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The Forum > General Discussion > Microsoft want your phone number, Why?

Microsoft want your phone number, Why?

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Microsoft Wants to Kill Passwords, Starting With Windows 10.

The next version of Windows 10 will support passwordless Microsoft accounts. Microsoft will just text a code to your phone number when you sign in. It’s all part of Microsoft’s stated goal: “a world without passwords.”

This feature is available now in Insider build 18309. It will be stable and available to everyone in the next version of Windows 10, codenamed 19H1 and available sometime around April 2019. Passwordless logins debuted for Windows 10 Home back in Insider build 18305, but are now available on all editions of Windows.

Here’s how it works: You can now create a Microsoft account without a password. Instead, you just provide your phone number. When you sign into Windows 10 with that phone number, Microsoft will text you a code that you enter on the sign-in screen. After that, you can use Windows Hello to set up a PIN, fingerprint, or face login method. You never have to type a password—your account doesn’t even have one! And you don’t have to enter a code sent via text every time you sign in, either. You only have to receive a code on your phone when you sign in on a new PC.

To use this feature on the latest Insider builds of Windows, you’ll need a Microsoft account without a password:

http://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/microsoft-wants-to-kill-passwords-starting-with-windows-10/

Microsoft owns Hotmail which is now outlook.com, last time I wanted to open a new account it would only let me do it if I gave them a phone number, supposedly for recovery if I forgot my password.
Posted by Philip S, Friday, 4 January 2019 6:00:07 PM
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No, they don't want my 'phone number. I had to reset my laptop last week and, of course, I had to start from scratch. I couldn't use the password I always have had, but I was given the choice between a 'phone number OR a pin. I chose the pin.
Posted by ttbn, Monday, 7 January 2019 11:18:40 AM
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ttbn - Helps if you read first and understand.

From the article.
"It will be stable and available to everyone in the next version of Windows 10, codenamed 19H1 and available sometime around April 2019."
Posted by Philip S, Monday, 7 January 2019 11:33:19 AM
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With a phone number, we know where you are.

US telecoms ‘selling cellphone data showing user locations in real time’

American telecommunications giants are selling access to their customers’ location data, leaving them exposed to being tracked by bounty hunters and others, a disturbing report by Motherboard has revealed.

T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are reportedly among the companies whose data is being used to track phone locations, leaving mobile network users exposed without their knowledge.

US telecommunication companies sell user data to aggregator companies who then sell this information in turn to their own customers. The data can then be re-sold on the black market, where it could fall into the hands of criminals, stalkers and others.

Motherboard reporter Joseph Cox paid a bounty hunter to geolocate a target’s T-Mobile phone in his investigation into the location tracking practice. The bounty hunter’s contact was able to track the phone to the correct Queens neighborhood within a few hundred meters of its location. This was done without any hacking or previous knowledge of the owner’s location.

T-Mobile shared user location data with a data aggregator company called Zumigo, which shares information with another company called Microbilt. Microbilt sells phone geolocation services to a number of private industries, like property managers, bail bondsmen and roadside assistance, company documents and sources revealed to Motherboard.

Using just a phone number, the company’s Mobile Device Verify can bring up the target’s name, address and phone location, either in a specific instance, or as a constant tracking service.

Finding a phone will set you back a mere $4.95, but if you sign up to a package to track more phones the cost per phone will fall. To track someone’s real time location using their phone costs $12.95. In this case, a bounty hunter got a Microbilt customer to find the target’s phone, for $300.

Microbilt customers can sell on the information they pay for to other sources, meaning the data can end up in anyone’s hands. Motherboard reports bounty hunters also use the geolocation to track their own ex’s.

http://www.blacklistednews.com/article/70220/us-telecoms-selling-cellphone-data-showing-user-locations-in-real.html
Posted by Philip S, Thursday, 10 January 2019 2:57:40 AM
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