Episode: 4695
Title: Try not to buy a phone
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4695/hpr4695.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:59 (official HPR transcript)

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4695, for 2026-07-31
Today's show is entitled, "Try not to buy a phone"
The host is operat0r and the duration is 00:10:11
The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "Phone setup alternatives, SMS solutions, and challenges with VoIP numbers."
You are listening to a show from the Reserve Queue.
This show was submitted in January 2026 to cover occasions like this
where there are gaps in the schedule.
Hello everyone. I'm looking through another episode of Echo Public Radio with the host operator
They'll be talking about my solution
For no phone, which ended up not being a thing because now I actually have a phone
This will be the first phone I've purchased in 15 years
So I've most of my phones are I've been from employers or in between employers. I've used my wife's phone or some phone
I had laying around or whatever
so
My solution to no phone was actually using an old phone and I had a SIM card in there
Where they very cheap plan that had no minutes almost no data and
Kind of unlimited texting so that's how I would get my SMS messages now you're carriers
Your voice doesn't really work on some of your things like your banks just depending some will walk
We'll sit or miss sometimes make America won't send me the MFA sometimes it will
They wouldn't before and now it works
So it just depends on the provider, but I would say
One out of five is gonna want an actual carrier number and you can't use your point number
So I used to have a phone sitting here on the table
It was charged and it was set up with a SIM card
The cheapest plan it's like three dollars a month. There's something like like $20 a year
Something really good. So it's really cheap
I've said to move from that to an unlimited plan only because I got a deal on a phone and it basically gave me a year about limited for a year
I only use like five gigs
At max I'm always on Wi-Fi and if I'm not on Wi-Fi
I can hop on Wi-Fi pretty much anywhere the only time you're gonna have problems is it if you're in the middle of nowhere
With no signal
But you still have no you're just off the problem with no signal anyways, but if you're not anywhere
Where there's Wi-Fi and you need to download maps or something if you're lost. That's my only use case
Other than whatever. I mean, there's always 911 for emergencies
So like I don't really need data wherever I go. I don't need unlimited data
I don't stream a whole lot and if I do I
Download it before I use it using flex so I don't really have any use cases for using more than like five gigs
Sometimes I'll accidentally download a bunch of music when I'm traveling or in the car
That's from my server so
I'm a different kind of animal. I don't I don't stream a whole lot of stuff. I usually download it
But anyways before I had just a phone that's plugged in and I had the only thing I could find it to work
for SMS across devices that was free was called mighty text now
You'll say oh, I don't want a third party having access to my SMS messages. Yeah, sure whatever who cares
But I mean from a security standpoint threat landscape whatever
I have a shared we have a shared count and I've probably gone a podcast on this before if not
Let me know and I will do one but I'm pretty sure I've done one and if I haven't let me know
And I will do one but the idea is you have a shared Google account that shared cool
Google account is attached to a Google VoIP number that Google VoIP number is validated by this
phone
Also, it is also validated by it's self sort of so the void
Validates the phone and the phone validates the void
Vice versa, so we have a shared account that we put our stuff on so that way you don't have to call your spouse
to log in to some insurance thing or whatever and they're rotating almost
yearly now whether or not I'm working for a different company anyways so the fear I have of
tangent town is
New managers new cool workers and new red tape with insurance guess what I've
No control over any of that so I might as well get a new job every six months to here
Because I don't have any control over that anyways and it's always a dumpster fire so anyways
If you're looking for something I'm looking for something in
Offensive security
Let me know
But I'm looking for something you know full-time road or
Hybrid here at Atlanta for
Pintesting stuff so I'm pretty hot and heavy in that space right now doing lots of improvements and jambree
Anyways, back and to the point of my solution to the phone it was brief relived
I used my mom's old phone which is now a S9
Which the problem with that is
Last pass wouldn't work so I had to linearly log into last pass for the browser because they're app
They removed from the app store for reasons security reasons mainly
That that iOS version or the firmware for Android is old
And even if you push a new
Whatever to it, you're still not going to be able to really and I don't really want to download a
APK from random town for my pass revolting
I've already given myself shut myself on the foot with that one once already
With that kind of thing letting people in the front door like an idiot
But what I do have now is I use the mighty text on this phone now this phone is
New phone
And the only thing I need to do is make a wallet work
Like baking app doesn't care about route or
Or my baking app doesn't care about route and my
Other FMMFA apps don't seem to care about route so it just kind of your mileage may vary
And that regard
Anyways, I have to install a lot of these MFA tools for doing bintesting work
So I might run into an situation where I have to do some shenanigans to hide it
From from these from these types of systems, but
It's kind of a dumpster fire is ready to get that will go well to work and it's a little shifting some of the tutorials out there
But anyways
The main the main idea is you use
mighty text it's free you get those
Text messages those voice messages those SMS messages for
All that it tasted through it and you can share it so
The number that I use for I try to use
That for everything and then not then I have mighty text set up on my actual phone and my wife can view
those text messages
For whatever needs to if I had to physically attach it because I'd never had a phone number before
And now I have a real phone number and then I pour that over to
Mint which they're all the same they're all gonna get their money
You just wait for a deal during Christmas and you'll get something and then you can hold on to that phone by a good case for it by
By a good screen protector for it and just take care of it when you're walking around with nine or dollars and you're probably good whatever
Take care of it
That's pretty much it I know it's I just kind of rambled and went all over the place
but it set up was
is
Is it this phone now is rooted and I have kind of access to delete or freeze whatever apps that I don't have been freezing apps instead of deleting them just in case they call
a boot loop and I can go on the back end and unfreeze them
Because if you do that at large, especially a carrier phone like Samsung or whatever
This Google phone is pretty vanilla
there is some
Stuff on here that's not Google mainly like drivers and stuff for for their parties. It's like same
Some drivers for like important stuff so it's it's pretty minimal phone and
I'll say I haven't had any problems with it so far
I'm unable to siloed whatever apps. I want to load and
I don't really need to do an episode other than other than that but for
For what it was worth you know the the solution to not having a phone was basically
Have a phone with a really cheap plan on it and then set up mighty text so I can share those texts
Through the shared Google account to log into that shared Google account
To do any MFA stuff that needs to be done
I'm through the actual phone it was kind of sitting there and that's kind of how I did I had it set up
That's
Pretty much it's pretty short episode kind of all over the place
But just be wary that you're gonna start seeing void providers getting blocked more and more
I've looked at the other solutions out there like rolling numbers and like you could buy a number for SMS and it's
You know anonymous and Bobby Bobba and they want to charge like 15 dollars a month for ethical for that much
I can buy like four lines. I can have four
SIM cards for the price of one
You know anonymous number quote unquote
So I don't I don't really understand what any of that stuff is for and if you know any other methods to have a number that's a void number
Or something you can receive SMS text son. That's relatively cheap
It would be nice to have one that's not carrier blocked and it's not picked up by white
I just want to press a mess mainly
Maybe a voice call it to everyone as well
But the cheapest way to do it is to buy it just to cheapest you can't carry your plan from mint or whatever
And do your MFA stuff through it
I haven't found any service
It will be reasonable if it's attached to a carry number
That's not blocked by void
Not blocked by these banking apps or whatever
Anyways, that's pretty much it
But I when I had it set up I would keep it charged and
Really that's kind of it
Take it easy and this is a short one, but if anybody has these solutions again for like
non blocked SMS
verification that's like carry or a tester and we'll get blocked. Let me know because I'm looking for a solution for that
Permit more permits solution. Oh
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