Basically everything I sign up for seems to demand a mobile number now “because of suspicious activity” (on a brand new account) and I don’t really want my main number involved in mostly unimportant accounts.
I’ve been looking into super cheap prepaid accounts to have a secondary number to use for these kind of sign ups. But I’d like to get a device that I can just put in my basement near my server and receive the SMS over wifi, and ideally just forward the SMS message to an email I can check. There seem to be Microtik LTE devices that accept a sim card and might be able to do this but I do not know much about them. I suppose an SMS forwarder app (any recommendations?) and a cheap phone might be another option.
Anyone do anything like this or have any recommendations?
I pay for a vurtual mobile number with a SIP provider that has a tonne of options, i use the http post one to post it to an api server but has email as well.
Alternatively most lte stick modems will let you receive sms messages off them but youll need to program something to talk to it with AT commands
A cheap smartphone with a fairly new Android(7 and up) and macrodroid app. I think it should be possible to do what you want, although I haven’t personally tested it, but there are options for sms/email and it is probably possible to create an appropriate macro.
Before you start spending money on services, do some tests on your Android…
I also have a dirty phone number for such things. For $2.50 a year of account validity, there is such a sim and receives spam.
Here’s a loose example of what it might look like on my Android.
SMS received from every number and with every content. Send to the specified address using a gmail account (added and logged in in Android) or add an SMTP account.
You can of course add variables like content, numbers, and various constraints like time and so on.
Or, if necessary, it has to be in LAN. instead of email you can send yourself UDP with content within wifi/lan.
And you can receive notifications on your main phone via udp monitor, additionally you can wrap it in macrodroid and react through the received intent from the application.
A good suggestion, but my understanding is almost all services block google voice numbers for signups. It might be possible to get a mobile number and then transfer it to google voice to dodge this, but I also am trying to avoid relying on google as much as possible since they basically do not have customer service and like to lock you out of accounts for opaque reasons.
Thanks, these are some good ideas. May I ask what you are using that is $2.50/yr? I’ve seen that walmart has a freedompop sim card kit you can buy that can receive text messages apparently for free after the card purchase forever. I have my doubts it will stay that way though.
One of the operators of the territory of the EU and Scandinavia in the USA is unlikely to have them.
I bought a cheap prepaid/starter worth about $1.13 and bought a package of 100 text messages to all networks with a one-year validity period/you have to top up your account once a year so you don’t lose your number. The whole thing cost me the equivalent of $2.50.
And an additional 1GB internet package for about $1.30 with no expiration date for emergencies, but that’s a separate topic.
I do not know what the situation in the US looks like with these cheap cards at the moment, but you will probably find something.
As for SMS forwarding, do some tests on your current sim. Set up a macrodroid and send yourself a text message and see how it works for your needs.
In the options there, you can also add the content of SMS or number to the sent email.
Its a lot tbh but its for work for all the 2fa codes for our customers if they have 2fa set up in that tenant and we need the support user getting acccess
And we dont have the security concern of random cooked salespeople phone numbers everywhere in clients tenants
More than 100,000 SIM cards, which were used to register fake accounts, were seized during the searches. In total, the bot farm had more than one and a half million accounts in social networks, mail services and messengers.
