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Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

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Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#1

Post by DoreenMichele »

I'm dirt poor. Everyone here should know that.

So my phone has been failing to charge for three weeks and I bought a new phone today and can't get it set up because the old one is dead and I can't get a verification code. So I moved the old sim card on the advice of one of my sons and the codes are still going to the old physical phone and Google says it will send me a link in 72 hours.

Google is convinced I'm trying to break into my own accounts because I can't get access to codes on my dead phone. So I may lose my access to my google account, my blogs, etc.

If anyone has contacts at google and can tell them, yea, verily, Doreen Michele Traylor is a real person who is real poor and we all know her and please let her keep her phone number and her (my full name) google account and get me out of this fucking nightmare, that would be coolios.

Please and thank you.

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#4

Post by Wowfunhappy »

This is my nightmare. This is why I refuse to use 2FA. (Except on services that require it, and I wish they didn't require it.)

Am I worried about getting hacked? Absolutely! But when I weigh the likelihood of (1) someone else getting into my account without 2FA and (2) locking myself out of my own account with 2FA, the latter seems much more likely!

I understand how backup codes work. I promise you I will loose them.

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#6

Post by crooked-v »

There was a post a while back around poor and homeless people encountering exactly this problem on a regular basis. Lots of people in the comments were incredibly dismissive and sometimes actively malign about it.

Edit: One suggestion from me would be to try and start the dead phone connected to power but with the battery physically removed (assuming it's removable). That might bypass whatever issue it's having and let it start up.

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#7

Post by DoreenMichele »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #4

This is my nightmare. This is why I refuse to use 2FA. (Except on services that require it, and I wish they didn't require it.) Am I worried about getting hacked? Absolutely! But when I weigh the likelihood of (1) someone else getting into my account without 2FA and (2) locking myself out of my own account with 2FA, the latter seems much more likely! I understand how backup codes work. I promise you I will loose them…

I'm seriously medically handicapped and have terrible eyesight issues. I typed the wrong password at first.

I still had 1 percent power on my phone earlier and was previously able to get a code on it and I hoped I could get one last code before it outright died, so I said "Yeah, sure, send it to my phone" since they don't really want to do it another way.

So then I had to ask another way when I couldn't get to it because that is when the phone gave up the ghost for good. And then they said "We shall send you a link in 24 hours." So I moved the sim card and got text messages saying "Was this you?" and I said "Yeah, it was." and cancelled my "account recovery process" and tried to continue setting up my new phone because the old one is dead.

And this is when Google decided I must be a for serious criminal and told me "We shall send you an email in 72 hours."

So I'm quite upset at this point.

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#8

Post by Gigachad »

crooked-v wrote: post #6

There was a post a while back around poor and homeless people encountering exactly this problem on a regular basis. Lots of people in the comments were incredibly dismissive and sometimes actively malign about it. Edit: One suggestion from me would be to try and start the dead phone connected to power but with the battery physically removed (assuming it's removable). That might bypass whatever issue it's having and l…

Problem is that support people mistakenly resetting account auth when the attacker calls up and social engineers them is a bigger and more common issue than people’s only device dying. Not to say that’s not a thing that happens, but it’s a smaller of the two problems.

Re: Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me

#10

Post by ianmf »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #4

This is my nightmare. This is why I refuse to use 2FA. (Except on services that require it, and I wish they didn't require it.) Am I worried about getting hacked? Absolutely! But when I weigh the likelihood of (1) someone else getting into my account without 2FA and (2) locking myself out of my own account with 2FA, the latter seems much more likely! I understand how backup codes work. I promise you I will loose them…

You could print them and store them in a safe, or in your parents' collections of old embarrassing photos of you. Just an idea.
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