Let's discuss the potential flaw of the same phone tied bans.

[MalikQayum]

this is a valid concern and it seems to be a flaw in the system, I have recently pointed this out to some friends.

let's say that for whatever reason you are not using steam for a period of time lets say 6 months, in that period of time you also change your phone number for whatever reason (new phone - phone got stolen - broken phone). (EDIT: because bills are not paid for that number anymore the number stops being active for you)
whatever the reason may be is not the important part, the important part is that in this period of time that number you used to have could be assigned to someone else out there in the country.
This means if that person uses steam aswell and happens to be a cheater, then you are in trouble because you are not actively using your steam account anymore and demanding you to remember that "new phone number = change on steam aswell" is too much to demand from users.

That said, the user that now has your old number signs that number up on his own account, so now it gets tricky because that person will now be tied to you and you wont know this and if that user cheats then your account would be tied to that during the infraction and you will be liable for a vac ban without actually having done anything but going "afk" from steam for a while and forgot to change number.

however ever small the odds are from this happening it is very plausible and if it is plausible it needs to be changed, IMO.

obviously valve can not think of all the potential scenarios but maybe if someone made enough of a roar about this it might wake them up and have them redesign the whole idea.

but i believe this can be still be a good solution if valve would implement something like a re-validate your number if you do not do it after x days / weeks / months the number is removed from your account by itself or something.

just thought i would put this out there in case valve might read it or it might trigger an response.

[Cathulhu]

If your phone gets stolen/lost, contact the service provider and lock the SIM.
Your argument is pretty moot.

[J4MESOX4D]

Most mobile phone companies worldwide have a substantial cooling period for any phone numbers that get reassinged just with like email providers to prevent any short term conflict. I contacted o2 about this for a different matter a few years ago regarding one of my old phone numbers and they stated that if my historic number was going to be rolled back out; it wouldn't happen for 10 years at least.

[MalikQayum]

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

If your phone gets stolen/lost, contact the service provider and lock the SIM.
Your argument is pretty moot.

I did say for whatever reason a person may have and added those as examples.
there are valid reasons to why people may not be able to change phone number so try to focus on that rather than trying to dismiss something plausible.

[MalikQayum]

Originally posted by J4MESOX4D:

Most mobile phone companies worldwide have a substantial cooling period for any phone numbers that get reassinged just with like email providers to prevent any short term conflict. I contacted o2 about this for a different matter a few years ago regarding one of my old phone numbers and they stated that if my historic number was going to be rolled back out; it wouldn't happen for 10 years at least.

well, i do not know if ever phone number provider company whatever does that but even so tho is valve going to dictate how long we can be away from steam ? but ye if all phone number providers does that then indeed that is not much to be concerned about but it is still plausible imo and because it is plausible then it should also be dealth with because it would not be so pleasant recieving a vac ban for something you truely had no part in, right?.

[Pheace]

Originally posted by MalikQayum:

well, i do not know if ever phone number provider company whatever does that but even so tho is valve going to dictate how long we can be away from steam ?

No but it's probably going to have you assume responsibility if for the phone number you chose to link to Steam. It's not their fault if you forget you have it linked and then get rid of the number. This is a user error.

Revalidation, at least as you mention it sounds bad because it would open up dormant accounts to attack as the security gets dropped.

[MalikQayum]

I just looked up the thing about the mobile numbers and when they are able to be used again, in denmark there is a 6 months period of time before a number can be redistributed, so that is not a long time for someone to realise they have to change number to avoid a potential risk of getting banned if someone else gets that number and has steam and happens to be a cheater <-- i know this sounds like a lot of criterias but it could happen.

and you may blame it on the user but is it really fair ? all the user did was to forget to update a silly thing as a number on steam and that user is now at risk of getting a vac ban if the other person cheats..

seems like that is something valve should try to fix..

"Revalidation, at least as you mention it sounds bad because it would open up dormant accounts to attack as the security gets dropped."
explain how it opens up for attacks, pls?

valve has the same system with emails "do you still have this email" <-- or something like that
and then they want you to revalidate it by sending a confirmation link to that e-mail.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1mkvzd/why_did_steam_suddenly_ask_if_my_email_was_right/

[Silicon Vampire]

the only flaw I can see is where it's always been, between the keyboard and chair.

people need to be responsible for their own stuff...

[The Giving One]

I don't want to sound like the bad guy here or anything like that, because I see your point, good Malik and appreciate your concern on this matter and the topic that you have made about it. However, this is in the SSA....

4. ONLINE CONDUCT, CHEATING AND ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR

You agree that you will be personally responsible for any use of your Account with your login and/or password and for all of the communication and activity on Steam that results from such use of your Account and of Steam, and that Valve is not responsible of the use made of your Account and of all communications and activities on Steam resulting from the use of your Account.

I would say that it can be argued that "all of the communication and activity" can be related to the phone number ban feature of late, as far as a legal standpoint is, of course.

As far as ethicly, I could sympathize perhaps, depending on the exact circumstances of the account that was banned because of a mistake in phone numbers.

[MalikQayum]

Originally posted by Silicon Vampire:

the only flaw I can see is where it's always been, between the keyboard and chair.

people need to be responsible for their own stuff...

maybe you could blame the user for being lazy or not responsible but that does not prevent someone from actually being innoncent and recieving a vac ban for simply being lazy and not removing their old number from the account, remember VAC was not made to punish the users it was to punish the account and today it does much more so it should also adapt to potential risks of innocent bans it could lead to and having a revalidation of a number surely is not much to ask for as it could potentially remove this concern, right?

