> I end up having to take the sim out of my laptop and put it in my PinePhone
Just in case you are not aware, you can receive verification SMS on your laptop as well! On Windows 10 there is a built-in app simply called "Messaging" which shows you all the SMS received on that number. I'm sure something different exists for other OSes.
This is what I do when asked for a verification number and there is absolutely no way around it, I just put the phone number of my laptop's SIM card, that way I don't have to worry too much about spam too because I will never use that number in a real phone.
Nice, thanks for pointing this out. It's fucking annoying that I'll have to figure out how to install the Windows Store on my computer to get an app that can receive text messages, something that you know, should be available through a pipe/file/tty or some dead simple interface since it's not exactly rocket science to receive 160 characters of text.
Sure, WWAN modems are not only a thing that exists inside mobile phones. ThinkPads (and I'm sure other business-oriented brands as well) often (always?) have optional slots for WWAN modems, so you can use them for a mobile internet connection without tethering. I've been using that feature for over ten years now.
In my older ThinkPad, the SIM was a slot behind the battery. In a later model, it's a tray that has to be opened with a paperclip next to the card reader. The modem itself is a mini PCIe card like they're used for some laptop SSDs and antennas are in the screen like wifi antennas.
Just in case you are not aware, you can receive verification SMS on your laptop as well! On Windows 10 there is a built-in app simply called "Messaging" which shows you all the SMS received on that number. I'm sure something different exists for other OSes.
This is what I do when asked for a verification number and there is absolutely no way around it, I just put the phone number of my laptop's SIM card, that way I don't have to worry too much about spam too because I will never use that number in a real phone.