Comment by hbn
9 hours ago
Just off the dome:
- Suddenly being without a phone while you're travelling or dealing with something important is generally not fun
- Anything stored locally that isn't backed up is gone
- You can't transfer over your eSIM yourself
- Probably going to be a pain in the ass to get into accounts where the now brick was set up for 2FA
If you're worried about things like this you should probably switch to a physical sim and just earmark some money so you can buy a new phone when it happens and transfer the sim. Maybe get some yubikeys while you're at it.
Anything complex enough to get over the air updates could lose its trustworthiness at any time. If a device is going to contain your digital soul, it should be simple and pluggable.
I use an eSim adaptor in my physical sim slot. You can then transfer eSims effortlessly between phones. This seems the obvious solution to get the best of both worlds - all the good things about eSims, none of the bad.
I do still use a physical SIM but I'm sure we're all on borrowed time. The last 3 generations of iPhones don't have a SIM tray at all in the US.
> The last 3 generations of iPhones don't have a SIM tray at all in the US.
Another good reason not to buy an iPhone. As if there weren't enough good reasons already.
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All the same applies if your phone is stolen…or lost…or seized at the airport.
Devices need to be considered disposable. Expensive but disposable.
Okay but I try to prevent any of those things from happening, unlike the suggestion to use your phone with a high rate of failure until it dies.
All of those things are possibilities with any phone. If you're not prepared for the loss/damage/failure of your phone that's on you.
Definitely a good idea to plan on this at all times. In my case this looks like:
* All photos auto upload to Google photos
* All other important files are in a syncthing folder with at least two other devices (laptop+desktop)
* 2fa in Authy with cloud-sync
* Passwords on Firefox sync
* Google Fi is my carrier, and pulls eSIM when I log in to the app even without my old phone
* Google voice number is my main phone number. I don't lose access to incoming or outgoing sms or voice calls if I lose my phone.
In a pinch, I can buy a cheap prepaid phone and sim while traveling and be fully functional and reachable. I've had to do this before, and while I probably wouldn't go to the trouble for work, I feel compelled to be at least reachable for family.
I've thought about de-googling this further; photos could go straight into syncthing and I could port my # to a generic SIP provider that offers SMS. So far neither have seemed quite worth the trouble.
I've always felt very uncomfortable treating my phone as anything other than a rather overpowered thin-client.
Yubikeys can store 2fa codes. You just install their app from F-Droid and show the NFC key to get the codes.
Now the codes are with you and not in your phone or in the cloud.
One flaw in that is that Google Voice or other VOIP provider numbers are often rejected for 2FA or account validation.
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I recommend you get off Authy - they don't have a browser extension or a desktop client, and surprise they don't have a way to export your codes either. I had to send them a GDPR data request, and then Claude decrypted the csv file they sent. I now use Ente and it's so nice having 2fa inside a browser extension. I can also export the secrets at will.
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Yes but I don't want my phone to be lost or destroyed or stolen. So using a phone that will likely fail until it does so is not taking preventative measures.
They are stronger possibilities once you know they are going to happen eventually, not just that they could theoretically happen.