is there a service anyone likes where you can easily buy phone numbers with monero? ideally can also use the number in your browser and not have to ensure your phone is secure
this seems like the necessary workaround for all the surveillance services that bottom out to requiring a phone number
@notplants I'm pretty sure this doesn't / cant exist. Even Twilio is a freaking nightmare to try to use these days, buried in compliance paperwork and kyc
And a lot of places will even block or ban phone numbers that come from "sketchy" providers.
Based on your comment about wanting it to be easy and actually work, for example, work in the browser, I suspect you may have already run into jmp.chat 😥
@forestjohnson as I continue to research this, it seems like masking up, getting on public transport, and buying a sim card and second hand phone in cash is the cheapest and most reliable way to do this in 2025
I guess technically if someone really doesn't want to or can't leave the house, asking a friend, or finding a stranger on the internet to help with this and paying them via xmr, is also possible. I stumbled across xmrlance but it appears inactive
also found a number of sim card suppliers that accept xmr here https://app.monerica.com/search?q=sim+
so using one of these + some method to connect a sim card to laptop and send/receive text from there might be a good route to doing this without leaving the house (but I am still unclear on the details of this last paragraph and how to do it -- curious for a guide on this)
also for true anonymity, probably better to keep the simcard disconnected, and do account activation with the anonymous sim at a coffee shop etc .and not at home
@forestjohnson does jmp.chat not work well? I haven't used it
@notplants It's based on XMPP, so do with that information what you will.
@notplants This is something that I also deeply want but I kind of suspect that the best you might be able to get is going to look something like "burner phone as a service" and even then it might be hard to keep that going without those SIM cards being deactivated.