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hugely important point.

helped a less-tech-savvy neighbor 'reset her skype' account that was tied to 'her phone number', only to find that the account bound to that phone number, which she had recently acquired, was publically searchable and connected with some sort of anime sex fetish subculture, presumably from a previous owner of that phone number..

she was using this phone / skype account for a job interview.

needless to say, a searchable skype account connected to her phone number with such a public profile could have had a hugely negative impact on her job search, and she wasn't even aware of it's existence until she happened to stumble upon it..

not good.



Never really made any sense to me whatsoever why we all switched over from having to use phone numbers instead of email addresses as sign in over the past few years.

I get why businesses want to harvest peoples phone numbers and phone books but you'd hope at least some would think of the implications to users first.


Using phone numbers as authentication is a cheap and effective way to prevent spam, as well as track users with a unique ID.


But phone numbers are not unique. They are regularly re-assigned to new customers.


It’s a good enough solution. Especially for those with disposable income, they’re not changing numbers often, if ever.


Good enough, as long as you don't get assigned a number that previously belonged to a porn-addicted weirdo, or criminal, or dead-beat who doesn't pay their bills, or any number of other not-nice things that can turn your life into a hot mess despite never doing those things yourself.


I meant good enough for the business.


It's much easier to create additional emails than phone numbers so if you are trying to cut down on fake accounts phone number makes more sense.




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