Vitalik Buterin on Farcaster

Vitalik Buterin pfp

Vitalik Buterin

Finally got back my T-mobile account (yes, it was a sim swap, meaning that someone socially-engineered T-mobile itself to take over my phone number).

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Vitalik Buterin pfp

Vitalik Buterin

Main learning re twitter was: > A phone number is sufficient to password reset a Twitter account even if not used as 2FA. Can completely remove phone from Twitter. I had seen the "phone numbers are insecure, don't authenticate with them" advice before, but did not realize this

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Garrett pfp

Why aren’t you using an authenticator app or security key?

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phil pfp

Sorry that happened to you. Glad that the damage was mitigated quickly.

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Brian Kim pfp

have you seen efani.com? i’ve had a good experience

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boscolo.eth pfp

I'm sorry to hear about your experience, @vitalik.eth! I was sim swapped in 2019, so I understand the frustration. The experience motivated me to launch @3num. Our goal is to upgrade traditional SMS and voice protocols to more secure, crypto-native alternatives. 📱🔒

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typeof.eth 🔵 pfp

typeof.eth 🔵

I don’t love Google Fi (mainly cause coverage isn’t as good), but two things that keep me here are free roaming and 2fa. Makes sim swapping much more difficult.

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Dan Finlay 🦊 pfp

Dan Finlay 🦊

Had you given T Mobile any special recovery instructions? I understand they will accept them (like a special password to provide to reset). Am curious if the social engineering bypassed any special notes.

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Gabriel Ayuso pfp

@gabrielayuso.eth

I might be biased but Google Fi is most likely the most secure carrier to hold your mobile number since it's backed by Google account security.

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adrienne pfp

Do you guys think mobile companies keep a list of high profile, likely targets for sim swaps? I would hope so but this makes me think they most certainly don’t, at least not T mobile 😒

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Petr pfp

@vitalik.eth Unfortunately, this is often the problem of all analog operators, where it assigns a static number and is tied to personal data and operators do not fight this problem. I use Web3 Phone Service dcalls.org

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nixo pfp

have seen a lot of this sim swaps but no post mortems on best practices to quickly recover your accounts - would really love to see something like this. i have no idea who you'd even reach out to in this situation

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Vinay Vasanji pfp

@vinayvasanji.eth

Given your profile, it's probably wise to switch from T-Mobile to a carrier like Efani https://www.efani.com/

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web3dΞv.eth | sonsOfCrypto.com pfp

web3dΞv.eth | sonsOfCrypto.com

Every time I come across dapp requiring phone number I die inside a little Looking at you friend.tech, Argent !

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Thomas pfp

@aviationdoctor.eth

Looks like everyone dropped the ball here. X shouldn’t enable phone recovery by default, it’s an obsolete practice. T-Mobile should use PINs to thwart social engineers (we’ve known about SIM swaps for years) + special procedures for public figures who are obvious targets (flag set=call escalation, added verif).

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Syed Shah🏴‍☠️🌊 pfp

Syed Shah🏴‍☠️🌊

The best part of the hack was it took a lot of power away from you in terms of how much people listen to what you say without thinking. There will be a layer of critical thinking that's been strengthened. So a + for the community.

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Joel🏴(🦇,🔊,🦖) pfp

Joel🏴(🦇,🔊,🦖)

It's horrible experience, try to transfer your number to other more secure provider, if there's one.

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S·G 🎩↑🙂 pfp

S·G 🎩↑🙂

It is frustrating these types of hacks where people unfairly lose their digital assets. Until this is fixed we will not be offering a valid technology for the next internet. People want security, protection and guarantees of their property...

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