Bypass email and SMS account verification
Is a common use in a lot of web site, like forums and similar, to ask
for a valid email address during registration phase. The way how is
possible to verify the email you inserted is a valid address is well
known. The site send to the email address you provided an automatic
message containing a link to visit for activate the account just
registered. If no valid email is provided you can not activate the
account. Some other big networks of Internet, like Facebook or Google,
recently started to ask for a valid cell phone number to send an SMS
containing a code for unlock or verify the account. If you want to avoid
to hand in your personal info is there some tricks that, if you are
lucky, can help you to keep your life a little more private.
Email verification
Bypass an email verification request is really easy. It exist a lot of
services that, for free, allow you to create a temporary email address
to use just for receive the verification message. Once received the
message and validated the account thought the link provided you can
forget the email address just used. This email address will exist for 10
minutes, one hour, one day and so on. Depends on the service you
selected. Just for give a short reference follow a list of some of these
web services. These are only an example, you can find a lot of other
alternatives just googling around.
Please note that, usually, these services allow to create an email
address only for receive, you can not use these service for send mails.
SMS verification
Bypass an SMS verification is much more difficult. Basically you need an
"alternative" phone number where to receive the SMS with unlock or
verification code. If you live in the Unites States is strongly
suggested to activate a Google Voice account. This service give you a
phone number for free that you can use for call someone and send or
receive SMS as well. Unfortunately, at the moment, this service is
available only for US residents. For all the other people around the
world there are some alternatives but not all are free and not all can
work well for your purposes. The most direct way to try as first is to
use what is called "shared numbers". Some web site make available one or
more "public" phone numbers you can use for receive the SMS
verification message. The main advantage of this kind of service is
that, usually, you don't need a registration. Browsing into the site is
possible to see on real-time all the message arrived to the specific
numbers you chose to use. Simply provide this number to the site
requiring verification and wait for the SMS containing the unlock code
that should appear in the list as soon as is received. For make an
example regarding the service I'm talking about this is a link to one of
them:
These kind of service born and die very fast so if the link just
provided doesn't work tell me through the comment of this post. The
disadvantages of this approach is basically that the messages received
are public, anyone who browse the site can see them. This mean you must
not use them for receive important verification like, for example, the
banking account, PayPal and so on. The other disadvantages is that these
services (and the site linked above in particular) is know by a lot of
other people that continuously try to use them for every kind of
verification. In particular, if you are planning to use these number
for receive Facebook SMS verification code, you need to know that
Facebook keep a list of the last numbers used for verify every accounts.
This mean when you'll insert one of these numbers into Facebook field
for ask for the SMS is quite sure an error will be show telling you that
this number was already used by another person. However it seem that
Facebook "reset" this number list after some time so, if you really are
obstinate, you can try to continuously insert this number waiting for
the moment Facebook will "forget" this number was used and allow you get
the verification code through this way. Good luck.
Other kind of services allow to keep more privacy but, in consequence of
this, require a registration and most of them are not free. Quite all
of these services can assign you a personal "virtual" phone number based
to VOIP technology. The few free services around can allow you to use
this number only for send or receive SMS in US region (but for our
purposes is enough). Other more sophisticated act like a personal
answering machine and have a lot of features that can be surely useful
but you have to pay for them. Follow a short example list of some of
them (mixed free and pay), as before you can find more just googling a
little:Regarding pay services is a common commercial use to give you a short trial period for test the service itself. You can use this time for verify if the service is working for you and, in case, decide to pay for it. Again if you are planning to use one of these services for get Facebook SMS it seem Facebook have some problem to send SMS to VOIP number (I read around the SMS doesn't arrive but I didn't tested personally so I don't know for sure). On the contrary, always reading around, no problem with Google SMS.
If you know some other way to bypass account verifications feel free to add your suggestion using the comment on this post. Thank you just in case ;-)
