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Protect your privacy and your phone number with Firefox Relay

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Protect your privacy and your phone number with Firefox Relay

#11

Post by vineyardmike »

tailspin2019 wrote: post #2

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.

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

Re: Protect your privacy and your phone number with Firefox Relay

#12

Post by madamelic »

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

Re: Protect your privacy and your phone number with Firefox Relay

#14

Post by nicholasjarnold »

jaclaz wrote: post #5

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 Mozill…

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.

Re: Protect your privacy and your phone number with Firefox Relay

#16

Post by madamelic »

nicholasjarnold wrote: post #7
tailspin2019 wrote: post #2

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.

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…

Here you go: https://github.com/qnzl/twilio-basic-server

Go wild. Gets you like 90% of the way there.

Re: Protect your privacy and your phone number with Firefox Relay

#17

Post by madamelic »

dividuum wrote: post #6
rodolphoarruda wrote: post #4

We need this service available in Brazil like... yesterday. Robocalls are reaching unbearable levels.

Wouldn’t that just increase the number of calls, now that you can receive them on multiple numbers?

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.

Re: Protect your privacy and your phone number with Firefox Relay

#18

Post by lalopalota »

jaclaz wrote: post #5

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 Mozill…

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.

Re: Protect your privacy and your phone number with Firefox Relay

#20

Post by jaclaz »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #9
jaclaz wrote: post #5

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 Mozill…

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

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).

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