My silent link esim didn't work with telegram or Google account, complete waste of money

this is an issue. Google Voice works ok a lot of cases, but not always

You're FAR more of an authority than I am but I thought with silent link you could choose "Origin" country of your SIM card, I mean fuck PayPal anyway but I'm not from The US🤔.

Thanks for adding to the list. So far, I still like their data-only eSIM plan, and I can see a use case for it in addition to another eSIM—like something prepaid with a number. But I agree, the inbound US IDENTITY for 2FA is not reliable or something I plan on keeping at this point, and that's disappointing.

I've run into this issue with google voice number. Only solution I've come up with is to give humans my VoIP number and give the robots guarding the bank the number my carrier gave me.

The Reality. Before Money, Barter was the exchange of things but was rated in Human Empathy. Money removed that Human Empathy part of the exchange, because it was not perfect Information that recorded exactly the Human Empathy part of exchange. That was Commodity Money. Since the 1970's Fiat Currency money became globally used, that further removed that Human Empathy exchange. People game system's, so that opened Pandora's Box, you can have everything at no cost. If you can game the system with no cost, you have the perfect environment for fast breeding Psychopaths to win. Empathy holds others back. Politicians from Vanity to Psychopaths can promise everything and deliver nothing. Psychopathic lawyers become heads of Government's, Councils, Mayor's and big Institutions and Non-Government Organisations etc et cetera. The nett result of the loss of exchanging Pure Human Empathy is living life backward to those who cherish the exchange of Human Empathy. As such, Gender Attacked, Family Attacked, Childhood Attacked, Religion Attacked, Property Attacked, Opinion Attacked, Home Attacked, Privacy Attacked, Health Attacked, Nature Attacked, Survival Attacked, Climate Attacked etc et cetera. Bitcoin goes right back to what I said at the start and further, it's the exchange of Pure Human Empathy before people even thought to write about how a God could do this better. If you don't think that chasing Fiat Currency is the Religion of living backwards, then my friends, your minds have gone.

We had also problems with silent.link and some services. SMS never come through or number was blocked.

We are in the process to switching fully to jmp.chat. For mobile internet we will stay with silent.link, the data plans are really good

Well crap

What am I still to do with all this PayPal ISD now?

How about MySudo? Not quite as private but it’s not the phone number that’s been sold into every data broker’s existing profile on you. For low- to medium-level privacy needs I find it does the trick (and works for a fair number of 2FA. Haven’t tried PayPal or meta with it though…

I’m curious why you would use SMS 2FA at all? Email or preferably Authenticator app is superior… even better, Yubikey, although not as widely accepted. When I lived in Latin America I transitioned everything to email or app.

MySudo is VoIP so it will have the same issues, and I already have a few privacy-respecting JMP Chat XMPP numbers for personal, burner, and business.

JMP.chat

Your phone number on every device

I'll probably go back to Google Fi for my front facing main mobile number. It's not as private as silent link promised to be for 2FA, but I already have a privacy.com virtual card on GP, so I can still keep my debit card info protected. They have good coverage at reasonable prices, and the 2FA will be bulletproof.

You’re well ahead of the game 🤜🤛 Bookmarking this for a future level-up project 🫡

In the US, some major social media, financial institutions, companies, apps, etc. require a phone number that can be verified by text in order to participate in their services. You can opt to also use an app or YubiKey for 2FA, but they require a verified phone as well. They have restrictions on what kinds of phone numbers they allow and can detect and disallow XMPP, VoIP, and silent link eSIMs.

That's why I love using services that don't require personal information like Threema, XMPP , and Session

That’s why nostr remains cool 👍 (so far…. 😂)

Yup, kyc… i believe it’s to prevent anonymous activity from would be fraudsters and general up to no good characters + money laundering.

I'll stick with the data only plans moving forward. Thanks for the info.

How about cheap pre paid SIM cards? I still see free prepaid SIM cards being handed out in local phone stores without KYC.

My US.PLUS plan hasn't worked with Signal either...

PayPal supports TOTP (I store mine in KeepassDX), but I think you have to start with an SMS 2FA before you can enable TOTP. No privacy benefit, but TOTP method is more secure & reliable.

The real reason is the government wants you completely monitored at all times like a lab rat. They want to have full control over what the people think, say, and do.