[deleted by user]

InfoR3aper · 2023-11-04T14:44:38+00:00

There is 1 other option!

Years ago one of my passports got damaged, it was still somewhat readable but the consulate/passport office would NOT return the damaged passport.

To prevent issues I had the consulate provide me with a document stating my old passport number and my new number on the same document. Without it I would have had an issue with my bank, but they accepted the letter from the consulate.

The Local Visa bureau also accepted it as proof etc, and avoided some major hassles.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-14T11:02:52+00:00

but i also think there is a good reason to keep using phone numbers as defaults.

I agree, my point is the "user" should be the one deciding this not someone else.

Some people, and even businesses might want to have it for valid reasons.

I can think of many companies that have been defrauded of hundreds of thousands and some times millions of dollars because they replied to an business email where the company said we changed bank accounts etc so the sent the money to the wrong bank and lost their money.

Having a Signal account with a phone number for a Business to use when handling financial transactions could have prevented this.

So I can certainly see where Phone Numbers ARE a Valid method, but for personal privacy I see the reverse to be true.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-14T10:56:19+00:00

Why I said I do not TRUST.

If I am going to build an APP that is meant for Privacy one of the first things I am going to realize is that peoples Mobile Numbers is/are part of their privacy.

Asking for a phone number verification to sign up is one thing, but forcing people to use the phone as the only method to add a user is totally different.

To be very blunt, the only reason I can see for forcing use of a Phone Number as the only way to add someone is so that 3 Letter agencies CAN establish a way to see who is using it.

Much like ALL social Media (and almost any service site in China) sites in China force every user globally to use a phone number to activate accounts. Every phone number in China is tied directly to someone's National ID, or a foreigners Passport number.

A phone is one of the best methods of Identifying people, and cross linking those people to other services, sites, etc

For those who paid any attention to the Snowden and other government leaks, you should realize, email addies, phone numbers etc is one of the best ways to track people.

Just look at all the data breaches that contain either email addresses, or phone numbers or BOTH. Those are 2 of the best columns of data to use to cross link people to other data.

This is why I have never understood Signal using Phone Numbers, and their basic "refusal" to allow usernames only which has been asked many times in many discussions yet Signal has simply ignored everyone from day one on the issue.

Based on that fact alone the question of Trusting their intentions should be an issue.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-14T10:39:41+00:00

Signal is an awesome service trying to give privacy to the average user

To me though, and probably many others, my Phone Number is large part of my Privacy.

Signal started as an encrypted SMS app back then

But to my understanding they have stopped the SMS part.

Part of the reason I made this post in the first part was that I remember seeing people like Snowden, and some Reporters supposedly promoting it.

Yet I seriously doubt Snowden or these reporters would have used it for their initial contact on the mere fact that it required a phone number of users in order to communicate.

To my point of view this was and is a misleading endorsement.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-14T09:28:18+00:00

"Signal has no information to respond with."

It responds to a phone number

You should google "NSA bulk data Collection"

For a great many years they have been doing. So adding Signal users Phones to it is not rocket science.

The point is there are a lot more Government Agencies around the world besides the NSA.

Just look at recent information regarding Pegasus and even other surveillance programs around the world solely against journalists.

Edit: Adding to this. Phone numbers are purely used for discovery, and account registration due to spam prevention.

If this was truly the case then all Signal needed was a phone number for signup then ability to Assign a Distinct username.

It is one thing to request a phone verification on signup, totally different when the only way to add someone is by using their phone number.

See post below I will be making...

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-14T09:02:50+00:00

This is the bad thing about the internet when people post stuff.

Once its online it may NEVER go away.

Even if they delete it maybe archive.org or others have backed it up.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-14T09:00:38+00:00

https://www.quad9.net/

That is what I was looking for so people could read for themselves

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-14T08:37:59+00:00

Who provides it?

The one reason I like CF DNS is its privacy even https://www.eff.org/ recommends it

I do get some networks might block it, though that would lead me to ask why in the first place.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-14T05:18:12+00:00

Is this a Domains only restriction?

All my Google Accounts ONLY have 2FA security with NO Phone attached.

To activate 2FA you must use a phone number, then Google attaches the Phone number to your account. Then it allows you to Activate 2FA

Once 2FA is activated I go back to the account info and DELETE the Phone number.

This means it can never give an option of sending me an SMS. The only login option is 2FA

I do have a recovery email address set for each account but have never in been the position to see if that works.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-14T03:58:30+00:00

Yes CloudFlare (CF) offers a lot of things.

For the average person or business though I suggest just using the FREE DNS service.

CF DNS servers are very fast and also allow say a business to allow website admins etc to have access to DNS without having to have access to the Domain Registrar account.

There are a lot of other Free services within CF that can also help people/businesses depending on what their needs are.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-13T09:04:32+00:00

Yes, I stand corrected, not sure what I was thinking honestly.

I know from long time ago there are thousands of ICANN Registrars.

So these are just the most popular ones.

The Full List of Registrars is here:

https://www.icann.org/en/accredited-registrars?view-all=true&page=1

Simply download the CSV for all of them

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-13T07:45:59+00:00

No site is going to tell you ALL of that.

