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Stop Treating Phone Numbers As A Digital ID (notthesolution.substack.com)
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[-] Teknikal@eviltoast.org 15 points 2 hours ago

Bane of my life as about a year ago my dad switched his sim and immediately started pestering me about not being able to log into his accounts.

Yes he got rid of the old number completly and expected me to somehow make his logins work. This is still going on to this day when he complains to me something doesn't work it's because he's tied it to his old phone number.

[-] y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 hours ago

I've been considering getting a pager or a burner phone just for this

[-] KillerWhale@orcas.enjoying.yachts 1 points 33 minutes ago

Most phones are dual Sim these days

[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 3 points 4 hours ago

I absolutely love this.

[-] jpablo68@infosec.pub 12 points 7 hours ago

I'm in a quest to find a good email provider that doesn't ask for a cellphone or another email address while creating an account, cock.li used to do this but now it's "getting back on its feet"

[-] Matombo@feddit.org 1 points 23 minutes ago

create 2 proton mail account und use each other as a backup e-mail

[-] leadore@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago
[-] fatalicus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

Just signed up for Tuta and they do not ask for this.

[-] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 3 points 3 hours ago
[-] alekwithak@lemmy.world 7 points 2 hours ago

Proton? More like pro Nazi.

[-] 3laws@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago

OFTL Did they support Trump?

[-] SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.world 1 points 51 minutes ago

The CEO made a remark about Trump, and used his corporate account for it.

If I recall correctly (no press statement was made by Proton), it was a personal remark on a corporate account, which he was quick to allow anyone to do. It also didn't support Trump as a whole, just a remark Orangeman made about getting small business a level playing field (which I totally trust from an olicharch).

I'm still sticking with Proton for the foreseeable future, as its privacy awareness and advocacy is still a core business value.

Their founder did, very openly and expressively, it was quite bizarre

[-] rumba@lemmy.zip 1 points 29 minutes ago

Then he tried to walk it back by gaslighting.

"I wasn't being political" said the man who was clearly being political.

[-] TotalCourage007@lemm.ee 3 points 3 hours ago

There used to be a way to make Google accounts with no number but that's probably been patched. I generally refuse to add numbers if I can help it.

Proton, Mailbox & fastmail are all good options. Best way to avoid it is self-hosting but that is beyond most people (as in time-consuming).

[-] wulf@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

Personally I use mailbox.org, it's not free, but you are not the product

[-] D_Air1@lemmy.ml 77 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)
  • Phone numbers
  • social security numbers

Stop making personal information into digital ids because when it inevitably ends up in some kind of data breach. These companies all throw their hands up saying sucks to be you.

[-] penquin@lemm.ee 9 points 7 hours ago

Nah, man. Gotta get my $2.97 check.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 6 points 7 hours ago

Yeah, just generate a unique ID and ask only for the information you actually need.

This should be what digital ID looks like:

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

mDMEZ26+ARYJKwYBBAHaRw8BAQdAsUGMjbGNUyyz9PHsHKP4xj/tIfYIuHb4miPH 0iCPpu60K0VSUk9SOiBFYXJ0aC5leGUgaGFzIGNyYXNoZWQgPG5vQGVtYWlsLmV4 ZT6IcgQTFggAGgQLCQgHAhUIAhYBAhkBBYJnbr4BAp4BApsDAAoJEI6E3uMn31Z3 028BAM5o8ER0dqTsxFlZSgZOvvgFHGuy2eFgF3rULkGKl1KrAP9fdE7WwnYbBer/ AVmw5jr0P5m/XsEQQrSueuk/FLYBBbg4BGduvgESCisGAQQBl1UBBQEBB0BDR0Bv pf4jxbwp9rVowFTnL59NGqnnh6XyF/LjAoYDGgMBCAeIYQQYFggACQWCZ26+AQKb DAAKCRCOhN7jJ99Wd1dMAP45xmN03SodkWHi7PYOORqNXJUBdMzzfsRXdqE8ZXaW vAD+PqNqPcbwJYCOEAXkg7DlZ0SX3o9MViZLdzHFQ3TpUA8= =krDh -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

PGP Key Fingerprint: 857957d40f06cc816fd3d29a8e84dee327df5677

Should be good until quantum computers come around

Now type it a form that doesn’t allow copy and paste.

[-] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago

Yeah... I did this kind of thing before as a password and found that out the hard way

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 22 points 8 hours ago

The California DMV requires you to renew your vehicle registration every year by paying with a bank account number (no card) which is like a 30ish digit number and they disable paste. If you get it wrong they won’t notify you in any way until you get pulled over by a cop who is one bad sneeze away from murdering you. It’s a great system.

