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I got locked out of my Google account for a month

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Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#111

Post by jopsen »

nasredin wrote: post #49
Shoothe wrote: post #2

> On December 5th, I sent a note to a PR contact who I work with on Google-related news and I told him about my problem. He said he had gotten my case escalated and I should hear within 24 hours. Sadly in all these stories that end successfully there is an inside help from someone that has contacts in Google. I don't even want to think about what would happen to people that don't know anyone inside Google.

I used Tor to access Google "products". After taking a hiatus and logging in with the correct (strong) password Google essentially locked me out. And no I don't have any "techbro" friends who work for Google. Lessons: Do not use Google unless you are OK with losing your account if they one day decide to hold your identity and data hostage. Even if you PAY Google ("Google Apps" or whatever the fuck they are calling it…

Always setup 2FA for anything you care about. Both TOTP, U2F and one-time codes, if available.

And save the backup codes! Multiple physical copies.

If you use TOR you should be taking your operational security serious. Passwords are useless.

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#112

Post by herewulf »

dingo_bat wrote: post #69
nasredin wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...And the IP you used to sign up... and the city for that IP in the geolocation database at that specific date... and the exact User Agent string... and the time zones... and... Or maybe they should stop being idiots and allow people with strong passwords to... just use passwords to authenticate. Maybe some type of "I know what I am doing, kindly fuck off Google" option.

> Maybe some type of "I know what I am doing, kindly fuck off Google" option. Tbf if you really knew what you're doing, you wouldn't be using gmail.

This from the guy with all his passwords in a notebook in the desk drawer.. Have you thought of ROT13 encoding them?

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#113

Post by jopsen »

Asooka wrote: post #105
oxplot wrote: post #33

> Imagine you have spent much of your digital life for the last 12 years on Google. You rely on their mail and calendar, Google Drive for storage and Google Photos for your photo archive. Like I've said in the past here [1], if something is so important to you, you need to treat it as such. Continuing to use a service that offers no guarantees, availability or even continuing access to your account is a sign of ignor…

Can you, or someone else, point to an alternative to gmail that won't decide to lock me out of my account and still offers generous data storage?

I think GPs point is that it shouldn't be free.

But yeah, fastmail have a decent reputation.. and they are known for improper verification (which they've hopefully fixed).

Seriously though, 2FA and recovery codes is the way to protect important accounts!

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#114

Post by jopsen »

jpdus wrote: post #88

Why don't they just offer some kind of emergency support with a hefty pricetag for these cases? Eg pay 200$ to have an actual human verify your identity? I don't think that would cost them anything and most people in this situation would likely pay any price to regain access..

Why don't you just buy two yubikey and print one-time recovery codes?

If you care about it, then lock it down.

In many ways there is no good way to verify you, if you don't invest in 2FA.

Would you rather be locked out, or have a hacker locked in?

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#115

Post by jopsen »

nasredin wrote: post #58
donalhunt wrote: post #8

Google (and other companies) are purposely opaque about how they determine whether you have provided enough information to verify you are the owner of the account... Getting it wrong has significant impact on how much the brand is trusted (and for some companies, that's all they have)... Lose it and it's time to shutter! To be fair to Google, they do regularly prompt users to review the security of their account (e.g…

They always seem to want phone numbers, which in a lot of countries are easily attributable to real people. One more time the "techbros" of Silicon Valey don't realize their actions are hurting people.

Just buy two yubikeys.

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#116

Post by jopsen »

WovenTales wrote: post #36
hartator wrote: post #29

I don't know. It might be a unpopular opinion, but I am okay to be locked out if I forgot my password to my email. I prefer that to weaken security, and complex processes to sign in.

If that were all that could do it, sure. That's not the end of it, though. I was trying out anonymization methods a while back, and created an account for use through Tor + a VPN (yes, I know it's Google). I recently tried to get back into it, but since I wasn't "where I usually sign in" (and can't actually say what city they thought that was), I'm locked out. I have the correct password in my manager, and I can even…

If you are smart enough to use TOR shouldn't you also be using 2FA?

Ideally, U2F...

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#117

Post by jopsen »

codeisawesome wrote: post #59
WovenTales wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were all that could do it, sure. That's not the end of it, though. I was trying out anonymization methods a while back, and created an account for use through Tor + a VPN (yes, I know it's Google). I recently tried to get back into it, but since I wasn't "where I usually sign in" (and can't actually say what city they thought that was), I'm locked out. I have the correct password in my manager, and I can even…

This is very surprising - what of people who like to travel??

2FA if you care about you accounts.

You should probably do U2F with yubikeys, if you care.

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#118

Post by wyclif »

whiddershins wrote: post #46

I think this is the money quote: “That same day I opened a second GMail account so I could have access to services like an email account if need be, [...]” So, this journalist is in the middle of a horrible experience with Gmail and responds by ... opening another Gmail account, because basically realistically imagining email as something other than Gmail is far too much of a stretch in most people’s minds.

Worse than that, if we take those words at face value (and that person works in journalism), they apparently don't even know that email != gmail.

Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month

#120

Post by wyclif »

jopsen wrote: post #115
nasredin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They always seem to want phone numbers, which in a lot of countries are easily attributable to real people. One more time the "techbros" of Silicon Valey don't realize their actions are hurting people.

Just buy two yubikeys.

Why? Instead of 2FA?
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