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afair you need to set up a phone number before you can choose to add another 2FA option (which is stupid imho)
by wavelen 4y ago
afair you need to set up a phone number before you can choose to add another 2FA option (which is stupid imho)
- borissk 4y agoIt's not stupid - Google wants to track everyone everywhere and a phone number is a good way to link an account to a real world person.
- UncleMeat 4y agoEven if this is the case, this isn't a problem for the poster. They have a phone number, it just changes frequently. They can sign up, enroll in a TOTP or U2F system, and then they are set.
- yellowapple 4y agoExcept if you're using e.g. Google Authenticator and you lose that phone, you've now lost your TOTPs. The most unhoused-friendly solution there would be to use something like Authy instead (which is another password to remember, but at least it makes it easy to recover your TOTP keys on a new device without needing the old one); next best would be to use something like andOTP which supports backups (but then you'd need someplace to store those backups, which introduces the same problems as safely keeping a phone on your person).
- UncleMeat 4y agoThe context for this post is a person who moves between countries frequently and therefore gets new phone numbers. This person has consistent access to the same phone.
- yellowapple 4y agoThe context of the overall post is the posted Twitter thread, wherein the specific issue is the phone itself being lost/stolen.