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Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

discuss.privacyguides.net

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Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#51

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

windexh8er wrote: post #28
thrownaway561 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone hates on Microsoft, but their platform is 50x better than Google. Personally nowadays I would be looking at Proton if I was going to setup a workspace for my company.

This is hilarious. Microsoft has had many issues and outages with M365 in the last few years. I mean, I guess if you don't rely on mail, then sure.

We are 365 shop… I cannot think of one single time the 365 being down has affected us at all. Maybe you’re right I don’t know. Maybe your region is worse than my region.

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#52

Post by user_7832 »

mghackerlady wrote: post #42
Aurornis wrote: post #23

> Supposedly, using the QR code on the smartphone triggers an SMS sent from your phone to Google in order to verify your phone number. Does anyone have a better source of information than this one forum comment from someone who thinks scanning a QR code is enough to get your phone to send a text message? EDIT: It’s just an SMS URI. It doesn’t automatically send anything, just opens a text message for you to send. Thi…

What happens when your phone can't do that? I use a flip phone. It can't scan QR codes despite having a camera

Technically if you can copy paste the qr code into any qr reader website and manually do it, I think it's possible? Assuming it doesn't change the code very rapidly every few seconds.

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#53

Post by estimator7292 »

dewey wrote: post #5
dvh wrote: post #4

Any Gmail person can tell me why Gmail is tolerating Gmail phishing emails that use Google's own services (e.g. https://storage.googleapis.com/savelinge/ ... ? More info here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46665414

The same reason spam filtering is hard. It's not possible to catch every misuse of the service without too many false positives.

[dead]

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#55

Post by abirch »

traviswingo wrote: post #48
torben-friis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spam is getting horrible lately. I get all sorts of new techniques including: - using legitimate sites to bypass filters, like sending you a bill through a legitimate bill-creation site - pretending to be a tracking service for something you supposedly ordered, then over the course of days pretending the package got lost on the way and offering a discount code for the 'purchased' amount, expecting you to use it on th…

I can’t prove it, but it feels like the world recently decided that spamming/scamming is acceptable, so the number of spammers/scammers has increased dramatically. The number of spam calls, texts, emails, iCloud account unlock requests, etc I’ve received in the last year is insane.

It's AI that's doing a lot of it. For a lot of spam, scammers would want to exclude anyone who may not fall for the scam due to the costs associated with dealing with people who won't pay you. Now that AI decreases the need for a human scammer to scam, expect them to start to widen their scam nets.

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#56

Post by Aboutplants »

dvh wrote: post #4

Any Gmail person can tell me why Gmail is tolerating Gmail phishing emails that use Google's own services (e.g. https://storage.googleapis.com/savelinge/ ... ? More info here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46665414

It follows the same logic as physical junk mail. We accept the fact that we will receive junk mailers in our physical mailbox and just toss them out.

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#57

Post by BLKNSLVR »

dewey wrote: post #9
dvh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same 5 urls has been used for 3 months

That doesn't really change the fact that it's hard. Do you know how many full movies are on YouTube that infringe on copyright? How many pirated streams are hosted on S3? How many piracy sites are behind Cloudflare. It's just very hard to police at scale and if something is flying below the radar it will be there for a while. They probably spread out their assets over many accounts, or even use misconfigured buckets…

Google's inability to scale their services should be a regulatory issue.

If their platforms (Gmail, YouTube, DoubleClick) are being used to launch scams, they're failing at scale and governments are failing at legislating / regulating.

The only way to use Google services somewhat safely is with hefty ad (and the rest) blocking.

All this ID and surveillance and privacy invasion and metadata retention and yet all these scams only seen to grow. It never seems to end up protecting anyone deserving of protection.

I wonder what it's all been in aid of...

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#58

Post by arjie »

I went through it to register just now. No QR code required. Same flow as it has been for years:

1. Personal/Child/Business

2. First/Last

3. Pick email

4. Date of Birth

5. Backup email / Skip

6. Password

7. Enter phone number

8. Confirm with 2FA code

9. Done.

I just made the email testregistrationflow@gmail.com and have since forgotten the password. So that’s one burned. But feel free to try testregistrationflow1@gmail.com and see if it works without a QR code.

The headline is clearly a misstatement of what is a specific flow for someone to make many Gmail accounts programmatically.

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#59

Post by 000000000001 »

Aboutplants wrote: post #56
dvh wrote: post #4

Any Gmail person can tell me why Gmail is tolerating Gmail phishing emails that use Google's own services (e.g. https://storage.googleapis.com/savelinge/ ... ? More info here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46665414

It follows the same logic as physical junk mail. We accept the fact that we will receive junk mailers in our physical mailbox and just toss them out.

Yeah, but junk mail funds the USPS, without it Republicans would've killed the postal service long ago, See the Pension requirement that they pushed in a vain attempt.

Re: Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message

#60

Post by BLKNSLVR »

abirch wrote: post #55
traviswingo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t prove it, but it feels like the world recently decided that spamming/scamming is acceptable, so the number of spammers/scammers has increased dramatically. The number of spam calls, texts, emails, iCloud account unlock requests, etc I’ve received in the last year is insane.

It's AI that's doing a lot of it. For a lot of spam, scammers would want to exclude anyone who may not fall for the scam due to the costs associated with dealing with people who won't pay you. Now that AI decreases the need for a human scammer to scam, expect them to start to widen their scam nets.

The decline had been happening long before AI hit mainstream.

It's been a _lot_ of years that I've hesitated to answer calls from unknown numbers.

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