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Comment by baxtr | Hacker News Reader

I have two phone numbers. One is for 2-way authentication, the other I give out freely on any website that requires a phone number (and to all my friends).

It's basically the same setup I use with emails.

Not entirely sure if it's safer that way. But so far I get SMS spam only on the "burner" number.

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It's so fucking annoying. I was wondering if there exists some kind of service that I can install a browser plugin with and all it does is provide me a number to receive bullshit sms codes on, then I can quickly copy and paste quickly without having to used a phone

That just shifts the trust to another company. There used to be a desktop app that did this with Twilio, which is more trustworty, but I don't remember what it was called or if it's still around.

Use Google Voice as your 2nd number.

I don't think Google voice (or privacy.com which I think also has this service) offer outside the US/in EU :(

Whenever I searched for anything similar it was not avaible in the EU. I think EU has no regulation on access to phone numbers. About the only thing that got regulated is emergency calls on 112. E.g. Germany has national regulation that non-residents need a special area code, which is not widely used and expensive to call to. Would not be surprised if it had also connectivity problems from various providers. But each country is completely different, so I wouldn't expect that anyone builds reasonable services based on phone numbers.

A lot of 2FA SMS will refuse to send to VOIP providers.

Since moving a mobile number to twilio and setting up forward scripts, I can get SMS, including short code sms, but the 2FA sms do not get delivered.

Twilio support said it is blocked from the sender side due to the provider being Voip. As hard as it is to believe, I think they're telling the truth.

"I was wondering if there exists some kind of service that I can install a browser plugin with and all it does is provide me a number to receive bullshit sms codes on ..."

What you actually want is a "2F Mule":

https://kozubik.com/items/2famule/

Funny how friends, life, and everything other than 2-way auth is on the "burner" :)

This is how I do it. My SIM is my “private” number and my public number is virtual.

Anyone in Australia who wants to do this without carrying 2 phones can check out my product BenkoPhone

http://www.benkophone.com

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