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How likely is losing a Google account?

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Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#161

Post by joombaga »

ptero wrote: post #36
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?

I would split it into two parts. First and most critical, is to set up your own address in a domain you control. As long as you control the address you can move it between providers. Then you can decide whether to self-host (which I would not) or use a commercial service. The problem with home-hosted email is, as most folks said many times, that an email sent from a non-major provider would be marked as spam at best…

This is my setup too. One caveat w/ Proton Mail: you have to use their "bridge" software if you don't want to use Proton's client. Seems easy to configure, though I've never done it. Their web client is fine.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#162

Post by donmcronald »

parasubvert wrote: post #149

A popular reviewer in the headphone/IEM audiophile community, Crinacle, had lost his Google account in early 2022, and thus his 100k+ subscriber Youtube channel. It was locked, with no explanation, and no recourse other than an appeal (that went unanswered afaik). Curiously, his old Youtube channel stayed up for most of the year, he just couldn't access it, but it was removed too late last year. He created a new acco…

This is the biggest issue. It's not a loss of a single service, but multiple services that are all linked to that account.

It's bad enough when it's all of your Google or Microsoft or Apple services, but it's going to get worse. I'm convinced the whole passwordless movement isn't much more than a strategy for big tech to completely usurp control of identity. People on Hacker News might not get trapped because they understand enough to have some contingencies, but the average person is going to end up with their identity completely depending on having access to an account at one of the big tech companies.

Just wait until they lobby the government and get "Passwordless Login" pushed as a preferred way to access government services. Then they own us.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#163

Post by visarga »

parasubvert wrote: post #149

A popular reviewer in the headphone/IEM audiophile community, Crinacle, had lost his Google account in early 2022, and thus his 100k+ subscriber Youtube channel. It was locked, with no explanation, and no recourse other than an appeal (that went unanswered afaik). Curiously, his old Youtube channel stayed up for most of the year, he just couldn't access it, but it was removed too late last year. He created a new acco…

I'm wondering why they don't accept compensation for rendering support. Let it pay for itself.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#164

Post by cycomanic »

Many people here don't seem to realized how stupid Googles algorithms are. I mean I use 2FA with a security key and still get warnings about having locked into the account from another computer.

On the other hand logins from my phone protected by a much weaker 6 number pin are never questioned.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#165

Post by macintux »

988747 wrote: post #134
remus wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a bit absurd that something so fundamental as email has essentially no support from a company as large as Google; it's not a bug-free product. I'd be willing to bet that gmail has a couple of orders of magnitude more users than fastmail while also providing a substantially bigger inbox (than the cheapest fastmail option), and providing the whole thing for free. I dont think it's surprising that they make trade…

>> I dont think it's surprising that they make trade-offs to support that model. Just think of how many support staff you'd need to support 1.5 billion users! Google has a shitload of money, they can afford hiring enough staff. Cost is a lame excuse here.

Someone made a good point a few months ago: if you can’t afford to support your users, you have a broken business model.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#166

Post by nitwit005 »

This is in denial about how humans work. Everyone makes mistakes. Given enough time, you will do something like get a new phone and fail to update your security settings.

And importantly, Google will change things on you. When I set up my account, all there was was a password. They forced everyone to fill in telephone information or two factor, which is a new unfamiliar security practice, leading to more mistakes.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#167

Post by _tom_ »

I got locked out of an account and it would not allow me to recover the account, even though it had a recovery email on file. They didn't think that was enough to prove I owned the account.

What's the purpose of a recovery account, if you can't recover with it?

Fair disclosure: I'm not sure why I lost access to the account, but I had been planning on changing the password. There's a non-zero chance this was self inflicted. But it should have been recoverable.

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#168

Post by mmh0000 »

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?

I ran my own mail server from 2007 until 2021. I would highly recommend that you don't.

It takes little effort to setup a mail server to receive mail.

It takes a TON of effort to setup a mail server to send mail. Most ISPs will block your IP address, through various services you can get your IP unblocked but it's a slow and very time consuming process. And $god help you if your server ever gets exploited by a spammer. Your IP address will be permabanned by everyone.

It takes more effort to filter out spam

It takes more effort to deal with all the various email-related attacks. Like Joe Jobs [1], and DSN attacks [2].

You have to get reverse-dns setup on your IP which depending on ISP can range from impossible (comcast) to a pain in the ass (AWS).

You then have to worry about backups, firewall rules, server maintainance, power outages, and yada yada yada.

Then you'll get into it and have to figure out IMAP, SIEVE, and TLS. You'll spend more time managing your email server than any other thing you do in your life. You mail server will replace your family, your job, and all your hobbies.

Just buy a domain, pay for FastMail or ProtonMail, and setup or MX records. You'll be much happier.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job

[2] https://community.fortinet.com/t5/FortiMail/Email-users-are-...

Re: How likely is losing a Google account?

#169

Post by Forgeties79 »

the_snooze wrote: post #103
gary_0 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any company with a business model that takes your money and gives you service is inherently more secure than one that sells your eyeballs to advertisers in exchange for giving you free stuff. The former companies have a direct incentive to keep giving you service as part of their core business. The latter are really only paying attention to the money they get from advertisers.

>Any company with a business model that takes your money and gives you service is inherently more secure than one that sells your eyeballs to advertisers in exchange for giving you free stuff. If anything, companies try to double-dip and serve multiple masters. See: the security and privacy mess in smart TVs. Last I checked, LG wasn't giving their TVs away.

The amount of nonsense on my LG C1 is nonsense given what I paid for it. Seriously considering getting an Apple TV or Nvidia Shield to run all my stuff on. Their UI is so bloated with crap.
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