobile I get the rate limited error. I swear it’s 70% of the time. Usually if I go back and try again or refresh it works the second time. Always regular mobile Safari.

Now I'm wondering if there is maybe a repeated, but not infinite, redirect loop from regular twitter.com to mobile.twitter.com

Repeated enough to trigger the rate limited error.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#215

Post by daurnimator » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:10 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #158

Reedx wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy to say until you're running a service that's a target of said abuse. Do you have a better solution? If you do, it'd be quickly adopted because no one likes adding unnecessary friction.

Invest in your content moderators and in tools to track and trace them. Very few firms seem to have any interest in how or why they are selected by abusers or in the dynamics of the abuse that takes place on their platform. People pointing out abuse are usually treated as an annoyance, when in fact they may have considerable knowledge about the bad actors exploiting the service. A very low-cost approach suitable for…

What if it's not a content site? But abuse of "free" resources/trials?

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#216

Post by root_axis » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:12 AM UTC

syshum wrote: post #179

anigbrowl wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter knows what IP you connect from, which might easily be through a VPN. The flip side of low-friction authentication is epidemic abuse by trolls, which arguably damages Twitter's brand. Unfortunately, most people simply don't understand the implications of any of this. Well, so you say.

>> epidemic abuse by trolls, I am soo tried of hearing this excuse for mass censorship First of it MASSIVELY over used to the point where people call anyone that disagrees with them "a troll" or a bot. Twitter is hurting their own brand by their obvious political bias and selective enforcement of rules largely dependent on outrage mobs to "report" rule violations. Like real names policies before it, these types of "v…

What's "MASSIVELY overused" is the trope where getting banned from a website equates to mass censorship. You're not entitled to a platform on twitter. If you get banned from twitter go do something else on the internet or beg for forgiveness and use their platform under their terms.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#217

Post by warp » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:14 AM UTC

seppin wrote: post #175

Carpetsmoker wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a prepaid account, which is basically free after the initial investment, which is usually just a few €/$/£/etc. If you're careful enough it can also be reasonably anonymous.

there is no real prepaid in the US, the closest is USMoble which is still around 20 US a month

t-mobile has a USD 3/month pay-as-you-go plan.

(I don't live in the US, but keep a T-mobile sim card active for when I travel there).

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#218

Post by enedil » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:14 AM UTC

1over137 wrote: post #191

reshie wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

throwaway numbers can mean many things even a 5 dollar sim. some services even let you change phone numbers on a whim cell numbers are mobile in more than one way and very easy.

Many places I've been won't let you buy a SIM without showing id.

Yeah, what's the problem here? Presumably Facebook won't get the data on the legal owner of the number.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#219

Post by interwho » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:20 AM UTC

kgwxd wrote: post #180

interwho wrote: post #166

They also aren't allowing "throwaway" VoIP numbers, so you can't even mask your main phone number - I tried signing up with both a Twilio number and a TextNow number and both failed with a "This number is not supported" error. I ended up opening a support ticket and they allowed me to bypass that requirement only after I explained that I don't have a traditional phone number.

Did they require any more PII to do it over the phone?

No, I just had to open a support ticket. That said, it definitely added significant friction to signing up, and took two days for the ticket to be approved.

Re: Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

#220

Post by dymk » Tue, Mar 26, 2019, 2:27 AM UTC

zokier wrote: post #101

Pfhreak wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a really split opinion about this. On the one hand I've seen a lot of really hateful stuff lobbed around on sites like Twitter, and I suspect that linking accounts to phone numbers would dramatically reduce that. On the other hand, I'm not sure I want Twitter (et. al.) knowing my phone number.

This is bit of hypothetical, but does some sort of pki-like scheme exist that would allow me to hold a certificate (of sorts) from an authority that I could use to prove myself to an service, but also simultaneously would not leak any information about me to that service? Similarly service a and service b should not be able to link accounts behind my back. Sounds like a interesting crypto problem

There'd need to be some central authority (like you said) doing the certificate issuing that verifies that you are, indeed, a human, and that your a unique human that they haven't already given a certificate to.

Chances are they'd want more than a phone number; probably a photo ID or something as well, else their value proposition isn't very strong.

I'm not sure if that's better for privacy and safety than many services asking for just a phone number (which I can generate a semi-throwaway Google Voice number for).