[-] frostysauce@lemmy.world 3 points 4 hours ago

Bank account numbers are, like, 8-10 digits. Certainly not 30ish.

[-] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 1 points 2 hours ago

What? Mine are 6 digits. Plus the routing number

[-] azl@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 4 hours ago

I have renewed my CA registration with a credit card going back to at least 2016. A responsible driver would know their renewal failed when their registration document did not arrive via mail.

[-] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 8 points 4 hours ago

Nah dude fuck that. The burned of compliance with laws shouldn't fall so hard on people.

[-] mox@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 10 hours ago
[-] TheBat@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

Wdym why? That's how most bank portals are designed. Copy-paste functionality is disabled and you have to type username, password, authentication code

[-] mox@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I think my question was clear enough. The comment didn't mention banks, I've never had a bank that did that, and we generally don't try to hide our identities from our banks anyway. My best guess was that they misunderstood how public/private keys work, but since that was only a guess, I asked.

[-] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 5 points 9 hours ago

tbh ive never had a password box that I can't copy/paste into

[-] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 12 points 8 hours ago

I've seen a few. They're super annoying when trying to use a password manager with a decent password.

[-] llii@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 54 minutes ago* (last edited 53 minutes ago)

Can't your password manager do autotype? That's what I use mostly, because I don't want all my passwords in my clipboard.

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[-] Zak@lemmy.world 55 points 12 hours ago

I'm sad PGP didn't become a popular way to log into websites. A challenge-response protocol could have even been built into web browsers. Big tech is reinventing that idea as Passkey, but with a very big tech flavor.

[-] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

I mean, passkeys are... sort of... PGP... 🤷‍♂️

[-] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 19 points 12 hours ago

Thanks, gonna need your phone number to verify that though.

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[-] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 225 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

To the same audience: quit selling my fucking phone number!

I ditched a phone number I had for 10+ years because it was leaked everywhere. Only a few short months after updating my number with the DMV and a handful of other government agencies I started receiving scam calls/messages again.

At some point we need to adopt some fucking privacy laws. This is absolutely bonkers—is no one else fed up??

Edit: I already know how to silence unknown callers. What I want is to not have the problem in the first place, ideally by 1) having companies not sell personal data to third parties and 2) being able to block spoofed (non-encrypted) caller ID.

[-] Shimitar@feddit.it 3 points 2 hours ago

Don't worry, here in Europe we are full of privacy laws but I still receive tents of spam calls per day. Usually from non UE countries faking the number with my country numbers.

[-] mox@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 10 hours ago

quit ~~selling~~ demanding my fucking phone number!

FTFY

[-] SnotFlickerman 97 points 14 hours ago

Oh everyone is fed up but we just elected a guy and government who is sure to make it all way way way worse.

He just helped put the nail in the coffin of the lie that crypto is for anything but scams, don't worry, it's gonna get real bad before it gets any better.

[-] tourist@lemmy.world 20 points 12 hours ago

In South Africa, where I live, everyone is assigned an ID Number at Birth. You need an ID number, thumbprint scan AND proof of address to get issued a SIM card number due to a law introduced called RICA. It was meant to help fight crime. Worried that the government could listen in to calls or read their SMSs, the criminals just switched to WhatsApp, which also happened to become cheaper than SMSs and gained popularity in this time.

The cops never seemed to crack WhatsApp. The only drug busts that happen are when an open secret becomes laughably too open and when they harass every person arriving from South America at O.R. Tambo international airport just to catch the decoy mules carrying 12g of cocaine (total). Every dealer I ever organised with was over WhatsApp.

So now, woopsi, RICA stopped nothing and just became a liability. That treasure trove of fragile data made its way to scammers and spammers. A total net negative.

I'd encourage everyone else in other countries to apply major pushback to any government proposals in this direction.

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[-] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 11 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Australia has a "do not call register". It seems to mostly work, but telcos are having trouble with calls originating from outside the network with spoofed caller ID. We still get spam/scam calls from India among other places.

Even if they're not calling you directly, they are still using your phone number to link you to things and create a shadow profile behind the scenes.

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[-] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 43 points 14 hours ago

I'm pretty sure a lot of scam calls use machines that call every possible phone number within an area code and see who answers. There is no way to avoid it.

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[-] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 39 points 14 hours ago

It is the same thing that happened with US Social Security Numbers, which were originally just tracking numbers for that one purpose that were coopted by capitalists and treated like something special.

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this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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