Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 350 posts

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

#231

Post by sirwitti »

Here some things that might help you:

1. Most probably you will need help of someone who knows a little about technology. Maybe you can ask someone you know or pay them by helping (time for time).

2. Since you said in a comment that you have poor eyesight, let someone with a magnifying glass check if the usb port on your old phone is simply clogged up. This is quite likely to be part of the issue.

3. Try different usb cables and charging ports, ideally one that you can verify that works by testing on another device (for example the new phone). These things break all the time.

4. Try carefully wiggling the usb jack while the charger is connected and it should be charging if nothing was broken. The goal here is to find a position where the phone gets charged at least for a bit. Also note: If the phone is off it might take several seconds before the phone indicates that it is actually charging. This is fidgety but could resolve your problem quickly and easily.

5. If the phone has wireless charging you can go to star bucks or restaurants, some provide wireless chargers. You might get some charging done and resolve this.

6. [Technical person needed] You can order a battery replacement (also search on craigslist). If your phone is not too new/fancy this should be very cheap. Then the technical person can swap the batteries and try charging the old phone again. If the old phone then works you can sell it and get a little money back :)

7. [Technical person needed] Depending on your exact phone (the old one) you could search craigslist for a broken one where the screen is damaged but the phone otherwise works (these should be very cheap). You can then charge this phone and and let the technical person swap the battery, same as above.

8. Repair shops: Since your problem (the part that the phone is not charging) is quite common, repair shops might have even more possible solutions. I don't know about the US but in europe many of those are very affordable, especially small ones.

9. Can you tell us the manufacturer and model of your old/broken phone? It's not unlikely that someone on HN has the some model or a battery replacement lying around and you can pick it up or pay for shipping or they might even pay for shipping it to you.

Come one HN, this is a solvable problem!

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

#232

Post by im3w1l »

dikei wrote: post #137
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.

I'm not saying that it should be mandatory just that it would be very beneficial for 95% of people.

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

#233

Post by Friday0722 »

bawolff wrote: post #177
crooked-v wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure plenty of people would rather live with the small chance of a hacker even wanting to gain access to their account than the very large chance of eventually losing access to the account entirely.

Although they probably wouldn't want to live with all their emails being discarded because gmail becomes so easy to hack and everyone assumes gmail accounts are spammers.

Huge amounts of spam already originate from gmail addresses, so I don't think this is a good example. That's not to say that I think security should be weakened, though - it should not, but for other reasons.

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

#234

Post by ImHereToVote »

soco wrote: post #225
denkmoon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we were all watching CCP implement their social credit system, big tech gave us one while our gaze was elsewhere. These algorithmic systems can pretty quickly make you an unperson in our society.

Theoretically one is implemented by state's request and the other happens while the state is busy looking away. Yay for freedom but when you're at the receiving end of the digital stick, is the difference really significant?

It stings less when an unaccountable group of technocrats ruin your life for some reason apparently.

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

#235

Post by Friday0722 »

bawolff wrote: post #214
jjav wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution to that is to make the increasingly intrusive security processes an opt in Absolutely. A common phrase is "mechanism, not policy". The service providers should be enabling all kinds of mechanisms for account level security so users can pick what works best for them. They should absolutely not be imposing any kind of policy. That's where all the source of trouble comes from. Only I know the threat model…

> Only I know the threat models I care about for any particular account I have. You are not neccesarily the person being negatively effective. Email service providers are all about reputation so their stuff isn't marked as spam. When your account gets hacked and starts sending viagra ads, you are not the one who suffers the fall out. There are lots of email providers out there with different policies. One of the reas…

Gmail is already a well-known spammer. Loads of spam come from Google, I see it everyday, by far the biggest source of spam I see. Unfortunately, they're also so big, with so many legitimate users, that you can't block them wholesale if you're expecting to deal with the public, many of whom have a gmail address.

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

#236

Post by nonrandomstring »

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #221
velox_neb wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're often connecting from public IPs that are "suspicious" which causes automated systems to treat them more harshly. What's worse is that the the error messages never explain the problem. It's just an endless sequence of "Oops! Something went wrong" "We could not fulfill your request" "Please try again later". Could drive someone crazy if they're not savvy enough to realize what's going on.

>What's worse is that the the error messages never explain the problem. It's just an endless sequence of "Oops! Something went wrong" "We could not fulfill your request" "Please try again later". You're absolutely right. They each carry the tone of "This content isn't available right now", like when trying to view a tweet from a shadowbanned user. I've seen that drive people, particularly family, into a kind of aggre…

> They each carry the tone of "This content isn't available right now"

At this point it's merely static deception. Wait until they run a GPT bot programmed to interactively lie to you, deflect, stall, misdirect and stonewall you based on your personal profile. These companies are devious and untrustworthy to their core, and the only reason anyone uses them is because they're forced to.

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

#237

Post by carlmr »

ptman wrote: post #228
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…

Not all 2FA is the same. SMS 2FA leads to these problems. But A FIDO2/WebAuthn token (yubikey or similar) would help you stay secure and independent from your phone. I agree that yubikey is a bit expensive, but there are alternatives. Token2 seems quite bit cheaper, but depends on shipping: https://www.token2.com/shop/product/token2-t2f2-fido2-and-u2...

>SMS 2FA leads to these problems.

I have broken my phone multiple times, but I always stick to SMS 2FA because as long as I keep paying I will get a new SIM card in 2-3 days, and not be locked out, because of a lost or broken device.

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

#238

Post by vineyardmike »

Twisell wrote: post #215
katbyte wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for the rest of us having a hacker gain access to our accounts and stealing money or scamming others is a far greater risk. And for google a far more common occurrence. There is a reason there are so many safeguards in place and its because hackers are trying all day every day to break in and steal identities and money. Homeless people don't need to use 2fa if they are so unconcerned with someone stealing their accou…

Were you so harsh on self-entrepreneurs that came here crying out loud because Google did shut down their developer account for some unrelated payement error on a linked account? I hope so because otherwise you are just discriminating people based on their wealth. But praise lord dollar that if you ever fall from your status you won't find pedantic guys like you when seeking for help.

To be fair to the commenter, the company implementing the system is to blame. I can understand why Google (or other businesses) would prioritize customers concerned about security over the homeless. One is a more profitable customer.

Does that make it right? No. Does that mean people won’t get hurt? No. Plenty of ink on HN has been spilt about how companies act according to a profit motive, and often not in societies best interest. Recognizing this doesn’t make you complicit.

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

#239

Post by nonrandomstring »

Gigachad wrote: post #8
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.

> support people

There are no "support people". Let's stop trying to humanise a giant, hostile algorithm.

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

#240

Post by Friday0722 »

alasdair_ wrote: post #85
btilly wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can still be opt out with a fallback on the old approach of security questions. The name of your first pet, your favorite teacher, etc. It doesn't matter how much in general 2FA works out better for most people, there are lots of people for whom it is not viable. They know who they are. Give them an option that doesn't make their life worse.

>Give them an option that doesn't make their life worse. This is the sort of thing that really should be handled by government

That might help for a certain subset of people in this scenario, but there are also people with subtle mental conditions that, while capable of living productive lives, are also unable to deal with MFA. There are also the elderly and non tech-literate.
Post reply on HN