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points by viraptor 1 day ago | 0 comments

VoIP numbers are not really a thing. I mean there are pools usually assigned from that other companies are aware of, but it's not enforced. You can buy a custom number and use it if you want. For example I had a residential landline number from my home town assigned and routed to a mobile in another country for better billing when my family wants to call.

[–] john01dav 3 hours ago

> For example I had a residential landline number from my home town assigned and routed to a mobile in another country for better billing when my family wants to call.

Why not just use some calling system that isn't legacy phone based? My preference is Signal because it's easy enough to use (including for non technical people), works well enough, and is private.

[–] ocd 1 day ago

I'm well aware. I've been using VoIP for a long time, but as I said, some services refuse to recognize VoIP numbers as they can query and check. It doesn't matter if the number was ported and originated from a mobile service or landline telephony provider.

Netflix is an example of a company that takes a hardline stance not allowing a VoIP number on an account, even while banks don't seem to care since it's the customer's choice.

[–] viraptor 1 day ago

> It doesn't matter if the number was ported and originated from a mobile service or landline telephony provider.

It still depends on public databases with hopefully-accurate data. I'm registered on Netflix on a number which can make and receive VoIP calls. It's just not a usual VoIP-specific provider. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50401117

[–] UqWBcuFx6NV4r 1 day ago

The comparison with / deferral to banks is not really relevant. Apples and oranges.

[–] LoganDark 1 day ago

I'd be curious to hear your justification for why it's so much more important for Netflix to ensure there's a "real" phone number behind the account compared to banks.

(Note: I don't agree with any equivalency or even correlation between phone numbers and legal persons)

[–] direwolf20 1 day ago

Netflix could have their access to video content cut off if they don't comply with all the ridiculous power trips of content "rights" owners. Banks only have to comply with actual laws.

[–] LoganDark 1 day ago

Banks are required by law to perform KYC. They would otherwise face much greater consequences than Netflix ever would.

Phone numbers are irrelevant for that though, so the only reason banks would think they need it is a false correlation between phone numbers and identities.

Netflix also seems to think phone numbers have something to do with identities. But you'd expect banks to be more serious about verification.

[–] simonra 10 hours ago

Banks in the developed parts of the world only really need to know the national identifier of their customer to report their assets for tax purposes, and be capable of verifying passports/government id tied to the identifier when they show up physically to claim what's theirs. Asking about anything else is only needed because the Usians bullied everyone into wasting humanities limited resources on it because they're administratively stuck several centuries behind when it comes to governance.

[–] LoganDark 5 hours ago

See, I don't believe that IDs are only used for verifying that someone in-person is the owner of an online account, because if that were the case, I wouldn't need an ID for banks that don't have physical locations. Rather it seems ID verification is used to correlate a legal person's accounts with each other, and make it more difficult to perform confidence scams. (Confidence scams typically include things like using a different identity to disconnect your actions, and their consequences, from your own legal identity.)

[–] cartoonworld 1 day ago

Yeah but you can easily use an api for HLR lookup and see where it is ported to

[–] viraptor 1 day ago

It's not fully reliable. For example you can have local residential lines that in practice go over VoIP and the provider allows you to use the same account to call out. They'll be classified as just normal landlines. It will vary wildly from place to place, but I think soon the type field in HLR will mostly lose its meaning.

(Just checked my company number, running on a hosted PBX, and it's marked as landline with no extra porting info that would contradict it)

[–] noman-land 1 day ago

What's HLR? Can you explain?

[–] bennettnate5 1 day ago

The Home Location Register (HLR) is the telephone-provider-specific database that routes calls coming from other providers; while originally a 2G term (it's HSS in LTE and UDM in 5G), people still just call it a HLR lookup. The actual HLR lookup itself goes to a separate country-wide database that maps phone numbers to the cellular or SIP provider. So, when you place a call, your provider can use that database to then lookup the HLR database and reach out to it to further route your call to that person's specific location.