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Comment by josh_carterPDX | Hacker News Reader

I agree. The first thing I thought was that someone will build a script that creates a Twitter account then simply uses Twilio's API to create a valid phone number to receive verifications.

Good luck Twitter!

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"I agree. The first thing I thought was that someone will build a script that creates a Twitter account then simply uses Twilio's API to create a valid phone number to receive verifications."

Unfortunately, this will not work.

Twilio numbers are not "mobile" numbers and cannot receive SMS from shortcodes.

So while your twilio number can send/receive SMS just fine, it can't receive SMS from a shortcode.

As of my recent conversations with multiple Twilio engineers at Signal 2018, there are no exceptions to this rule - once a number is owned by Twilio it ceases to be a "mobile" number and networks providing shortcodes cannot send SMS to it.

In my experience, all banks/twitters/facebooks/etc. use shortcodes to send their auths/2FA/etc.

So it won't work, I'm afraid. I have heard, however, that there are some smaller twilio competitors that provide true mobile numbers but I forget the name(s) of those providers and honestly, I would be worried that those numbers would get blacklisted or filtered in some other way.

There's a reason other carriers refuse to send shortcode SMS to "non mobile" numbers ...

It won’t do. Twilio (and basically majority of other virtual number providers, except of very tiny few located in Europe) do not provide regular cell-type text messaging capabilities, but rather something PBX pros call “short codes”.

No self-respecting provider out there, be it Twitter Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo, Instagram, etc. will deliver your confirmation info via a short code. so you need regular ported cell number like Verizon or Tmobile.

Twitter allows up to 5 accounts created on one cellphone number, given you give each other few days of rest and use popular VPN.

Full disclosure: I used to work at Twilio.

We ported wireless numbers in and out all the time.

> Twilio (and basically majority of other virtual number providers, except of very tiny few located in Europe) do not provide regular cell-type text messaging capabilities, but rather something PBX pros call “short codes”.

Twilio provides both regular phone numbers with SMS and MMS capability and short codes, the latter primarily for high-volume outbound messaging.

The regular twilio numbers still (mostly) aren’t going to work for this stuff.

Those won’t work either with most big services asking for verification. There’s subreddits dedicated to getting non VOIP phone numbers (which Twilio isn’t) for verification.

"Twilio provides both regular phone numbers with SMS and MMS capability and short codes, the latter primarily for high-volume outbound messaging."

Your parent is correct - you've missed each others' points.

Twilio sourced numbers cannot receive SMS from other shortcodes. No exceptions. They are not "mobile" numbers.

So yes, your twilio sourced number can send and receive SMS and you can even rent a shortcode from twilio and send/receive with that. What you cannot do is get a "normal" twilio number and receive shortcode messages.

For that reason, providing a twilio number to a provider like twitter or facebook will not work - they all typically send their auth messages via shortcode.

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