Hacker News Reader

Comment by wheybags | Hacker News Reader

> My bank only supports SMS 2FA so while I'm travelling I'm effectively cut off from certain functionality

EU citizen here. Do you... not have roaming?

International SMS delivery is unreliable. Unreliable is not strong enough word. It more often doesn't work that it does. Or it works with enough of a delay to cause a timeout on the site where you want to login.

Plus, you know, SMS hijacking and all that.

Where do you travel? Because I've gotten international text in dozens of countries in different continents with no problem. Delays I've seen (but also sometimes I also see them in my home country). Usually trying 1-2 times more it gets in time.

It's nice that you were lucky enough for it to work reliably, but it's not a universal experience.

Sure, hence the question

Works fine in Europe in my recent experience. It was pretty poor fifteen years ago.

In the EU I get an EU cell plan because it's orders of magnitude cheaper than roaming from North America when travelling for a month.

So to log into my bank I have to load the website on my device, enter my username / password, have it send the SMS 2FA, switch to my home SIM card, wait to receive the text message, switch back to my EU SIM card, ensure internet works, then submit the 2FA code to finally log in.

That assumes I haven't forgotten something to poke the SIM card out with. I couldn't find eSIM last time I went to Portugal.

Maybe not! And?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com