Hopefully this is a wakeup call for anyone thinking that phone number validation is sufficient to prevent botting and fraud.

▲

tbrownaw 6 hours ago | parent [-]

There's no such thing as (completely) "prevent", just substantially reduce by making it more expensive.

▲

jandrese an hour ago | parent [-]

Which makes me wonder how much these guys spent per phone number. If you figure you can use a phone number maybe 2 or 3 times per service before it gets blocked they could create literally millions of accounts with this operation across various services. I don't know what the black market value for a Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, HN, etc... account is, but I suspect it is more than the price of a SIM card.

	▲	qingcharles 7 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		About a $1 for a Gmail, IG etc these days. I've used this before when I need to create an IG for a work project without wanting to link it to a personal number: https://www.textverified.com/verifications