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Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

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Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#111

Post by tsimionescu »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #69
paxys wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also skips over the fact that 2FA means second factor. Even if insecure it's still better than nothing.

Only if 2FA doesn't open up customer support channels that defeat the point of 2FA, like the common "oops I lost my phone lol" channel attack that gives you access to an account if you can provide the other factor. (Still) works against Amazon btw: https://medium.com/@espringe/amazon-s-customer-service-backd... I'd say 2FA is often worse than 1FA because customer support systems are rarely prepared to say "sorry, can…

That has nothing to do with 2FA, has it? Having a recovery procedure that escalates up tp direct phone contact is the norm with or without 2FA. This system is probably older than the Internet, with banks operating on similar principles (of course, it escalates up to physical presence there).

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#112

Post by plorkyeran »

raverbashing wrote: post #20
cassalian wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the reasoning is more likely "you have to use our official app" rather than "text messages are expensive to send so let's discontinue"

But you don't. The mobile website works. Worse of the worse cases use Dabr.

The mobile website's been broken for me for something like a year. It just shows "Something went wrong" with a Try again button that doesn't do anything. This happens for me on two different iPhones (a 6S and a XS).

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#113

Post by mlindner »

yepguy wrote: post #37
gojomo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly ironic: that Twitter essentially now requires a phone number for continued use of their service – by freezing all new users' accounts, soon after minor activity, until a phone number is provided. But, they won't let you use that phone endpoint for reading/posting.

That infuriated me last year when I finally tried to create a Twitter account. During registration I was given a choice between providing an email address or a phone number. I provided an email address, only to immediately have my account locked until I provided a phone number. Well, I wouldn't have given my email address if I knew a phone number was required anyway! It wouldn't even let me visit my account settings…

That's pretty interesting. I've had a twitter account that has no phone number and no email for a very long time. It's never been blocked.

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#114

Post by dontbenebby »

eigen-vector wrote: post #3

This is quite unfortunate. In countries where whether the people have access to internet or not is under the control of the government, this was a neat work around to get voices heard. In the recent history, an 'internet lockdown' has been the MO of many (oppressive) governments, including India. edit: removed a comment on about 2-FA as it takes away from the intended point.

Unfortunately there's often no one in the decision making process with skin in the game WRT free expression when it comes to axing a feature.

It frustrates me that often folks who express support for HK independence so fiercely can't even tell me who Modi is.

Best wishes friend.

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#115

Post by kragen »

amatecha wrote: post #83
thirtyseven wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are dynamic DNS services no longer a thing?

Yep, free dynamic DNS still exists, for example NoIP https://www.noip.com/ However, you have to refresh it each month by filling out a "I'm still using it" web form they email you. So, you can't just set it & forget it.

it really isn't that hard to set up dynamic dns yourself. like maybe a day of work. just don't forget to upgrade your dns server software when exploits are discovered

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#116

Post by xxpor »

flatTheCurve wrote: post #52
xxpor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just turn off the feature entirely in settings.

Where in settings? I've just checked everything.

Sorry, it's actually on the timeline. On twitter.com, look at the stars to the right of "Home" right at the top. Click that, then "See latest Tweets instead"

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#117

Post by davchana »

seancoleman wrote: post #5

This reminds me of how I hacked twitter 10+ years ago to get free SMS delivery for a web app I built. Before Twilio, custom SMS notification delivery was hard and expensive. At the time, twitter allowed you to receive SMS notifications of tweets posted to a followed account. I created a private account and used twitter's API to post tweets to with the notification content I wanted to send. I then had "dummy" accounts…

I too did almost similar.

A filter in GMail labeled some important incoming mails based on my criteria. My Google App Script checked for this lable every 4 hours, & if found, extracts some info, & post it as a tweet to a private account. The followed account gets a SMS notification

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#118

Post by alexmingoia »

QuantumGood wrote: post #78

I "lost" 250,000 followers back in the day due to a Twitter change. People used to think we— @Twitter_Tips —worked for Twitter. When Twitter forced us to change our username to @TweetSmarter, @Twitter_Tips became a "new" account (that no one could use) that started with zero followers. In a few weeks it racked up over 250,000 followers—that were "ours"—because of all the press, blogs, lists, good will, etc we had on…

That’s fucked up. It’s a lesson though for me that email and RSS are the only true ways to build an audience that’s actually yours.

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#119

Post by tomc1985 »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #15
seancoleman wrote: post #5

This reminds me of how I hacked twitter 10+ years ago to get free SMS delivery for a web app I built. Before Twilio, custom SMS notification delivery was hard and expensive. At the time, twitter allowed you to receive SMS notifications of tweets posted to a followed account. I created a private account and used twitter's API to post tweets to with the notification content I wanted to send. I then had "dummy" accounts…

Twitter used to be a wonderful platform to hack on. I feel like the early days of developer and poweruser friendliness helped keep the platform from dying in some niche microblogging category.

That's just how the cooki... er, cloud... crumbles

Re: Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries

#120

Post by redis_mlc »

seancoleman wrote: post #5

This reminds me of how I hacked twitter 10+ years ago to get free SMS delivery for a web app I built. Before Twilio, custom SMS notification delivery was hard and expensive. At the time, twitter allowed you to receive SMS notifications of tweets posted to a followed account. I created a private account and used twitter's API to post tweets to with the notification content I wanted to send. I then had "dummy" accounts…

Since Twilio was mentioned for commercial SMS, lets give a shout-out to Plivo too:

https://www.plivo.com/

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