Originally, I wrote this on reddit’s privacy subreddit, and got immediately blocked because I used a new, private account… go figure, right?

Here’s the body of the post:

I wrote advanced because most of the answers I found link to different paysites that are blocked by Facebook, Twitter, and of course Google. Some of the links I saw here link to an App on Google’s Play Store… the irony.

I’m looking for a way to get a phone number. So far, this is way harder to do anonymously than it should be for an individual.

Most places online reject gift cards you can buy with cash. Since you also need a phone, you’ll need to have it delivered somewhere, so that takes out online shopping unless you want to pay someone cash to get the package for you I guess.

In theory, you should be able to walk up to one of those cheap phone pay-as-you-go places (most owned by T-mobile these days I think) and pay for a phone and a pre-paid plan with cash. This is expensive (around $100 for the phone and the plan for starters) and they usually have instructions to collect a credit card # from you even if you won’t use it. You can try the gift card in here, I didn’t try that yet, but it seems like this would fail like the places online fail you (anyone has a different take?)

If there is a place online that would provide you a number for a monthly fee, and that number would work for these accounts, you need to pay for those. How do you do that anonymously?

You can create a Google account without a number, and maybe trick Facebook etc. into allowing you to create an account using that account. Eventually, this falls apart. Google asks for another verification eventually, Facebook scans for accounts that were created by minors (one of the ways to create an account without “adult” requirements like credit cards and phone numbers), and you might get locked out if you use a popular VPN server too fast.

So, how do you do that? Did you ever get a second, really private phone number? How?

  • k_o_tM
    7·
    4 years ago

    https://dtmf.io if you don’t need a physical phone, they accept Monero, which is the most anonymous way to pay for something :)

    • anonymous8900TOP
      1·
      4 years ago

      Interesting. Do you know for sure Google account or Facebook will work with them?

      How would you get monero or bitboin without connecting a bank account / debit card?

      • k_o_tM
        2·
        4 years ago

        Do you know for sure Google account or Facebook will work with them?

        not sure, I haven’t tried yes, it likely will work, if you look at https://upmasked.com there are a lot of code verification for both google and facebook accounts

        by the way, if you only need this number for SMS verification you can use a free service like https://upmasked.com, I think the developer of it is on lemmy actually…

        How would you get monero or bitboin without connecting a bank account / debit card?

        this depends a lot on where you live, and whether KYC is present there or not

        try to search for a bitcoin atm (or monero atm if you’re lucky) and then buy it with cash, it may or may not ask you for a phone number, and then either pay with btc or convert btc to monero and pay with it

        • anonymous8900TOP
          1·
          4 years ago

          Hi @k_o_t@lemmy.ml ,

          Just wanted to point out that even though Google allows for the phone number to be posted to these numbers as verification, it doesn’t seem to work. This is based on what I tried today.

          I tried to get another Google Voice number. I got a verification code sent to one of these numbers. I put the verification number back to the prompt from Google Voice. I didn’t get an error message or any comments, but then I saw in the account that I do not, in fact, have a Google Voice number; instead, it asked me to go ahead and get a number with Google Voice as if I haven’t done it.

          After repeated attempts with no success and reading up in Google Voice forms, it seems Google Voice does filter numbers that are not listed with the cell phone companies. I’m not sure how that works but that means that if a number is not with a carrier somewhere, then it won’t work. This pretty much means the only way to get this done is to get a second line.

          I wonder if you heard anything else.

          • k_o_tM
            1·
            4 years ago

            well, this sucks, but now at least you know this :woman shrugging:

        • anonymous8900TOP
          1·
          4 years ago

          I live in a big city in the US, and there are ATM for bitcoin, but they seem shady and the comments don’t look too reassuring. Also, I believe I need to set an account first? Yes, I only want to create accounts (Google and Facebook, possibly Twitter but I think if you have one of the two you don’t need a phone for that). Then there’s Signal which I also need a number for, and I think for time being I need to keep having it.

          This is off-topic of my first post so I’ll post again. Sounds like you know what you’re talking about or at least have some experience, thanks for that.

          • k_o_tM
            1·
            4 years ago

            and there are ATM for bitcoin, but they seem shady and the comments don’t look too reassuring

            i personally have never heard of a crypto atm scam, but hey, who knows…

            you may try to search for posts on /r/bictoin, /r/monero, /r/cryptocurrencies etc of people who tried to use this brand of atms, and thus try to determine it’s legitimacy

            and hey, you can always try a smaller amount that you are ok with losing, these phone numbers don’t cost that much, just use common sense

            • anonymous8900TOP
              2·
              4 years ago

              Thank you. I will do more checking around, you gave me some good tools today :)

        • anonymous8900TOP
          1·
          4 years ago

          I just tried upmasked, looks promising, the only issue is that the numbers are old and were already use for verification they have a CLI tool, I’m downloading and go ing to play with it right now

          • anonymous8900TOP
            1·
            4 years ago

            so the CLI tool is the same as the website. The numbers it gives me are still 2-3 months old and were used. This tool is still much better than what I saw, but I guess I need someone more resent for popular things like Google accounts etc…

          • k_o_tM
            1·
            4 years ago

            the only issue is that the numbers are old and were already use for verification

            if you look at the codes that were sent to any particular number there are multiple verifications for both facebook and google accounts, doesn’t this mean that you can reuse this number?

            • anonymous8900TOP
              1·
              4 years ago

              I tried for FB, and it says the number was already used. I will keep trying though, I think between getting a new number eventually and/or finding a service that doesn’t track that as much (if I can’t do FB, I can do Google Voice, and then through that FB, etc.) I might find something. This service by far is better from what I found so far.

              • k_o_tM
                1·
                4 years ago

                i’m glad you found it useful, but yeah, perhaps you’d have to purchase a separate phone number to register for fb/ggl