Is there a service out there that appears to be a phone number but can be used to forward texts to your private cell phone?
(I am sure I have misconceptions about what I am about to ask, so please be kind. I just spent a lot of time switching phone numbers and email account to reduce my exposure)
Here is what I would envision:
I can provide someone a “phone number” so that they can text me, but it is not my private cell phone number. This allows me to keep my personal cell private.
I’m trying to avoid services like Google as they force a person to register with identification, so it partially negates the privacy of texting service.
Messaging apps also do not seem like the answer because you need to get the other person to use that app as well.
Update:
What I have learned so far is that there are three services that exist.
Jmp.chat (as far as I can tell, this one takes a bit of research and requires a combination of things to work)
Ehh, I’m still a bit wary of cloaked, they’ve shown up, seen to claim a lot, offer some weird combo of MySudo, Proton, privacy.com, and Data deletion, are VC funded, and completely closed source (i think, not 100% sure). They also use scare tactics with their data deletion service because there’s no way a public data broker would provide your censored social off of just a phone number, so any claims done showing it as public are patently false. Their number forwarding isn’t terrible according to Michael Bazzell but works in an incredibly weird way. I’d suggest jmp.chat, or voip.ms over cloaked as a good VoIP number right now.