[Snapjak]

Being lazy is never an excuse.

"I was too lazy to turn the stove off" -fire
"I was too lazy to come into work 3 days in a row" -fired
"I was too lazy to unload my gun" -negligent discharge
"I was too lazy to enable basic account security" -hijacked account
"I was too lazy to turn off my 1337h4x0r5" -"OMGFALSEBANWTFGABEN@!!!1"

I would like to add that having a phone number tied to an account when you no longer control said number is not only bad security it is careless. You're handing someone else one of the keys to your account.

[Oh_Gravity]

Originally posted by Snapjak:

Being lazy is never an excuse.

"I was too lazy to turn the stove off" -fire
"I was too lazy to come into work 3 days in a row" -fired
"I was too lazy to unload my gun" -negligent discharge
"I was too lazy to enable basic account security" -hijacked account
"I was too lazy to turn off my 1337h4x0r5" -"OMGFALSEBANWTFGABEN@!!!1"

I would like to add that having a phone number tied to an account when you no longer control said number is not only bad security it is careless. You're handing someone else one of the keys to your account.

I'm pretty sure people have been false banned, like me - my friend encouraged me to use an emulator because i dont have a mobile phone. And i got VAC banned for it.

When people hack with the same phone number as you, you get screwed.

[Oh_Gravity]

Originally posted by MalikQayum:

Originally posted by Silicon Vampire:

the only flaw I can see is where it's always been, between the keyboard and chair.

people need to be responsible for their own stuff...

maybe you could blame the user for being lazy or not responsible but that does not prevent someone from actually being innoncent and recieving a vac ban for simply being lazy and not removing their old number from the account, remember VAC was not made to punish the users it was to punish the account and today it does much more so it should also adapt to potential risks of innocent bans it could lead to and having a revalidation of a number surely is not much to ask for as it could potentially remove this concern, right?

Thank you

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by Original Kraze:

I'm pretty sure people have been false banned, like me - my friend encouraged me to use an emulator because i dont have a mobile phone. And i got VAC banned for it.

When people hack with the same phone number as you, you get screwed.

We are talking about people that don't try to circumvent the system by using third party tools as you chose to do. That was your fault. We are talking about people that use the system normally and get banned because of a phone number they once had but later on down the line.

If you don' t have a supported phone for the authenticator and you circumvent that by getting an emulator (clearly known to be a security issue for some) then that is your fault and no one else's.

EDIT..I have seen your posts about this elsewhere. I don't see how this is related to the topic here specifically.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/wR_Panik/posthistory/

http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/9/364041776188013305/#c364041776188054053

[//SuperZoda]

I agree with OP that he may have been falsely banned and should have the ability to dispute. Since the ban occurred during an extensive (relative) period of inactivity, it should yield benefit of the doubt to your account, that you were involved in any wrong-doing.

A mobile phone number is not unique to a person, and is IMHO shotty at best at linking a real person to an account (especially when phone numbers are re-used in such a short time period). Currently, the system in place gives Steam the benefit; if players wish to return, they must re-purchase content (pay Steam).

If Steam or Valve intend to enforce their cheating policy in this way, they would need to explicitly state in their TOS implied contract a requirement for keeping account information up-to-date.

Furthermore, in response to a situation like Original Kraze, if valve knows it's a fake/emulated number, then why would they allow it during authentication (only to VAC you later)? To answer my own question, well, then they wouldn't make as much money... The consumer is not protected against themselves in Steamland.

[MalikQayum]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

I don't want to sound like the bad guy here or anything like that, because I see your point, good Malik and appreciate your concern on this matter and the topic that you have made about it. However, this is in the SSA....

4. ONLINE CONDUCT, CHEATING AND ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR

You agree that you will be personally responsible for any use of your Account with your login and/or password and for all of the communication and activity on Steam that results from such use of your Account and of Steam, and that Valve is not responsible of the use made of your Account and of all communications and activities on Steam resulting from the use of your Account.

I would say that it can be argued that "all of the communication and activity" can be related to the phone number ban feature of late, as far as a legal standpoint is, of course.

As far as ethicly, I could sympathize perhaps, depending on the exact circumstances of the account that was banned because of a mistake in phone numbers.

you are absolutely right, i know this but you seem to forget 1 thing though VAC used to ban the account because it was directly implicit in cheat either by using the same curropted / modified files / injections to the .dll / exe but you see over time this has actually changed, significantly I even see your responses to vac bans is outdated when you answer people in the VAC area, you are not the only one a lot of users actually does this and i may have done it myself aswell.

http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/9/364041776189125009/#c364041776189239199

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Originally posted by tippin' man:

this was not fair for being vacced for no reason.

VAC bans do not happen for "no reason". Cheats were detected in use with the account. That is the reason. Read the pinned thread that was linked above by the good gwait and make sure to read all linked pages found within that pinned thread also. Thanks.

you see the flaw? you probably do not because because our old answers has not changed, we still believe the account has to be directly implicit in the cheating while it does not have to anymore, there are 2 ways now that will result in a ban where the actual account has not been in direct contact with the cheats:

1 - Family Sharing
2 - linked by phone

it is a problem because, while family sharing is techniqually lending your games to someone and that someone then cheats, there is some sort of connection towards why the owner should recieve a ban aswell.

however that said, for phones this seems absurd just because you have the same number does not mean those accounts were actually ever used to cheat..
(you no longer have to actually used the same modified / curropted files anymore to get a ban that is a flaw imo)

both ways will actually give you a ban without actually having cheated yourself on those accounts which is what you neglected and automatically assumed this "Cheats were detected in use with the account" and many others do aswell.