Blissfully tranquil.
You can just get a fliphone clamshell, they still do those and don't need a full smartphone (ironically the clamshell still runs android)
They boot fast and battery can be pulled after
This is how I do all the 2-factor that demands real SMS
Tell support you’ve lost access to email and they might allow you to change it if you can still verify sms code
how would one "verify sms code" without a phone?
as considered by who? do banks accept a Twilio number as a valid number according to their security best practices?
- Google requires to scan QR code with a phone to create an account
- Facebook requires a 3D face scan
- VK requires to use mobile application
- Telegram requires to use mobile application
Desktop now feels like untrusted, shady device, used mostly by cybercriminals. Especially of you use Linux and enable "fingerprinting resistance" option.
> To register a new account, online platforms require SMS (Short Message Service) verification
Incorrect, see above.
> A fake Facebook account registered in Russia can post about the US elections
Facebook is blocked in Russia though.
As for spam problems, require payment to add new contacts above the limit, and disable messaging to non-contacts. Or restrict messaging based on country/city (so that messaging to a different country is paid).
> The average price of SMS verification for an online platform during the year-long study period running to July 2025 was ... just a fraction of that in the US ($0.26), UK ($0.10) and Russia ($0.08).
That's outdated. With new Russian legislation, most platforms removed support for Russian phone numbers, so now you cannot even find a service that allows to receive SMS to a Russian number. Futhermore, if you Google such services, it seems that they use the same provider because all of them do not have any working Russian numbers.
I doubt that stops the IRA tbh
You probably have a super suspicious browser fingerprint and/or IP reputation and they're using those measures as a mitigation without denying outright. Use a normie browser and a normal internet connection and account creation works fine.
This just a) increases the costs for attackers, which don't actually stop them; and b) means the poor amongst a population will be limited in who they can talk to. Very convenient, that. Don't want your peasants talking to citizens from other countries.
Their solution is to deanonymize communication, which you're probably familiar with. That's not a tool for social good, but for government power. We could give government virtually any power, if we assume it will be used only for good.
What's a solution to online manipulation that is actually a social good or cannot be misused? What's a freedom-promoting technology that can replace the disaster that is current social media?
Possible values for A = heroin, alcohol, tobacco, weed, porn, TV… B = addictive, causes cancer, has an effect on brain health, spreads HIV… C = using, consuming, eating, injecting…
Seems that this “people realizing” does not seem to work with other highly addictive chemicals or electronic media, since healing oneself from addiction requires far more than just “realizing” it is bad for you and the society. Perhaps there is a reason why we limit by law the sale of tobacco, drugs, alcohol and other highly addictive substances.
[1] My favorite mitigation was a machine that accepted the TCP connection from a bot address and just never responded after that (except to keep alives) I think the longest client we had hung that way had been waiting for over 3 months for a web page that never arrived. :-)
I know some people dislike being reminded of this, but I share it because I'm personally always grateful to notice a new edge of it in my own experience: it's perhaps a dimension of privilege (which is neither good nor bad, just something to know that one [might] have, often in some subtle or hidden dimensions and not in others)
Creating a new GMail account will require a phone number now, except maybe through a few avenues which are rapidly being closed.
Signing up for popular social media services often requires a phone number.
Signing up for free trials on a lot of platforms requires a phone number.
Everyone knows it's not a perfect measure, but it substantially slows down bot and spammer signups. Even spammers who use these verification services may get an account created, but internally it will be assigned a higher index of suspicion and be more likely to be flagged. When services operate at Facebook or Google scale, they can start to notice when 30 accounts have used the same SMS verification phone number through one of these services in the past N days.
> The Complaint alleged that, from May 2013 through September 2019, Twitter encouraged its users to disclose their phone numbers and email addresses for security purposes, such as enabling two-factor authentication and establishing a method for recovering lost passwords. More than 140 million users provided their information to Twitter.
https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/blogs/enforceme...
https://cotsi.org/platforms?platform=ds&view=map I wish they showed a graph of services, but it seems like you can only view a graph of countries per service.
[1] https://www.science.org/doi/suppl/10.1126/science.adw8154/su...
[2] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Aialrzkl4kjk2WgQac5f...
The Vendors that actually got included in COTSI are these:
Vendor1 https://sms-activate.org/price 16,310,000 China Vendor3 https://5sim.net/ Vendor 5,137,000 China Vendor5 https://smshub.org/en/main 1,871,000 Indonesia Vendor7 https://smspva.com/ 1,212,000 Nigeria
Others got Reserved (and I guess maybe they'll be included eventually?)
Vendor4 https://sms-man.com/ 2,751,000 USA Vendor6 https://sms-activation-service.com/en/ 1,778,000 Russia Vendor9 https://2ndline.io/ 320,487 Vietnam
The post focuses on SMS verification, which based on the general level of costs makes sense. A KYC-verified Binance account costs a lot more than they list. But if they're only counting the cost for SMS verification, why would it depend on service? Wouldn't only the phone number's country matter?
If you want I can shoe you the popup that asks for a number
In Germany, you have to give ISP customer providers (help centers) a copy of your passport ID in a live video stream to authenticate. That was introduced since 2013, for all SIM registrations.
So explain to me, again, how did this help reduce botnet traffic from Russia that uses proxy services of third parties that installed their proxy backdoors in free apps on the PlayStore under the disguise of marketing and advertisement?
I don't understand why Google does not get any critique for allowing so much malware to be officially deployed via their PlayStore? They don't give a damn, have a history of not caring, and are the only point in the supply chain that is the problem. Every service provider that offers residential proxies is using those backdoors, and bought access for it from the advertisement companies.
If you report their Malware or Spamware, they ignore it. Try it, you will be disappointed. Because AdMob and other agencies are their customers. It's the same problem with Microsoft hosting Azure tenants that do spamming, sorry, "marketing campaigns".
Source: I track these companies and their rotating ASNs with zero tolerance for spam. [1]
gnabgib•12h ago