News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by est31 on Monday March 25, 2019 @08:10PM (#19488020)
The other component is that once they have the phone number, they can do anything with it they want, unless you leave the network. E.g. facebook once did the same, they required phone numbers "for two factor authentication". They promised to not use the numbers for anything else. A few years later they started sending SMS spam to users about what their friends did on facebook, and now facebook users can enter the number and the associated accounts show up... even though the number was supposed to be only for two factor auth. Your only choice as individual user is to leave the platform.
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by LeifCarrotson on Monday March 25, 2019 @08:22PM (#19488077)
> Your only choice as individual user is to leave the platform.

That's not even enough anymore. You also have to make sure that every one of your contacts do not upload their address book to conveniently find friends like you who may or may not be on the network. And that they don't tag you in images, events, etc.

You're an entry in the Facebook database, whether you have or have had an active profile or not.

Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by ams6110 on Monday March 25, 2019 @08:26PM (#19488104)
This is why you should block ads and trackers even if you're not a Facebook user. I have blocked all their domains in my hosts file also.
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by renholder on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @07:57AM (#19490879)
>This is why you should block ads and trackers even if you're not a Facebook user. I have blocked all their domains in my hosts file also.

...but that's such a myopic view of the problem. Facebook has this data. There's an entire market, intentionally kept from the public, that specifically deals in the selling and trading of profile data. This is why the concept of "shadow profiles" is important.

Let's say I have three friends who are on Facebook and I am not (which I'm not). Those three friends upload my contact details to Facebook and, from these three data points, Facebook can derive certain assumptions:

Sex from my name.

General age-range based on my friends.

General occupation (let's say all three are co-workers or previous co-workers)

General interests based on their interests. etc.

So, now Facebook has an ad-targeting profile of me. All they need to do to get more information on me, regardless of I'm blocking their specific domains, is to purchase correlating ad-profiles on what I'll call the advertising market.

So, my credit card purchases, my Google search history, etc. can all be correlated back down into this one shadow profile that Facebook holds on me and this can, in turn, be used to target ads to my friends. Not only that, but if I ever do sign-up for Facebook, they can immediately start targeting ads to me. (read: I'm not a net-advertising loss for being a "new user".)

I'm not saying that you shouldn't block Facebook domains but I think that, in the overall scheme of things, it's tossing a drop of water onto a raging bush fire.

Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by quakeguy on Monday March 25, 2019 @08:31PM (#19488134)
Would you mind sharing the hosts file for blocking FB and all of their domains? I've done this too in the past, but my list seems outdated for a while now.
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by rux on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @07:49AM (#19490833)
If you don't mind a bit more config to tune to your precise preferences, I'd highly recommend https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by gcb0 on Monday March 25, 2019 @08:54PM (#19488270)
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by thinkloop on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @12:37AM (#19489338)
I'm surprised that no nation or union (ie EU) has fought this. If people exchange phone numbers, are they also giving each other implicit rights to share them with anyone else? If not, shouldn't platforms that enable this en mass be reprimanded for it?

It is currently impossible to remain anonymous, regardless of whether you participate in the system or not.

In my case, given the density of my network on social media, and their propensity to fall for dark patterns that siphon private information - had I never owned a computer and lived off the grid, all the major tech companies would still know my: name, age, address, contact info, hometown, family members, income bracket, ethnicity, general dna (many family members did dna tests), and more.

Shouldn't I have a say in any of that? Shouldn't things like address book importing be restricted/illegal?

Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by craftyguy on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @01:17AM (#19489478)
> I'm surprised that no nation or union (ie EU) has fought this.

Why would any politician fight this? It's a platform they all use to gain/sustain popularity, and it's the official national communication channel for the US.

Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by black-tea on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @08:57AM (#19491317)
Don't forget WhatsApp uploads your entire phonebook by default.
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by doubletgl on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @03:45AM (#19498789)
At least not on iOS, it needs to ask for permission first.
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by lskopwol on Monday March 25, 2019 @08:56PM (#19488289)
Actually, fb still requires the phone number, if you try to open up a few accounts in succession. You can't use throwaway numbers or Google Voice numbers either. So it's actually pretty hard these days to open a Fb (Or Hotmail or Gmail) account without a legit (cellphone) number.
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by reshie on Monday March 25, 2019 @09:19PM (#19488413)
throwaway numbers can mean many things even a 5 dollar sim. some services even let you change phone numbers on a whim cell numbers are mobile in more than one way and very easy.
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by 1over137 on Monday March 25, 2019 @09:23PM (#19488435)
Many places I've been won't let you buy a SIM without showing id.
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by bigiain on Monday March 25, 2019 @10:00PM (#19488659)
Yeah. I think while not nation-state-secure, you can still improve your PII exposure to Facebook/Twitter/Google et al by buying/activating a SIM/phone-number and only using it one time for the purpose of creating an account.

I don't _think_ Twitter or Facebook are doing backroom deals with every prepaid sim vendor to be able to tie that phone number back the the identity used to register the sim card.

I wouldn't suggest you use this to register your Dream Market vendor account, but I doubt you'll end up with targeted advertising based on your other real-world web/app behaviour based just on the ID provided for a single-use burner SIM...

Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by enedil on Monday March 25, 2019 @10:14PM (#19488729)
Yeah, what's the problem here? Presumably Facebook won't get the data on the legal owner of the number.
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by medof on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @04:13AM (#19490016)
> Many places I've been won't let you buy a SIM without showing id.

You don't need to show any ID in Europe to buy non-contract phone number. You can go into most stores and get free or pay 1-5 euro for a phone number.

Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by kpcyrd on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @04:47AM (#19490139)
Germany passed an anti-terror law a few years ago, getting a phone number requires the same level of verification as opening a bank account.

Even before that prepaid phones have been a strawman argument, actually maintaining a 2nd number in the long run is quite a bit of work since it usually expires if you don't use it enough.

Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by detaro on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @04:29AM (#19490063)
And then you typically need to do some kind of identity verification to activate it.
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by smartbit on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @04:47AM (#19490138)
In Austria, Belgium & Germany you do, in Croatia & The Netherlands you don’t
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by richardwhiuk on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @04:45AM (#19490130)
Possible that's typical, but it's certainly not universal
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by C1sc0cat on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @05:45AM (#19490361)
Not in the UK you cant.
Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by 1024core on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @10:23AM (#19492104)
> Your only choice as individual user is to leave the platform.

For some platforms, even this is not an option. Case in point: LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft). I get "friend" suggestions about a friend that I know is not on LinkedIn. He's absolutely social-media averse, and would never be on LinkedIn (or FB, for that matter). But LinkedIn continues to claim that I can connect with him.

How did they get his email address? Because some third person (who emailed both of us) probably shared his contacts with LinkedIn.

Re:Twitter forces all new users to enter a valid phone number by sleepyhead on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @07:58AM (#19490883)
> The other component is that once they have the phone number, they can do anything with it they want

Unless you are an EU-citizen.