Yep, I have a legitimate use case for exactly this. It integrates directly with my application and gives it native phone capabilities that are unavailable if I were to use a VoIP provider of any kind.

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dfabulich 14 hours ago | parent [-]

As a legitimate developer developing an app with the power to take over the phone, I think it's appropriate to ask you to verify your identity. It should be an affordable one-time verification process.

This should not be required for apps that do HTTPS requests and store app-local data, like 99%+ of all apps, including 99% of F-Droid apps.

But, in my opinion, the benefit of anonymity to you is much smaller than the harm of anonymous malware authors coaching/coercing users to install phone-takeover apps.

(I'm sure you and I won't agree about this; I bet you have a principled stand that you should be able to anonymously distribute malware phone-takeover apps because "I own my device," and so everyone must be vulnerable to being coerced to install malware under that ethical principle. It's a reasonable stance, but I don't share it, and I don't think most people share it.)

	▲	Tostino 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think you read a bit too much into my message. I agree, it's complicated, I don't want my parents and grandparents easily getting scammed. But yes they are my devices, and I should be able to do exactly what I want with them. If I'm forced to deal with other developers incredibly shitty decisions around how they treat VoIP numbers, guess who's going to have a stack of phones with cheap plans in the office instead of paying a VoIP provider... But no, I have no interest in actually distributing software like that further than than the phones sitting in my office.