Your identity is not public information on Twitter. Posting someone’s phone number and Twitter handle, if they did not explicitly share it anywhere, would be doxing, against almost any site ToS, and potentially even illegal.
What’s your phone number? If it’s public you don’t mind sharing it. My address book is filled with people who would be very sad if that were made public.
Ah yes, continuing the fiction that anyone who uses a VoIP service must be a fraudster with a faked phone number.
Just another in the long list of if you are not using Google or Microsoft e-mail and AT&T or Verizon or T-Mobile or Sprint postpaid mobile phone service, you're obviously up to no good and deserve whatever "anti-fraud" you get.
It may be public, but I don't see you posting your phone number on HN. Perhaps that's because you don't want everyone in the world to have it? Doesn't seem like an unreasonable expectation to me.
> you have one of those private, encrypted phone numbers that prevents unauthorized usage? Get over yourself, it's public information.
Is it?
If I find out your phone number, "stuff4ben", then I know who "stuff4ben" really is.
People have been missing this for a LONG time now. Phone numbers are the unique identifier, especially with portability.
You can use 50 different usernames across 50 different sites but with that phone number, I know they are all you.
Which I can then link up to the 1,000 other sites you use those 50 usernames on without providing your phone number, and it's still likely you.
The NSA's database must be very interesting out at the Utah Data Center. This is how it all works, because you can mask your IP address using Tor but you can't mask any of that unless you've taken very careful steps along the entire history of your internet usage, from the start.
But on twitter you don't need to give anyone your real name. THAT'S the thing. There should be no way to tie your twitter account to you, unless you specifically allow them to share your information.
It is public information, and that's why it's ludicrous that it's used for two-factor authentication.
Two-factor authentication is a dumb solution to a real problem. The problem should be properly solved, rather than hacked around with stupid solutions like "sending notifications to accounts that can easily be spoofed by willful actors".
> Two-factor authentication is a dumb solution to a real problem. The problem should be properly solved, rather than hacked around with stupid solutions like "sending notifications to accounts that can easily be spoofed by willful actors".
SMS Two-factor authentication is a dumb solution. Actual two-factor authentication like FIDO U2F tokens is a better solution. Even TOTP is better than SMS auth.
Private vs. public isn't a fine-grained enough distinction. It's not private in the sense that most people give it out to lots of people so that they can be contacted. (Of course, in the case of landlines, they're mostly listed in a public directory somewhere but I assume we're talking mobile here.)
BTW, you bank account number is the same way if you write checks.
So they're not private in the way that some data (like health information) that you're only going to share very selectively is private. But it's mostly not public in the sense that you'll likely put it online unless maybe it's a business phone.
I don’t think that’s anything to do with it. Suggesting that other people shouldn’t be bothered about their phone number being leaked is like trying to argue away their rights. Naturally when you do that, people react negatively.
It's public information.
Do you want to sue the phone telcos for publishing the phone book?