Hacker News Reader

"My inner tin foil hat says Google wants a phone number for other purposes."

"I already have an Android phone with Google Play Services installed."

Guess what - Google already has your phone number before asking for it via the 2FA form. My guess is that the reason they have one platform-independent process for setting up 2FA is for iOS users.

View on HN

> Guess what - Google already has your phone number before asking for it via the 2FA form. My guess is that the reason they have one platform-independent process for setting up 2FA is for iOS users.

Only if the phone number is the same one I use for my Android phone. But yes, I realize that any SIM I put into my phone will also be known by Google.

It's just an incredibly shit onboarding method. They already have a more secure way than SMS to determine the account owner, so why not offer it as an option?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com