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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

#71

Post by zikduruqe »

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

textnow.com is free and what I have been using for years.

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

#72

Post by diebeforei485 »

mdasen wrote: post #56
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

When I look up my Google Voice number, it shows up as VoIP (not quite landline) with the carrier being Grand Central - SVR. It seems likely that Mozilla's service will similarly show up as VoIP. Some places are filtering VoIP numbers from their SMS verification schemes, but most places will let you sign up for promotional texts from a VoIP number.

Where can you "look up" your number?

There was something recently around a game which was able to detect if a user's phone number was on a prepaid or postpaid plan. I had no idea carriers share this information with others.

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

#73

Post by Vinnl »

stuckonempty wrote: post #69
Vinnl wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Relay engineer here.) This is definitely just the first step; we've got lots of ideas for additional protections we could add, and are monitoring usage and feedback [1] to inform our roadmap. What this first version gives you is a way to add a tier of trust to your phone number: your Relay number for untrustworthy partners, and your true phone number for important things. That means that data leaks of untrustworthy…

What are the benefits of Firefox phone relay then versus a free google voice number I use just for spam (“untrustworthy partners”)?

I'm not terribly familiar with Google Voice (it also isn't available in my country...), but they look similar in terms of functionality at this point in time. For me personally, the primary reasons to go with Relay would be that I'm already trying to move away from Google as much as possible for privacy reasons, that I'm already using Relay for email masking, and that Relay is explicitly focused on the privacy use case and will keep evolving in that direction.

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

#74

Post by tjoff »

> Next, you will be prompted to verify your true phone number where the calls and texts will be forwarded to via text message. After verification, we will generate your phone number mask.

Doesn't feel necessary to me really. I've never ever been in the need for an incoming call, just for sms. And I'd much rather have them sent to an email rather than my actual phone too (and then I wouldn't need to share my phone number with this service either). That would be a real use-case for me. But paying a monthly subscription for that twice a year sms isn't that great either.

I currently have a pre-paid sim and an old phone for this usecase. It kind of sucks and I don't have access to it when I'm not home (sure, there are ways to sync this but haven't felt a big enough need for it yet).

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

#75

Post by im3w1l »

jaclaz wrote: post #20
barbariangrunge wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 robocall…

It would kind of make sense if you could "open" the relay when you need to 2fa, and then you close it again after. With this usepattern you would only need one alias, that would be closed 99.9% of the time.

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

#76

Post by srhngpr »

I think TextNow offers a better solution and I've been using it to do this for quite some time and it doesn't require any kind of forwarding. I can send/receive calls and messages directly from within its app and recycle numbers at any time - all for free (ad supported). Calls are of great quality too and it even includes voicemail. If I really like a number and want to lock it (to also receive 2FA codes), it's a yearly $7 fee. Works with area codes in US and Canada.

I think there are other options like Fongo and probably a dozen other similar services that already have been doing this for some time. Not really seeing the value proposition of going with the Mozilla option here. Am I missing something?

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

#77

Post by barbazoo »

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

That's what I thought too but then I read about what is actually offered:

> You only get one phone number mask at this time. Once you choose your phone number mask, you cannot change it later.

That makes it impossible to use as a "burner" number.

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

#79

Post by jacooper »

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.

License please!

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

#80

Post by stuckonempty »

Vinnl wrote: post #73
stuckonempty wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the benefits of Firefox phone relay then versus a free google voice number I use just for spam (“untrustworthy partners”)?

I'm not terribly familiar with Google Voice (it also isn't available in my country...), but they look similar in terms of functionality at this point in time. For me personally, the primary reasons to go with Relay would be that I'm already trying to move away from Google as much as possible for privacy reasons, that I'm already using Relay for email masking, and that Relay is explicitly focused on the privacy use ca…

I can relate to the privacy-focused goal of getting away from google however Google Voice is free. Sadly I think having a competing free Google product that accomplishes most of the same things is going to hurt adoption of the Firefox relay product (which is paid)
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