SIM swap horror story: I've lost decades of data and Google won't help • Hacker News Board

Re: SIM swap horror story: I've lost decades of data and Google won't help

#301

Post by renaudg » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 5:39 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #292

renaudg wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as a "SIM transfer code" in the UK. SIM swap scams are a thing here too : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46047714

? Of course there is - it's called a PAC code, and it takes at least 1 working day with the fastest operators, in the meantime you get notified that it's happening.

No, you're confused. A PAC code is used when switching carriers, it has nothing to do with the scam described here where an attacker contacts your carrier and claims "I lost my SIM". Activating a replacement SIM can happen in minutes (and that's a good thing : would you want to wait 7 days to get service again ?) The only thing that seems different from the US is that I don't think everything can be done over the phone here : you need to go physically into a shop and (hopefully) show ID.

Re: SIM swap horror story: I've lost decades of data and Google won't help

#302

Post by rikkus » Wed, Jun 19, 2019, 7:25 AM UTC

ericwood wrote: post #227

rikkus wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind elaborating on your iCloud setup to handle this please?

The most common way to do this is to have the Photos app on MacOS set to "download originals," then use whatever backup solution you like best. I highly recommend setting this up. Last month through some sort of iCloud glitch my fiancé lost almost all of her photos from before the beginning of this year. We've escalated it to their highest tiers of support but the photos are gone. Redundancy is important, and even th…

Thanks. Currently I do this:

Phone -> Dropbox + Google Photos (automatically)

Card-based cameras -> Plug in card, Dropbox + Google Photos pick up new photos

Backup 'server': Local synced Dropbox folder -> Local + Cloud backups

I couldn't see how to add iCloud to my existing syncs / backups. When I looked at it, I couldn't be sure it would keep photos on my phone long enough to allow Dropbox and Google Photos to pick them up. It's good that it's possible to get the originals over at a MacOS machine. Might be worth exploring then.

Re: SIM swap horror story: I've lost decades of data and Google won't help

#303

Post by archi42 » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

OrwellianChild wrote: post #249

archi42 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like Firefox U2F is just disabled by default: https://www.yubico.com/2017/11/how-to-navigate-fido-u2f-in-f... (tl;dr: Open about:config, search for u2f, enable) With that done, GitHub prompts me for my key. My Linux office workstation is missing the necessary udev rule, so I couldn't test more. (Funnily, pressing Cancel caused them to send me a SMS, so their 2FA is practically worthless).

I've run into strange interactions where adding a key is disabled in Firefox (even with the security.webauth.u2f flag set to true), but once one key is added, you can add subsequent keys no problem. This is how Github worked for me - I think it's just a mis-match in the code checking for U2F functionality...

I think adding the key use a different mechanism - there are two JS interfaces for U2F, and FF only supports one of them. TBH I've added my key to GitHub with chromium, but have since moved to FF; so that might be what you're seeing with GitHub.