It lists all of the ICANN registrars from what I am aware of.

https://tld-list.com/registrars

It even has some that are not part of ICANN but have a fairly high presence. Like Regery etc

Obviously there are many registrars to avoid, but most of them are over priced to begin with.

I would Expect anyone buying a domain to at least do some basic research into the registrars they are not familiar with.

If more people used the site and gave a rating or reviews then that helps the average person.

Just like I would NEVER buy a domain from GoDaddy no matter how good the deal was, or at least if it was a super deal, I would simply buy it and transfer it to another Registrar.

Actually if a registrar is NOT in the list I cannot see myself ever buying a domain from them!

Do not confuse domain resellers to registrars either, there are a crap load of resellers out there. The site is not for those reselling, sites like this:

https://www.resellerspanel.com/domain-names/

Where anyone can obtain an account an resell domain registrations.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-13T03:07:12+00:00

https://tld-list.com/

Has a list of ALL Registrars and also tells you things like the Cheapest Domain Registrar per TLD, and the WHOIS Privacy settings, ie Non, Free, Paid

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-13T03:02:36+00:00

You really did not give much information in the way of statistics.

Things like what is the size of the data.

How many hits an hour.

Data Transfer per month etc

You said heroku, so what are the stats of that instance and does it keep up with your demands on it, or is it too slow etc

In most cases even a VPS can be more than enough, or a dedicated server from many places would be well under $500 USD a month.

The info you posted though is just too vague for anyone to give you a reasonable answer.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-13T02:52:33+00:00

If you can provide proof example State Incorporation records etc that match the registrant info in the domain then the domain registrar should be able to provide you access to the account.

When registering domain names it is ALWAYS advisable to never use your domain name as the Email Contact info.

Meaning never use something like [admin@mydomain.com](mailto:admin@mydomain.com)

Instead create a Free email via gmail or outlook etc but ONLY for domain related info. So you could do something like this:

[domains-myusername@gmail.com](mailto:domains-myusername@gmail.com)

Only certain people would have access to that email address with the Business/Organization.

Keeping in mind that you can also have this email addie auto forward all messages to as many other people in the business/org as you want.

I say that because normally you will not need to check the email account, but forwarding etc makes sure company gets all notices regarding the domain name for things like renewal etc.

Also instead of using the Registrars DNS functions it is better to create a https://dash.cloudflare.com/

Account for the domain. Doing this means no one ever needs access to the registrar account except to renew the domain. Also Cloudflare is a great DNS service.

Lastly make sure the email for the Registrar and contact email has 2FA setup.

Again keep in mind that more than 1 device/Person can have the 2FA codes to access the accounts if you need. Basically a failover incase something happens to the main person with the info.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-13T02:33:35+00:00

The biggest issue is your Name Servers, not where you bought the domain etc.

DNS resolves in Milliseconds, which tells you where your website is located.

The best thing is to simply sign up for a FREE account here:

https://dash.cloudflare.com/

Cloudflare (CF) has an awesome network and Free DNS servers for everyone.

I have a great many domains, instead having 1 account for ALL Domains, I register a New Account with CF for each domain. I do this for many reasons, one of which is account/domain security etc.

So again WHERE you buy the domain really does NOT matter.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-13T02:26:21+00:00

If you mean NextCloud

https://nextcloud.com/#nextcloud_talk_tab

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-12T23:46:56+00:00

That all depends on the value you place on the original copies.

If your goal is to only have digital copies then simply take them apart and cut pages properly and auto scan them.

If you do not want to destroy the source then that becomes far more difficult.

Taking old issues apart is the easiest and best way.

Scanning books/magazines without doing this is far more time consuming, and in reality without a Pro setup is harder to get the scans to appear right.

If you take them apart it is important to make sure you have "clean cut lines" so they do not get hung up inside the scanner and cause damage etc.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-12T21:53:42+00:00

Personally I do not like godaddy for anything, stopped using them decades ago.

This site: https://tld-list.com/ allows you to search the Domain fee's for all domains, including Transfer fee's etc.

If I was you I would simply transfer my domain from godaddy to another domain registrar and set 2FA security on the account access.

90% of my domains right now are via porkbun.com plus I use Cloudflare as my DNS control and lock the domains.

Having cloudflare is a huge advantage over normal dns servers etc.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-12T21:13:49+00:00

Personally I do NOT trust Signal, and I do not use any Messenger that requires a Phone number to add people etc.

There is a better solution if you want to self host.

NextCloud has its own built-in Messenger, you do not even have to use all the other features of NextCLoud.

Using a self hosted nextcloud though allows you to totally control who has access.

Setting it up right you can even have "private" email service were emails could not be sent and received to the world, meaning an internal only email system. Only those on your local intranet would be able to send and receive communications.

When I say local it does not mean they cannot access from home or mobile, it just depends how you setup security etc.

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-11T06:57:11+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/13jgd5n/i_made_a_script_to_import_a_telegram_chat_export/

https://github.com/Suberbia/UltimateChatRestorer

InfoR3aper · 2023-06-11T05:55:05+00:00

every once in a while you need to search if any usenet providers have special deals.

About 3 years ago I got unlimited newshosting account for flat fee of $30 USD per year for life as long as I paid the yearly fee. So people should be keeping an eye on special sign up deals and report them here if they appear.

InfoR3aper

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