Protecting Yourself Online

[starfish21]

she's by far the most expressionate girl i've ever seen,her face is always on the move.

[Night457]

Creating a Gmail account requires SMS verification. I want to create a FAKE Gmail account for privacy purposes. I have tried several online SMS services, but Gmail rejects every single one with the message "This phone number cannot be used for verification." I have even tried my real phone number, but that was already used for creating my REAL Gmail accounts and I get the same message! If I need more real accounts, I should be able to do it logged in from an existing account, but that is not the issue here.

ALL the Google search results for getting around this problem are out of date and do not work, even those from as recent as 2021. And there is NO skipping the phone verification. Does anyone know of a free online SMS service that actually currently works NOW for Gmail verification?

[Infinity]

Creating a Gmail account requires SMS verification. I want to create a FAKE Gmail account for privacy purposes. I have tried several online SMS services, but Gmail rejects every single one with the message "This phone number cannot be used for verification." I have even tried my real phone number, but that was already used for creating my REAL Gmail accounts and I get the same message! If I need more real accounts, I should be able to do it logged in from an existing account, but that is not the issue here.

ALL the Google search results for getting around this problem are out of date and do not work, even those from as recent as 2021. And there is NO skipping the phone verification. Does anyone know of a free online SMS service that actually currently works NOW for Gmail verification?

A solution might be to buy a pre-paid SIM card and use that for SMS verification.

I have a dummy phone number I've used in the past, I think I spent about £10 on a plan a couple of years ago and still use the number occasionally for things I don't want tied to my real number. It comes in handy!

[Night457]

I had to look up "pre-paid SIM card" to see what you meant. Not exactly free, but £10 is at least reasonably cheap. Now the real problem is my figuring out how to remove, swap out, and swap back in a SIM card in a cell phone! This is why I was trying the online services: it is just typing, with nothing tiny to take apart and quite possibly destroy accidentally.

I resisted cell phones for decades until sometime over 10 years ago when my car broke down and after a long walk through the dark and the mud I discovered gas stations no longer had pay phones. WTF? How can anyone expect help from Superman? Both the teen girls working there in the early a.m. hours took pity on the helpless "old guy" and instantly offered me the use of their phones, so I could call for a tow.

It was then that I made 2 startling realizations: (1) Kids are awesome. Anyone who talks shit about Millennials and Gen Z being rotten selfish monsters does not know what they are talking about and should shut the fuck up. (2) Having an emergency car phone would be extremely useful.

So ... I always went with the cheapest possibilities, since I knew the phone would almost never be used. I don't want to talk to anyone! I don't want to text anyone! I want a computer with a BIG screen, not one the size of my hand! It went from a $10 2G prepaid phone to a $15 3G flip phone and now a $30 4G touch-screen phone, "upgrading" each time because the old networks get shut down. While activating the phone was not hard, rolling over my old number and many old minutes encountered some technical difficulties, and registering for an online account for these newfangled things called "apps" to make the phone more than barely functional was a nightmare. It took about 5 hours on the (home) phone with the help center to get that account opened. Once that was done, I shut the phone off and have not touched it since. God, I hate cell phones!

The only problem I can see is that my phone is "locked" and I think that would prevent my temporarily swapping SIM cards. I think I would have to "unlock" it and therefore end my existing service, which is not a temporary solution. I am not sure. I have never learned these things because I have never been interested.

Anyway ... I just wanted to bitch a little ... your suggestion is actually a good one for what I want to do, even if it might not work for me. Thank you!

[Rich_Visiting]

Did you try creating a gmail account with a pre-existing email? Usually it's for account verification which can be done by confirming an alternate email address.

SMS verification is usually done on an IP that already has a Google account IMO, new IP addresses seem to slip through the net, probably to grab as many new users as possible. So you could also try from new IP.

[Night457]

Did you try creating a gmail account with a pre-existing email?

Yes, from a FAKE yahoo account! Unfortunately, apparently I already used it to set up another Gmail account, which Google has also decided to lock me out of, ha ha! And I only set it up less than 6 months ago, I think.

