Ask HN: Escape from TCR? Family shared SMS

Posted by tcrhelpforsms 10/26/2024

My wife is a bit particular and when we moved in together want there to be a household phone. So we signed up with a VoIP service and things worked. When we bought a home together, life got more complicated. There were utilities, contractors, service people, deliveries, etc. One day we realized that some of these folks would frequently send texts to our house number instead of calling, which we would never receive. So we upgraded our VoIP service/plan with a SMS option, and it was great. We could both just keep up to date on all the various things and either of us could respond as our schedules allowed, on any of our devices. We could even send images as MMS would allow to make communication clearer ("See this is exactly where things are going wrong", etc.)

And as with many things in life, human nature has pretty much ruined it. To combat SMS spam, as far as we can tell, all business SMS usage needs to be approved through https://www.campaignregistry.com/ now. And recent years, it has been brought to our attention that the service we are paying for is really intended for businesses. We are increasingly hitting weird blocks on messaging due to being grandfathered in before TCR. It has gotten to the point where we are on the verge of registering a business just to keep our functionality. Except even just having a registered business may not be enough because TCR requires all kinds of detailed information about your business and its practices.

So we are at a bit of a loss what else to do here. We could concede and one of us gets the responsibility of the "designated" cell phone number to handle everything household related. It is further complicated by my being an Apple fanboi and her a Windows/Android zealot. If we both used Apple devices we could maybe finagle something out by buying a dedicated iPhone for the house number and then take advantage of the cross-device Messages interoperability. There is Google Voice, and even ignoring my dislike for them, I don't feel they can necessarily be trusted not to drop the product or ban us for arbitrary reasons. Additionally, when it comes to actual phone calls, while Google Voice can forward calls to a number, I am not aware of any option to use it directly with regular handsets like many VoIP providers offer.

Are there really no companies in this space serving personal users? If not, that would be an excellent business niche for the entrepreneural folks in the audience.

24 points | 48 commentspage 2

robhlt 10/26/2024|

You could use a call/SMS forwarding app on an old android phone. I haven't used any myself, but I know they're popular with small businesses.

Basically just get an old android phone, put a prepaid SIM in it, and leave it charging at home somewhere. The app will forward calls/texts to any other number(s) you choose.

tcrhelpforsms 10/26/2024|

Forwarding is only half the requirements here though. Sending responses from a different number will generally lead to confusion, and further messages from the sender will not necessarily be shared. Though maybe if the sender is savvy enough with group texting it might work out okay.

hluska 10/26/2024||

This is likely phone provider dependent and might be a real pain in the butt, but what if you shared the “home” line between your two mobile devices?

iPhone has supported dual sim since 13 or sim + eSIM for a very long time. I have absolutely no idea about Android.

It doesn’t fix spam but I’m not convinced humans will ever win that war.

tcrhelpforsms 10/26/2024|

I suppose I should have been clearer, while I don't like spam, the issue is that TCR is about much more.

There was some discussion about dual SIM solutions with a cloned SIM in a different thread. But even ignoring the potential for incurring our carrier's wrath, with not all messages will be available to both parties, it doesn't meet the minimal functional requirements.

hluska 10/27/2024||

Why are writing the same thing to me twice? I understood it the first time bud.

I don’t see how you could incur a carrier’s wrath. You could spend a few minutes on google and find many carriers talking about it. They get paid.

As for your idea that they will block it, you’ll have to cite some sources for that. I used this for the first time over twenty years ago and had zero problems, and you can still do it now. You’re inventing problems now.

I’m not going to reply anymore because your requirements are extremely unclear and I’m not really here to provide free tech or developer support. This is just a fun place I occasionally contribute to.

If nothing else works, build it yourself. It wouldn’t be too difficult to get something basic built up and you’re good at inventing problems so you might be great at solving them. Have a nice rest of your day and best of luck with your project.

tcrhelpforsms 10/27/2024||

I hadn't caught that you had responded in multiple locations.

If you see this as inventing problems, then it is clear you don't understand the use case.

Even ignoring the issue of carriers cracking down on SIM cloning, as you've said not all messages will be visible to all participants. So that makes it DOA.

You also clearly do not understand that the issues here are not all technical. Sure I could definitely bang out something using Twilio to send and recieve SMS, etc. Except Twilio requires you to comply with TCR. So again, that is DOA.

Sure if I was really adventurous I could buy tens (hundreds?) of thousands of dollars of telecom equipment and work on then have to negotiate peering with other providers. But you know, I figured I might ask on Hacker News as start.

c22 10/26/2024||

VOIP <-> GSM gateway?

https://www.voip-info.org/voip-gsm-gateways/

tcrhelpforsms 10/26/2024|

That also looks quite intriguing as well. Though perhaps a bit more industrial than I might need, there is definite potential. I would need to investigate which have more friendly user interfaces. While I might be hip to using "AT commands" to "Send/receive batch SMS up to 300 characters", my wife would perhaps not find that amusing.

dzdt 10/26/2024||

What is TCR?

isntnull 10/26/2024|

The Campaign Registry - here is one place they define it: https://www.campaignregistry.com/privacy-policy/

systemz 10/26/2024|

Dumbphone and number from standard cell provider seems like a simple fix. No iOS or Android necessary.

tcrhelpforsms 10/26/2024|

I suspect you are misunderstanding the use case here. If I am understanding you correctly, you are proposing solution using single phone. As such, only one person can have the phone with them at any given time.

Also, a dumb phone doesn't really help with the need for SMS and MMS.

Update: I had indeed misunderstood and the proposal was to use a cloned SIM and two phones with dual SIM support. However, as discussed deeper in the thread this still seems to have flaws.

systemz 10/26/2024|||

Yes, I was suggesting just that. In that case, at least in EU there is an option when one number can be used on more than one SIM card. Then using second SIM slot on both phones you have access to that number. Incoming SMS goes to both number I think. Calls can be answered by any phone but faster to answer wins.

hluska 10/26/2024|||

It works in many providers in Canada too.

Our mobile networks just recently upgraded from two tin cans and a really long string so I feel like if we support it, it must be pretty close to universal.

tcrhelpforsms 10/26/2024|||

I have not heard of such a thing in the US, but I will investigate.

So while that would work for calls, does that also behave as expected for SMS and MMS?

systemz 10/26/2024||

What I remember from my case few years ago, incoming SMS were handled to both SIMs. Outgoing SMS from my number didn't appear on second one (so shared SMS history isn't complete in that sens). I didn't use MMS. I think all those behaviors can be different, depending on provider config.

tcrhelpforsms 10/26/2024||

Okay, that is a problem then. If both phones cannot see all messages, how would both parties have full context on the conversation? This would inevitably lead to both of us sending a response.

hluska 10/26/2024|||

No, you can multiple sims in one phone, at least in the Apple world. iPhone has supported dual sim since 13 and eSIM forever. I don’t know about Android but I’m sure you can research that with a search like “{ your partner’s device mfg + model } and dual sim support”.

tcrhelpforsms 10/26/2024||

I'll investigate this, but I'm kind of surprised this use case would be even allowed? How does this wind up being different than a SIM cloning attack?

hluska 10/26/2024||

I don’t understand your question. One is an authorized user and one isn’t? That is the opposite of an attack.

tcrhelpforsms 10/26/2024||

Okay, let me explain it a different way. Much like TCR is in principle supposed to be about blocking phone spam, wouldn't it just be a matter of time before cell providers start cracking down on cloned SIMs with the intention of preventing criminal activity? Whether you cloned the SIM for legitimate use or not.