2FA also known as two Factor authentication that’s when some platform decides that they’re going to ask for another way to verify your login credentials so they ask you for your mobile phone number and then they text you a code you feel really secure now actually you’ve just been scammed seriously scammed because many platforms do not do this 2FA procedure to increase your security they have other methods available.
If the real purpose is security but once they start requiring 2FA Via mobile phone number beware the purpose of this move is KYC know your customer ever heard that term before it means it is a way to ID you there are legitimate security requests for 2FA via phone texting and there are Clues to discover whose request are valid but some are intent on trying to ID you is it okay to be idea by an internet platform or not some internet platforms will not give you a choice but it is up to you to decide if you’re going to stay with that platform or if you can use some other workaround that cancels out the need for a phone number some 2FA request for kyc doesn’t mean this is for an evil purpose.
So we need to discuss that however we cannot accept abuse 2FA using phone numbers is an area push back on in a very big way.
This is because it is one of the most invasive attacks and privacy can imagine you need to know how to manage to 2FA properly, how do you respond to platforms asking for a phone number do you give in or do you fight back lots to learn here so if you want to know the answer stay right there.
The truth about 2FA is that some companies do 2FA for actual Internet Security but many use the 2FA as an ID card in other words it is for the purpose of kyc or know your customer how can you tell which is which well the one that require you to have a mobile phone are definitely doing it for kyc those that don’t have that strict requirement usually have a more traditional Internet Security purpose in mind but regardless of the purpose of the 2FA phone number giving out phone numbers can be risky and before give you a strategy there is need to lay out the landscape of phone number tracking phone number leaks phone number hacks and generally why internet platforms love mobile phones as a tracking device.
The first thing going to do is give you a little background of why giving your actual phone number to any entity for 2FA could even be a concern none of this is obvious to the average person but without the background the solutions needed will not make any sense.
So let us try to discuss this in an organized way the reason you should be careful with phone numbers is that it affects your ability to maintain privacy via something called pseudo anonymity.
This is when we go to an internet platform and give a username that is not our real name,we want to build a separation between what the platform is publicly showing or internally retaining versus your real information.
This is an obvious safety measure since being public and openly identifiable can result in more dangerous real life dangers like doxing stalking and someone actually being at your doorstep because of what you posted in social media.
The problem is that some platforms prevent us from having pseudo anonymity.
Recall a publicized case where a woman was alone at a restaurant and some guy was hitting on her the woman was disinterested and thought the guy was creepy then she went home pulled up Facebook and there was that guy being recommended as a friend, now both parties know each other’s real name this is the kind of danger,trying to prevent here where social media interactions can translate to real life encounters because of abusive actions by the platform also the internet platform itself can be a danger when you have a known identity they can then Target you via profiling.
This is when manipulative messaging is sent to you or what you see in the platform is modified for some external purpose Google’s been famous for doing this both for targeted messaging as well as identifying people as belonging to political subgroups that could be dangerous profiling for those people.
For example Google was marking certain people as violent extremists though no actual violence has ever occurred and these individuals were identified and shown on actual Maps pointing to where they live so Google and meta platforms are specific users of this technique of always trying to get an accurate identity met of course is worse because it ties this information to your real name which they already have the other aspect of pseudo anonymity is tied to your personal revealation to mass surveillance by any agencies of world statutaory bodies by generally being on the down with identities less of data shows up in this surveillance databases.
So the reason we don’t want a platform to identify us is because we lose our ability to keep ourselves pseudo Anonymous and separate our lives from external data collection and data classification in short it is a guaranteed loss of privacy.
In next part we will discuss about the prevention and preserve our privacy.
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