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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

#41

Post by ridgered4 »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #30
jaclaz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 robocall…

But if you can use a unique number per service, you now know which company is selling your PII and you could address that either by switching to a competitor or, depending on the legal specifics, sue/expose them.

Unfortunately this only gives you a single unchangeable mask number.

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

#42

Post by nicholasjarnold »

madamelic wrote: post #16
nicholasjarnold wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thank you! I'm going to check this out. A question about a comment you made elsewhere herein:

> 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.

How, specifically, do other services detect this? Is it like with IP address space where it's possible to determine things like "this C block belongs to Entity X, Inc"? Are you aware of mechanisms to avoid this detection/blocking that don't require using a "real" number.

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

#44

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

jaclaz wrote: post #40
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you can use a unique number per service, you now know which company is selling your PII and you could address that either by switching to a competitor or, depending on the legal specifics, sue/expose them.

From what I understand it is not "unlimited" numbers, just one, as said an "alias".

That's a shame, it wasn't entirely clear from the article but I assumed it must be multiple numbers since it didn't seem to me like it would be all that useful otherwise.

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

#45

Post by rodolphoarruda »

madamelic wrote: post #17
dividuum wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> 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.

That's my tactics via an app.

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

#46

Post by madamelic »

nicholasjarnold wrote: post #42
madamelic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: https://github.com/qnzl/twilio-basic-server Go wild. Gets you like 90% of the way there.

Thank you! I'm going to check this out. A question about a comment you made elsewhere herein: > 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. How, specifically, do other services detect this? Is it like with IP address space where it's possible to determine things like "this C bloc…

> How, specifically, do other services detect this?

I don't actually know specifically. I assume there are two different ways:

- The service is using Verify / Authy, which is owned by Twilio so likely Twilio themselves discourage it

- Looking up the number either through Twilio or some sort of central subscriber database. All virtual numbers are described as virtual numbers.

> Are you aware of mechanisms to avoid this detection/blocking that don't require using a "real" number.

Definitely gets into ethically gray areas since that would be super useful to nefarious people. I don't actually know for sure. I know from the recent Blizzard mobile 2FA controversy that this issue expands to also prepaid phone numbers.

So I don't know of a definitive way to get around it beyond using a postpaid number.

Somewhat related, near the end of my above mentioned service, I had pivoted into trying to launch a "21st century phone service" complete with SIM cards provided by Twilio.

The issue? They were still considered virtual numbers. At the time, in Twilio's defense, I was somewhat misusing their service because their SIMs were intended for IoT purposes not actual cellphone usage. That's all to say, it's likely provider / subscriber level vs something you can individually spoof.

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

#48

Post by ratata »

groovecoder wrote: post #10
imagetic wrote: post #3

I like what Mozilla has been doing with their services, but they have built a very confusing business model of many micro services that I just don't see a ton of people signing up for as independent subscriptions. Why not bundle them all as one membership? Pocket, Mozilla VPN, Relay, Monitor, and whatever services they can scrape up premium options and features for to give them value?

(Mozilla Privacy & Security ENGR) Stay tuned ... :)

Great to hear! One suggestion; I think it would be great to have an integration with smartphones Contact apps. This way a user can leverage autocomplete and do not disturb rules on mobile.

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

#49

Post by kylehotchkiss »

crackercrews wrote: post #29

> Each month you will receive up to 50 minutes for incoming calls and 75 text messages. All phone number masking plans will include unlimited email masking. The cost is $3.99 a month for an annual plan or $4.99 a month for a monthly plan. So you pay $4-5 per month and you're still limited? I was expecting there would be some free amount and after that it's paid. Will this SMS work for account verification?

Google Voice numbers are reported as landlines, there seems to be some way to verify that a number is actually mobile. Very likely that Mozilla's report as landline. Banks (capital one) have definitely balked at my google voice number.

What these burner numbers are great for are rewards programs. I sign up for every one I can with my GV number!

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

#50

Post by MatthewMcDonald »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #34

Maybe this is a good place to ask: I'm a British expat living in the USA, and for a while now I've wanted a service which provides a British phone number, and forwards calls and texts to my US number, while also allowing me to send texts and make calls "from" the UK number if I want to. It looks like I might be able to do this with Twilio, but I'm not a developer, and quickly got frustrated trying to build what I wan…

Check out MySudo. It doesn't _forward_ the calls and texts, but you can have multiple numbers that you can call/text with from the app.
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