Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

"Of course requiring a validated telephone number as part of identity is a substantial compromise on privacy and effectively eliminates identity compartmentalization ..."

That's what the "2FA mule" is for.

It's a stock android phone with no google account and no apps installed except for "SMS Forwarder"[1].

It is configured to forward all SMS to an email address via encrypted SMTP. This means that I can receive these 2FA codes anywhere I have Internet access - such as an airplane or newly arrived in a foreign country where my SIM card does not work.

The "2FA Mule" itself is plugged in at my office in a corner.

I'm not employing this for anything sensitive but it's interesting to consider that I can use SMS based 2FA while divorcing it from my day to day SIM identity ...

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.frzinapps....




A free and open source, ad-free alternative to SMS Forwarder is SMS Gate:

- F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.smsgate/

- GitLab: https://gitlab.com/axet/android-sms-gate




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: