Privacy

43836 readers

290 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

Okay, so I just found out my phone number company got my data exposed. (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by MeowerMisfit817@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Okay, here we go: I woke up to a scam message on my WhatsApp. I just blocked the number, before starting to wonder how they got my number. And guess what I found out? They got a data breach and didn't tell their users a singular thing. And when asked about it, they tried to deny it.

(In Portuguese for whoever can/wants to read it): https://itshow.com.br/hacker-vende-dados-clientes-infraestrutura-aws-claro/

So, here I am to ask: What can I do to avoid getting my phone number "less breacheable"? Is there a specific company that supports brazillian phone numbering I should switch to now?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I wasn't suggesting they leaked only partial phone numbers?

Doesn't matter what phone company you have, Whatsapp already has your phone number and they allow anyone to scrape it.

But really there's so many different ways they can get your #. No way to stop that realistically. I change my phone # every year or so.

[–] MeowerMisfit817@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

But as I said, it isn't only WhatsApp, my phone operator also happened to have a data leak and keep quiet about it.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

My point is changing providers is a fruitless endeavour. Your phone number is probably sourced and sold several times/day. Switch carriers and they'll do the same thing. Why? Because no one will stop them, and most people don't know or even care, so why wouldn't they? And your phone number is already out there anyway, there's no taking it back.

[–] MeowerMisfit817@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Sooo, nothing we can do about it?

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 2 hours ago

Yes and no. You can try and go without a phone number but I've found that to be literally impossible. Or you can change your phone # periodically, that's what I do.