Earlier quoted context omitted.
FYI being able to just buy a random SIM a any supermarket is not common outsid the UK.
It is common at least in most of Central and Eastern Europe.
And in most of South America, and many Asian countries
Tell HN: Google requiring phone number to log into Chromebook
181–190 of 205 posts
Re: Tell HN: Google requiring phone number to log into Chromebook
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stupid "security" questions, I've started answering them like "what's your favourite colour?" - "colour" or "what was your first pet's name" - "pet". There are a few things that make me wonder if I can trust a company. Security questions, stupid password restrictions, sending me a password in plain text via email.
I recently was forced to do this by my home ISP. I used my password manager to generate 32 character length passwords, and then stored that info in the manager. However, when I attempted to save this info, the website responded with something along the lines of, 'we're sorry, please come back and try this again at another time.' This was preventing me from paying my bill online as it would not let me access my accoun…
So, effectively, three security questions, like this:
Favorite color? red
Favorite band? yes
First vehicle? car
Re: Tell HN: Google requiring phone number to log into Chromebook
#183I'm waiting for the day that LinkedIn will refuse to let me login without configuring a phone number. I don't use smartphones.
> I don't use smartphones This has nothing to do with smartphones. Last week I decided to create a Youtube account as their premium, ad-free service is now available in the UK. All was going well on my laptop until I hit the page demanding a phone number. Any number, smart or dumb. Not having a burner-SIM to hand I just closed the tab.
> Not having a burner-SIM to hand I just closed the tab.
Don't burners get their # recycled?
This seems like a pretty awful approach considering most of the sites I see demanding phone #s are doing so under the guise of improved security. It seems likely whoever controls that number will have some authority over the account.
All it would take is some stupid notification being sent to the phone number to inform whoever that is of something interesting being possible.
Combine that with the fact that burner phones are often utilized by criminals for variety of reasons...
Re: Tell HN: Google requiring phone number to log into Chromebook
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you're describing is a "cost proof" - namely that the user has something we can verify that costs some amount of money and is unique. So when the service I work on asks for a phone number verification, it's not always to determine your ID - it's to cut down on spam from users unwilling/unable to set up tens or hundreds of phone numbers, which I imagine is the majority of spammers. Adding it to existing accounts,…
it's to cut down on spam from users unwilling/unable to set up tens or hundreds of phone numbers, which I imagine is the majority of spammers. If anything I think it's the opposite --- dedicated spammers have shown they can farm resources like accounts of various types, so phone numbers aren't out of their reach. It's the casual users who don't want to give away their phone numbers or setup a throwaway one which will…
Cost proof doesn't cut in for those users - it's typically only put in on the Nth new signup within X hours from an IP address.
Re: Tell HN: Google requiring phone number to log into Chromebook
#185Maybe GMail maybe something else, their advice if you didn't have a cell phone was to use someone else's for the initial confirmation code.
Re: Tell HN: Google requiring phone number to log into Chromebook
#186They have done this to me a couple of months ago with my Gmail account and got really panicked, because I had all my contacts on it. After I have managed to restore it more than 4 hours later, I permanently deleted my account and Google immediately contacted me with apologies, asking me for the reason I did such thing. They have tried to persuade me to restore my account with a couple of emails, but it was already to…
I'm having problems where I am not getting important business emails, but only seeing them on a backup account that gets forwarded all my mail.
Also I am getting mail from a guy in India, and he is also getting my email. It's like our accounts got crossed over.
As usually, there is nobody at google to reach.
How did you get a hold of somebody?
Re: Tell HN: Google requiring phone number to log into Chromebook
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Switch to a paid service that doesn't depend on your data or on ads for revenue and survival. I would mainly recommend posteo.de because of what the company stands for and its cheap pricing. Other options are runbox.com and mailbox.org. All these providers support IMAP too. So you can use any email client on any platform, or the web interface, to access email. Protonmail, recommended by some others here, doesn't supp…
Or simply buy Apple and use iCloud for emails and data
Except they silently filter email messages based on certain keywords
Re: Tell HN: Google requiring phone number to log into Chromebook
#188I've had this happen with gmail accounts randomly. Most of the time with computers I've been using for years on the same network. The worst occasion I've ever had was the one time I was traveling. I was getting by with only wifi and, naturally, didn't have a phone number to confirm my account with. I didn't have a number bound to my account, either, making the whole process pointless. How did I get into my account? I…
Get a Google Voice number https://google.com/voice and link it to Google Hangouts or Google Messenger so you can send and receive texts via your phone or Wifi Web apps.
Re: Tell HN: Google requiring phone number to log into Chromebook
#189Re: Tell HN: Google requiring phone number to log into Chromebook
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're a school you're on GSuite for Education so can create as many accounts as you want for free, without phone numbers, and for under 13s
Parentpost is talking about a different market group. You are talking about chromebooks provided by schools to students. Parent is talking about chromebooks _bought_ by students (because they're cheap and functional).
what kid doesn't have a phone?