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

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

#131

Post by fregante »

modeless wrote: post #78

A lot of people treat printable recovery codes as something that should be protected, locked in a safe, etc. As a result they don't bother to use them as it seems like too much effort to secure them. Please do not treat them this way. They do not grant access to your account. Print many copies of your recovery codes and spread them around. Wallet, home, car, parents' house, etc. It doesn't matter if they get stolen o…

> Please do not treat them this way. They do not grant access to your account.

Can you expand on that? Once I have such code, what’s stopping me from “stealing” the account?

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

#132

Post by derekp7 »

password4321 wrote: post #21

I have to use wireless charging because the connector on my old phone is toast. It was a lifesaver for ~$15.

I've needed to scrape the USB connector in the phone with a needle (digging around the outside and scraping the tab in the middle) in order to get the cord to stay in place. It gets filled up with pocket lint gunk, and needs cleaning every once in a while. Also since the phone is water proof I've taken to letting water run into the USB connector to really clean it.

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

#133

Post by tempnow987 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #25
shyn3 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should take your phone to a store which can fix your phone. Googles code doesn't come as an SMS it comes as a notification from the Google app. Almost lost an account to this last week. Turned off 2fa.

I'm in a small town. I have no car. I no longer drive. I don't see well enough. I work from home due to my medical situation. I have no friends locally who can drive me someplace. Etc etc etc. This is a non-starter for me. I need Google to fix this. I can't do anything about the busted phone at this point.

How much are you paying for this service you need google to fix? I ask because with their paid email products there are a fair number of routes to get help, your admin, then if that doesn't work you can go up the chain... If you are on a free account you may not be (individually) worth a ton to google revenue wise and so support is going to be poor (they have 1.8billion+ ACTIVE gmail users I think - if they increase costs by $5/user, that's a $10B expense. )

Does helping you look like potentially helping a hacker take over an account, recognizing that google deals with totally crazy state level attacks? Google faces some significant liability and risk here.

Would you pay google to make it worth their time to help you (I actually think this should be an option - if a physical in person visit + someones time is what it takes - then google should have some system for $500 + you get to their office somewhere to recover your account)

I've had relatives in this situation. If you do know someone at a large institution with an institutional relationship I think you can sometimes get help - I had a relative go this route, wasn't sure if the IT folks there just figured out how to fix / work within google, or could escalate somewhere to get it addressed.

Because google will worry about reps selling access to account resets - they may REALLY lock this stuff down, so even if a rep wanted to help, they may not be able to (insider attacks a big issue again especially state sponsored attacks).

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

#134

Post by TeMPOraL »

stubish wrote: post #116
crooked-v wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes plenty of sense to Google: engineer for the 98% use case and the remaining 2% should just go away and stop wasting their time.

100% of devices will fail, eventually. It is kicking the can down the road.

They're banking on you upgrading your device before it dies, as opposed to e.g. accidentally dropping it onto pavement and cracking the screen.

Had that happen to me, I was saved by still having the backup codes + having some unholy Tasker + Pebble automations that let me operate the phone without display - enough to launch AirDroid, use it as remote display/input to enable ADB over WiFi, and then finally use scrscpy over ADB as a remote display/input that doesn't blank out on security screens and in Google Authenticator. Only at this point I was able to transfer all the other TOTP entries in Authenticator to the new device.

Lesson learned: 2FA with TOTP is a responsibility to be taken seriously, despite what security professionals would make you believe.

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

#135

Post by sfmike »

millzlane wrote: post #108

You have to click forget password. Then keep pressing "Try another way" until you see "Choose how you want to sign in:" Then select "Get a verification code" It should text the code to telephone number linked on the new cell phone. After signing in on the new phone with the new password, you will have to do the same thing. Press try another way until you see send a verification code to your phone number. Then it will…

the try another way sometimes just goes to sorry we can't help you right away and is a dead end. even with correct password and 2fa.

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

#136

Post by aledalgrande »

stubish wrote: post #116
crooked-v wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes plenty of sense to Google: engineer for the 98% use case and the remaining 2% should just go away and stop wasting their time.

100% of devices will fail, eventually. It is kicking the can down the road.

Doesn't matter, if the current people can get promoted. Problem is for future Googlers

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

#137

Post by dikei »

im3w1l wrote: post #99

I'd argue that the most logical long term solution is that Google figures something out with the government. E.g. go to the DMV to recover your account. The government is the fundamental root of trust and authority on who is who, so it just makes sense that your "official" online life should tie in with that like say your google account and online banking (for more casual stuff like say a reddit account, the drawback…

I know some people that will absolutely reject the idea of linking their online presence with their physical being. Hell, some Americans even refused to get an ID for voting purpose, and now you expect them to link their ID with a Google account.

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

#138

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

I recently lost my Android phone, and in order to use Find my Phone service, I needed to login into my google account. But I couldn't log in from my notebook, because it required me to approve the login using ... my lost phone! Is this what Google programmers are paid $250k salaries for?

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

#139

Post by gexla »

userbinator wrote: post #97
donmcronald wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Even worse than that, they're often connecting from public IPs that are "suspicious" which causes automated systems to treat them more harshly. In Canada it's gotten to the point where you need an interne…

but big tech discriminates against anything that's not a personal computing device. To be precise, anything that's not a "personal" computing device running the latest spyware-filled locked-down software and a browser that can be anything as long as it's the three that Google implicitly "approve". government, banking, etc.. Banking is private-sector, but I believe the government should always be accessible even if yo…

The trouble with the idea of banks being accessible, is that you also need to deal with KYC checks. Not all financial things require them, but it's creeping. I wonder how many homeless people have no ID.

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

#140

Post by doubled112 »

phpisthebest wrote: post #57
donmcronald wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Even worse than that, they're often connecting from public IPs that are "suspicious" which causes automated systems to treat them more harshly. In Canada it's gotten to the point where you need an interne…

In the US if you are under 135 percent of the Federal Poverty Level you qualify for a free Mobile Phone with internet service. I am surprised Canada does not have a program like that

Wild guess: Bell, Rogers, and Telus probably wouldn't allow it because they couldn't milk Canadians for as much then
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