Every time I buy something online, or make an account for an example month bus ticket, they “need” my phone number. I always use alias emails, but I don’t have an alias phone number. I know, there are some online phone nr service, but they mostly dosnt work, outside of the US. So I was thinking about getting me a second nr, just for thoese cases were I have to log in. I would by the nr, in cash, and there is nothing data they have to make the nr. But what are your thoughts? What do you see as pros and cons for getting a second nr.? Does it even make sense, when the simcard is in the same phone?
You don’t have to get a mobile number. You can get a number from a voip provider. Those numbers can accept sms usually. Usually cheaper than mobile number and you can access from your phone with a SIP client.
Okay, i will look into that. Thank you
This is a good question. Phone numbers are increasingly used as de-facto ID numbers, everywhere in the world. That’s because, unlike email, they cost money, and in most jurisdictions you can’t even get one anymore without presenting real ID. So: if you have a second phone number, you can effectively have a second persona for any site or app that requires phone-number ID. Seriously, at this rate, it’s going to be all of them.
IMO the best use-case for this is to quarantine your contact list. That is, keep a separate number for social networks and messaging. The number you give to your in-person contacts will be instantly shared with all their cloud services, whether you like it or not. This is what allows Big Tech to triangulate and discover exactly who you know and therefore who you are. If the cloud services cannot trace a number back to any phone ID in their own books, then they can’t do much with it and you will remain at least something of a mystery to them.
Thank you. Well its gonna be a lot of work, to get all the contacts my new number, but yir just to get a little bit of privacy I think its worth it.
During covid, i made a Google voice number so i didn’t have to give my real number when we were working from home. It was fine for that.
A surprising amount of services block Google Voice for 2FA (where a surprising number of services both required 2FA & only support SMS despite the security issue); I wouldn’t rely on it (but sometimes it still makes the most sense since you can’t beat the price, free). My favorite was PayPal deciding to block Google Voice & the only way to message support is by first authenticating—where asking on Twitter was an immediate block so… fuck PayPal & never used it since.
ESIM using silent.link = a phone line that can only be used to receive messages and calls no outbound calls allowed. However you need a phone with esim support.
Physical sim on another device: great but you need a seperate hardware and have something extra to carry and charge.
Physical sim on a dual sim phone. Easier to carry however it runs the battery faster and sometimes you can forget which sim you are on if you are quickly calling or texting.
Mains sim plus VoIP line example is mysudo- use one phone, seperate your communication between your actual number and an app with VoIP. Seperate phones # via software since VoIP is all on app side. Requires you have an internet connection to work properly. Not all services are happy using VoIP and stop you from registering or changing numbers to VoIP.
Lots to think about, best of luck.
Thank you. 🙂
It really helps my confused brain to hear all your ideas and suggestions! For me it seems there are more pros than cons, so I will go to the local store and buy a prepaid Sim 🙂
