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Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number

sucky.ninja

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

#231

Post by crummy »

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.

WhatsApp.

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

#232

Post by xur17 »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #203
H1Supreme wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It’s happened to me a few times with my Gvoice number. Which is really annoying because this is why I use it. It usually gives no specific information about why it failed, but then I use my main mobile number and it works fine.

It used to happen for me on Telegram (I think it's been fixed within the last year though), and recently a startup (Mealplan) blocked it because it's a "voip" number. I even tried emailing and explaining, but they just said they don't support it.

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

#233

Post by packet_nerd »

baroffoos wrote: post #221
packet_nerd wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 still doesn't allow for the case where you have multiple accounts for valid reasons like keeping personal and professional accounts but neither does a phone number so this is still an improvement. I think the main thing blocking this is its a huge pain to go through this system when the average person doesn't care that facebook and twitter have their phone number

> huge pain

The current system is a huge pain too...

I have 700+ accounts recorded in my password manager. Organizing, managing, occasionally changing passwords on important ones, etc. etc. takes a non-trivial amount of time and dedication!

And it's way way harder for many people who never got a system down, something I'm reminded of every time I visit my grandparents.. :-) Their main email account used to be an old ISP one that they'd payed for for years, and for whatever reason (I couldn't figure out why) it stopped working with some sites. Without that email account they lost access to a bank account, several credit card accounts, and some other stuff, and I ended up walking them through setting up a gmail account and calling in to change the email associated with all those accounts. Well, I used their landline phone to help set up the gmail account, and this year they moved, no longer have that phone number, and lost access to that account. I tried to help recover it, but wasn't successful. Guess what... they had to repeat the process for the bank and all those credit cards.

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

#234

Post by miguelmota »

apo wrote: post #86

Linking pseudonyms from two different networks (in this case, Twitter and the phone system) together is a classic and serious privacy leak. It's far from clear exactly what information Twitter, in its longtime effort to combat spam, has already collected on its users. Throwing a phone number into the mix expands to range of activities that can be unambiguously tied to the same individual. Given that Twitter certainly…

Agree with the sentiment but what better alternative do you propose to prevent abuse?

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

#235

Post by Evidlo »

daybreak wrote: post #22

I had this problem when creating a new Twitter account last month. Within minutes after setting up an account via iOS app, was locked out for "suspicious behavior". Didn't even tweet once. Residential IP. They wanted me to add a phone number. I went to the help section and wrote a pissed off message to customer support...if they wanted my phone # they should have asked for it instead of accusing me. Shortly after, my…

This happened to me on Discord. I ended up just getting the admins to bridge the room into Matrix and joining there.

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

#236

Post by tzs »

baroffoos wrote: post #181
packet_nerd wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has got to be a better way to do online identity as a society! The most promising ideas I've heard about are WebAuthn and Estonia's digital identity system. How long is it going to take to get out of the dark ages and get this right? One thing I'm sure of, uploading a scan of my passport to every website is not an appealing thought. Besides the inconvenience, do I really want my passport spread around on dozens…

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

NOTE: in the following when I talk about "digital cash" systems I am not talking about blockchains!

It might be possible to do something based on one of the centralized "digital cash" systems that cryptographers have developed. A typical system allows some central entity (e.g., a bank) to issue a "digital dollar".

The digital dollar can be transferred to a merchant in such a way that the merchant can turn it back in to the bank, and the bank (1) can recognize that it corresponds to one they issued, (2) can tell that it has not previously been turned in, and (3) gets no information whatsoever about who they originally issued it to.

So suppose some entity that people trusted revealing their identity to provided a service where you prove your identity to them, and they use a digital cash system to issue you a token. You can redeem that token at Twitter, which verifies it with the issuer, and if it is valid and not previously redeemed, lets you create an account with no further need for identification.

The token issuing entity does end up with a list of real identities of Twitter users, but has no way to match those to Twitter accounts. (Or rather, they have the identities of people who asked for Twitter account creation tokens...they have no way of knowing if a given person ever actually went ahead and created an account).

If your Twitter account gets banned and you want another one, you'll either have to try to go through the token issuer again, and they can see that a token was already issued using your real identity and refuse. You'll have to do something like get other people who don't have Twitter accounts to use their real identities to get tokens, and then give those to you.

That was just an off the cuff idea, to suggest some possibilities, and based on the capabilities of the earliest digital cash systems. I bet you could design a more sophisticated system where the token issuing entity works with multiple sites, and can't tell which site you are getting a token for, but can still limit you to one account per site.

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

#237

Post by packet_nerd »

Carpetsmoker wrote: post #230
packet_nerd wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reasonably anonymous The signup process has always been quite invasive for me. Is it possible get a phone in the states without handing over your SS, name, and DoB? I've never tried; what happens if you give bogus info?

I don't know about the United States as I've not been, but in every other country I've gotten a SIM it's been a matter of picking it up and the store and handing over money, same as if you're buying, say, deodrant. You can top up money anonymously too by buying prepaid vouchers. I've certainly never had to hand over stuff like social security number (wtf?), but perhaps laws and/or telcos are different in U.S.

My family lived in Thailand when I was teenager, and this is how it worked there until just before we left (around 2013) there was a new law or something, and you actually had to physically go to a place, fill out a form, and show your passport just to get the stupid sim unlocked. At least in the US you can do it online or through the phone.

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

#238

Post by ratling »

mythz wrote: post #35

I'm assuming it's to try de-anonymize users and make bots less cost effective. Nothing propagates faster than hate on Twitter and seeing as it's being actively weaponized to spread propaganda, I'm all for new measures that try slow the spread down - esp. given nothing else has worked thus far.

I expect they'll reverse this. Twitter is literally just bots arguing with bots. That and every political operative has like 20 sock puppets to drum up 'grassroots support' for whatever they're shilling.

They should put Cheeto on the payroll, he's the only reason they're still relevant.

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

#239

Post by BroEconomics »

lima wrote: post #130
fogetti wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you don't get it. It's not about annoyance. It's about the complete unreliability of any online service today. All and every customers show (and should rightfully show if they don't yet) complete distrust for a good reason. You are asking my phone number today and next day I will find it out in the open because of your and others' businesses don't give a .... when it comes to security. And don't tell me that'…

We do care about security and hash the phone numbers after sending the verification SMS (we only need to determine whether a given phone number is associated with a locked account - a hash is good enough for that). Our problem is that criminals open hundreds of accounts with fake data and stolen credit card data, abuse our services until we get abuse complaints or detect it and lock them, then repeat that. This leads…

How about solve the problem? The issue is not fake data. It is chargebacks due to stolen credit cards. So, the easy solution is to accept cryptocurrency. If someone chooses to use a credit card, then sure anal cavity search them. But someone paying with crypto should not be subject to that.

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

#240

Post by elektor »

brownbat wrote: post #211
H1Supreme wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

I can back this claim up. I was unable to verify my Citi credit card over the phone using my Google Voice number, they insisted on a non-VoIP number which ultimately delayed the verification process by a week.
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