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My Google Workspace account suspension

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Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#121

Post by finaard »

It's quite entertaining to read - most of the article is pretty much elaborating a chain of bad decisions by the author which all lead to this now being a big problem. If he'd have written a similar dependency tree earlier and just thought about it for a few minutes that should've been avoidable.

> Update 1 - I know I can simply change the MX record to someone else but It has its own challenges.

I don't quite get that attitude. He's describing that he needs his business emails. Not just getting a mail server back online for that, even as interim solution, points to the opposite. In the time it takes for MX TTL to expire he could easily just throw up a postfix+dovecot on some VPS, with enough time to spare to add something like sogo if he feels fancy.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#123

Post by livinglist »

bookofjoe wrote: post #103
livinglist wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still remember the excitement I felt when I saw this Google Glass concept video in 2012: https://youtu.be/5R1snVxGNVs?si=sVS7wzZ8jYH-oGMM

How about this real-life Glass video I made in 2013 a month after I got mine; forty minutes long, recording the entirely of a 5K race! https://youtu.be/Pu8HTrXI84g?si=puSZt5fYbR69yslo

Very nostalgic, thx for sharing!

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#124

Post by Spooky23 »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #66
Spooky23 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t disagree, but the reality is SaaS is the model that most companies depend on and these risks exist everywhere. If your business is dependent on services you need to take a modicum of effort to protect yourself - the posts author was literally walking around with his entire business at risk from him dropping his phone or having it pickpocketed. At the end of the day, the protagonist in this story is mad becaus…

> He deleted his sole token (Google makes it trivial to add many) in the most fraud signally way possible. Are we reading the same blog post? He had his password, 2FA authenticator set up, and backup codes -- everything Google asks you to have to be on the "golden" auth path. He only deleted his SMS authentication path (one thing I don't understand is how he was able to do this in the first place without being logged…

We’re hearing one side of the story from a frustrated user recounting a borderline traumatic and stressful event.

The SMS only fallback is when other things have failed and they suspect that there’s been a takeover. Microsoft does something similar to tie it to some tangible thing. I’m not excusing Google. Their exception handling is poor at best. I’ve seen issues at customers where phones left in flight get flagged because of GPS disruptions due to Middle East conflicts, for example. (Phones flagged as having been in Syria or Russia can be kryptonite) One scenario was a VIP whose kid was in Europe with their other parent and the VIP’s tablet, signed into work email.

Other factors apply too - there may be multiple accounts tied to the number that are in different locales, for example. No idea what obnoxious rules Australia and UK add as well.

Point is, this type of shit happens and you should have a contingency.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#125

Post by bradley13 »

With phone numbers, you can move from one carrier to another, while retaining your number. This helps with competition.

We need the same for email.

Sure, it may not work with the ancillary services, but keeping your email address would solve a lot of issues.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#126

Post by bartvk »

finaard wrote: post #121

It's quite entertaining to read - most of the article is pretty much elaborating a chain of bad decisions by the author which all lead to this now being a big problem. If he'd have written a similar dependency tree earlier and just thought about it for a few minutes that should've been avoidable. > Update 1 - I know I can simply change the MX record to someone else but It has its own challenges. I don't quite get tha…

That's what I didn't get either. And you don't even need to configure a VPS, there's Fastmail, Protonmail, Zoho, Kolabnow, Purely mail, Migadu and so much more.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#127

Post by phpnode »

bradley13 wrote: post #125

With phone numbers, you can move from one carrier to another, while retaining your number. This helps with competition. We need the same for email. Sure, it may not work with the ancillary services, but keeping your email address would solve a lot of issues.

I mean, you can do that already, you use your own domain name and can then change email providers at will, in theory.

But maybe you logged in to your domain registrar through google oauth. If your google account is locked you can't now get into your domain's settings to change your MX records.

The real problem isn't the email address itself, it's all the access that google owns on your behalf. Lose access to Google, lose access to everything.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#128

Post by shakna »

Arcuru wrote: post #80

If a service offers "Login with Google/Apple/Facebook/etc" you should never do that if they offer a username/password. It just increases the single point of failure. Avoid places that only offer the "Login with Foo" if at all possible (looking at you Tailscale). As an ex-googler, the only reason I was comfortable keeping even my personal email there was because I could reach out internally if there was a problem. I l…

One of the other articles on HN's front page right now, is that Germany's implementation of eIDAS will require a Google or Apple account.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#129

Post by jzl »

finaard wrote: post #121

It's quite entertaining to read - most of the article is pretty much elaborating a chain of bad decisions by the author which all lead to this now being a big problem. If he'd have written a similar dependency tree earlier and just thought about it for a few minutes that should've been avoidable. > Update 1 - I know I can simply change the MX record to someone else but It has its own challenges. I don't quite get tha…

Why victim blame him for removing the phone number? He had a logical reason for doing so, and with Google supporting many forms of authentication it's perfectly reasonable to think that removing one wouldn't jeopardize the other methods.

Re: My Google Workspace account suspension

#130

Post by matt_heimer »

finaard wrote: post #121

It's quite entertaining to read - most of the article is pretty much elaborating a chain of bad decisions by the author which all lead to this now being a big problem. If he'd have written a similar dependency tree earlier and just thought about it for a few minutes that should've been avoidable. > Update 1 - I know I can simply change the MX record to someone else but It has its own challenges. I don't quite get tha…

I was a bit worried when I saw the title of the article because I have one of these accounts but geez he made some bad choices. Deleting all phone numbers and the recovery and swapping to a new authentication method and then accessing from a different country??? No wonder it got flagged.

I probably wouldn't believe him either. Google should have an option to revert to the last trusted config after some verification method. Google support is bad, I'll give him that.

All this to avoid roaming charges? And then refusing to share a personal email in this scenario and missing meetings because of that.

I'd argue that changing the MX to fastmail or Microsoft would be much faster than a postfix+dovecot solution on a VPS but I think he's just refusing any solution based on his principals.

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