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

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

discuss.privacyguides.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 549 posts

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

#61

Post by cute_boi »

arjie wrote: post #58

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@gma…

I just checked and it asked me to scan QR code and after opening QR code it will attempt to send some random token..

Google is probably doing A/B testing or they are using some sort of ML algorithm....

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

#62

Post by cute_boi »

goldenarm wrote: post #40
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…

Regarding how easy simswap is in 2026, it's dangerously stupid from Google to rely on SMS

I don't know why verizon etc.. don't charge like $0.25 cents per sms. Then these provider would stop sending too many sms.

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

#63

Post by guidedlight »

arjie wrote: post #58

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@gma…

They should probably go back to the original invite only flow they used when Gmail launched.

Every account having the ability to invite an only small finite number of new accounts is one way to thwart scammers.

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

#64

Post by mikestew »

Is this the reCAPTCHA crap I just ran into minutes ago? It’s the Cloudflare “verify your humanity” thing, and the checkbox isn’t good enough, so now there is a “mobile verification, the support page for which (that I briefly skimmed) talks about scanning a QR code.

(EDIT: TFA didn’t clear it up for me, but it sounds similar.)

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

#66

Post by red_admiral »

carlosjobim wrote: post #24
spwa4 wrote: post #14

The real problem for privacy is that governments are increasingly outsourcing the verification of identity and bot protection to private companies.

Outsourcing? Governments have never been involved in bot protection or online identity verification for anything else than their own websites. It's like saying that the government has outsourced burger making to McDonalds.

Estonia is the exception here, not sure about the other Baltics. Switzerland is trying. The UK is trying to try.

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

#67

Post by Almondsetat »

arjie wrote: post #58

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@gma…

"A tester in A/B testing situation swears that B tester is not telling the truth"

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

#68

Post by mminer237 »

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.

There is a big difference between advertising your services and trying to literally steal people's money.

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

#69

Post by medvidek »

mghackerlady wrote: post #43
CWwdcdk7h wrote: post #16

Last time YouTube wanted to verify my phone number it was easier to find a free service to receive SMS than for Google to deliver it to my actual phone. And Google didn't care I "verified" a number assigned to other side of the world.

It's becoming increasingly hard to find a service that lets you see verification messages, and even then google doesn't like a lot of the numbers those services use

In my country there are several telco operators that will send you basically an unlimited number of SIM cards for free (as in free beer) that you can use for getting the verification SMS and then immediately throw the SIM away. The only "cost" is that you have to wait a day or two for the SIMs to get to your physical mailbox.

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

#70

Post by spwa4 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #24
spwa4 wrote: post #14

The real problem for privacy is that governments are increasingly outsourcing the verification of identity and bot protection to private companies.

Outsourcing? Governments have never been involved in bot protection or online identity verification for anything else than their own websites. It's like saying that the government has outsourced burger making to McDonalds.

I do mean for their own websites.
Post reply on HN