Of course I do not want to try to set up a FAKE-me email using the REAL-me email, because that would completely defeat the purpose of having a fake online identity. Google does not need to know the fake guy is actually me.

Google security is so incredibly tight that it routinely locks users from their own accounts. Isn't that like encasing stacks of thousand-dollar bills in concrete and dumping the blocks in the middle of the ocean? "It's SECURE, man!"

I am rapidly running out of alternate accounts that are actually under my real name, let alone the fake ones.

SMS verification is usually done on an IP that already has a Google account IMO, new IP addresses seem to slip through the net, probably to grab as many new users as possible. So you could also try from new IP.

There are so many to choose from, I could be doing that for days! Whack-a-mole!

With my newer ISP I can not set up a static IP, so I use a VPN to ensure HighID for eMule. Switching to a different server and therefore a different IP is pretty easy. However, I have been warned by Google Help Forums that one reason I may be blocked from accessing my Gmail accounts is because I am using a VPN. I just have not got around to trying to access the alternate accounts again from my real honest geographical IP. (I am giving over 24 hours since my last attempt, to give the blocking errors time to clear.) If I do manage to get in the accounts, I will at least set them up with alternate verificiation email addresses to make it less likely I get locked out.

I don't mind abandoning old unused junk email addresses, but I am in trouble if I can not create new ones.

[Rich_Visiting]

Google doesn't differentiate between real or fake information, it is only based on IP and previous linked history. The more familiar Google is with you / your system, the more it will ask for in setting up a new account.

If the prepaid sim for number verification doesn't work, then try using the sim with data as a hotspot i.e. use your new phone sim as a new IP address.

I'm also pretty sure some of the info Google use is system based, so you could try use a different computer (laptop?).

Damn, is it really that important? If it's for email just choose a different provider

[Night457]

Google doesn't differentiate between real or fake information

I am not worried about the government watching me because they have bigger fish to fry, but Google I am! The Goo-goo-googley eyes are watching. I absolutely need to have the real-me accounts for sure. I can live without the fake ones, but they are useful. If Google knows I am creating fake accounts, they can shut down my real ones too. There is nothing anyone can do to stop them. There is no one to contact or even complain to. The whole point of having a fake online identity is lost if the fake account is connected to the real one. They MUST be kept separate. For all Google knows, every once in awhile a "friend" comes over to my house and borrows my computer to read email. Or they don't even know this, because my VPN locates me otherwhere.

Damn, is it really that important? If it's for email just choose a different provider

Wait, you mean there are email providers other than Google?!??

I have AOL and yahoo accounts, but for all I know they could disappear any day now. The AOL account dates back to when AOL was my dial-up! Like it or not, Google is going to stick around. It also has the tremendous advantage of my being familiar with how their accounts work. I don't have to learn some new email setup. I always consider Ease of Use high up in importance. This is also why I use Gmail in HTML view, because the "New" view I find incomprehensible.

It looks like I need to focus on fake identities on one email provider, and real ones on another. That should help keep it straight in my head, so I am not constantly asking myself "Wait, who am I today?"

[David32441]

There's another way people can be traced. If a rare video is posted to Youtube, one that normally has 5 views a day, eg. a trailer for some rare film, some people might go through their Google account thinking nothing of it. If that video suddenly gets 100 visits the chances are they came from the place that posted the link. Link lots of combinations and they'll know that they're people coming from that site.

[Night457]

Huh? I am not following you here.

If that video suddenly gets 100 visits the chances are they came from the place that posted the link.

Why? Why would someone who posted a video suddenly decide to visit/watch it on YouTube 100 times? Are they just insecure and trying to artificially increase the viewcount?

Maybe one of those "influencers" saw it and talked about it on their channel, so their sheeple started checking it out. That's how the brain viruses spread on the 'net.

Link lots of combinations and they'll know that they're people coming from that site.

I assume by "they" you mean the almighty Google. I have not figured out yet exactly what they want other than advertising eyeballs but I certainly do not trust their power via data. That is why I find it best to use a fake account when logging in to Google for YouTube, which is generally only when I am watching the naughty naughty age-restricted videos.

Of course I am stuck being honestly ME when I use my personal Gmail for email.