How likely is losing a Google account? • Hacker News Board

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#51

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 4:37 PM UTC

theptip wrote: post #39

jeffbee wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I can reach a human" is a huge security vuln. I don't want people social engineering my identity provider.

An extremely underrated (and insightful) point to consider. More generally, how do you actually get a measure of risk between two providers, when the absolute frequencies of measurable events are very low? It seems plausible to me that FastMail could have 10x or 100x the level of security incidents as GMail, and it would still net out to an undetectable difference in the number of public complaints. If we had interna…

When I worked in the anti-abuse business, account security was tracked by lurking in organized crime fora and determining the market price for stolen accounts. I don't know what it looks like for FastMail, but I do recall that the range between good and bad platforms was huge. A stolen Google account was like $10, but stolen Yahoo! Mail accounts were more like a nickel per thousand.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#52

Post by dr_kiszonka » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

It is about the expected value, and not the likelihood alone. For some of us, the expected value is so much in the red that using Gmail is not worth it.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#53

Post by ocdtrekkie » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

blfr wrote: post #40

Google is too good not to roll the dice. I use Gmail in my own domain with a different registrar. Push comes to shove, I'll move, restore backups, and carry on. But damn are non-Google ecosystems bad. At work we use m365 and everything is atrocious compared to Google. Loggin in is a mess, email search is dreadful, OneNote search unhelpfully defaults to searching the current pagwe, integration with Android is weak, Ou…

I would tell you that after using Fastmail, Gmail seems positively glacial and slow. Like, it's borderline "why would anyone put up with this, except maybe because they haven't used good email before". And we just got a huge fine for missing a bill here because a family Gmail account spam-binned it, which isn't an issue for my Fastmail, which handles spam better.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#54

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

Juliate wrote: post #41

jeffbee wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I can reach a human" is a huge security vuln. I don't want people social engineering my identity provider.

You do want that. But with proper (actual) procedures in place. The opposite of that is, you do not have a way of recourse, ever. Even states have some.

It is a fantasy that you can have humans adhere to procedures. That's the whole underlying problem of social engineering. Just take the human out of the loop.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#55

Post by fencepost » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

Chinjut wrote: post #46

edent wrote: post #5

Yup - happened to me. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2015/11/the-day-google-deleted-me/ "Luckily" I had enough identity documents to prove to Google's satisfaction that I was who I said I was. But even after I recovered the account, it was all screwed up. Since then I've dropped my reliance on Google. I don't use them for sign-in, my mail gets regularly backed up, I use alternative apps where I can. Google scale only works…

Out of curiosity, in what way was the account screwed up after you recovered it?

Just guessing, but does Google reject messages for suspended accounts? If so do they do it as temporary or permanent?

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#56

Post by unixhero » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 4:42 PM UTC

I have decided to multiplu Cloud services by 2. So I also use Microsoft 365, onedrive and Outlook. It feels more solid than Google nowadays anyways.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#57

Post by unixhero » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 4:43 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #35

guptaneil wrote: post #13

It's true that every service has to deal with the same policy and lockout problems, but that doesn't lead to the conclusion that the risk is the same. I pay for FastMail because 1. if something goes wrong, I can reach a human without needing to write a viral blog post first. Other services pay for a customer service department. 2. I trust FastMail more to not shut down their product because they got bored. Sure Gmail…

2) Why in the world would Gmail get shut down? The veins of treasure to be mined from within the user's emails are vast and endless. It is quite simply a mother lode. The only bigger source within their direct control is the search input screen.

It will not go down, but you can get locked out by AI policies. This is likely.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#58

Post by blfr » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 4:43 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #53

blfr wrote: post #40

Google is too good not to roll the dice. I use Gmail in my own domain with a different registrar. Push comes to shove, I'll move, restore backups, and carry on. But damn are non-Google ecosystems bad. At work we use m365 and everything is atrocious compared to Google. Loggin in is a mess, email search is dreadful, OneNote search unhelpfully defaults to searching the current pagwe, integration with Android is weak, Ou…

I would tell you that after using Fastmail, Gmail seems positively glacial and slow. Like, it's borderline "why would anyone put up with this, except maybe because they haven't used good email before". And we just got a huge fine for missing a bill here because a family Gmail account spam-binned it, which isn't an issue for my Fastmail, which handles spam better.

It could be a little faster, maybe, but with good indicators of things happening under the hood, which Google offers, reliable results, and the daily comparison to m365, I have no complaints.

And really, the only faster email setup I have ever used was mutt right on the MTA. I haven't used Fastmail but ProtonMail (my backup choice due to their combo mail+VPN+drive offer) certainly doesn't feel faster than Google.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#59

Post by ascaill » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 4:44 PM UTC

Overtonwindow wrote: post #3

This reminds me, again, that I should look into setting up my own home mail server. Is there an off the shelf solution for this? I don't mind setting up another PC as a server for this, but how hard is it?

Wouldn't recommend this, you'll spend your life trying to get taken off reputation blocklists, and if someone like Google flags you then good luck ever getting unbanned. Email is the wild west, and hosting a mailserver (even a personal one) is a massive undertaking in time cost alone.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#60

Post by mindcrime » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 4:47 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #54

Juliate wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do want that. But with proper (actual) procedures in place. The opposite of that is, you do not have a way of recourse, ever. Even states have some.

It is a fantasy that you can have humans adhere to procedures. That's the whole underlying problem of social engineering. Just take the human out of the loop.

> Just take the human out of the loop.

"I don't know if you wanna entrust the safety of our email to some silicon diode."

All joking aside:

I mean... we already know that taking the humans out of the loop leads to undesirable consequences (like losing your Google account with no recourse). So the only question is whether or not the consequences of one scenario or the other is particularly worse.