[LINK] RFC: Are 2m adult Australians locked out of online services?

Tom Worthington tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
Sat Apr 4 09:49:06 AEDT 2020


On 2/4/20 11:59 am, Roger Clarke wrote:

> ... services that require two-factor authentication, and support SMS 
> ...

I realized the problem when I was back of Bourke last year*. I had
Internet access via a Tesltra wireless modem. But my phone was using
a Telstra reseller and in some places I had no phone reception, so could 
not receive SMS codes.

> Note that there's a difference between 'mobile phone' and 
> 'smartphone'.

You don't need a smart phone for SMS. But you do for some authentication
apps.

Some of the services I use offer to send the code by synthetic voice to
a phone, or by email.

One bank used to issue me with a printed one-time-pad of codes,
which was fiddly.


* Really back of Bourke:
https://blog.tomw.net.au/2019/10/walgett-brewarrina-bourke-wilcannia-and.html


-- 
Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au
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Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University
https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington



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