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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

#21

Post by Aurornis »

8cvor6j844qw_d6 wrote: post #3

Recently helped a small business set up a Google Workspace account and we hit a wall during registration. Told the owners that if Google is already being difficult during signup, imagine being locked out later with client work on the line. Pulled up a few horror stories about Google lockouts to drive the point home. They ended up with another workspace solution.

> and we hit a wall during registration.

What does this mean? The scanning a QR code and sending a text message from this article, or something else?

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

#22

Post by torben-friis »

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

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 their phising site.

Gmail not only fails at spam classification, they classify these messages as important and nag you with first priority notifications and summaries.

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

#23

Post by Aurornis »

> 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.

This is just the old phone number verification with a QR code convenience method.

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

#24

Post by carlosjobim »

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.

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

#25

Post by daft_pink »

reconnecting wrote: post #15
riddlemethat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only “real” competition for Google Workspace is Microsoft if you need a full collaboration solution beyond just email, and 99.999% of customers of such hosted solutions need that full solution. It’s why Dropbox worked even though hacker news users probably roll their own sync solution.

Tuta, Fastmail, and Posteo are all much better alternatives to Gmail in terms of privacy. My comment, as per subject, is about Gmail.

His point was just that many business users can only purchase Google’s solution or Microsoft’s solution, because they’re the only services that will offer interoperability with many other security and compliance services and advanced functionality like SSO, third party email scanning, compliance journaling etc. The email market is essentially a duopoly as soon as you need any functionality beyond basic email.

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

#26

Post by hydrogen7800 »

unholiness wrote: post #18
dewey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

https://xkcd.com/277/

"It's so easy when you don't know how". I'm not sure if this phrase is in common use at all, or if I just misheard it once and attributed it to mean that when the details of a problem aren't obvious, its easy to conclude the solution is simple. "Why don't they just do ___?"

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

#27

Post by thrownaway561 »

8cvor6j844qw_d6 wrote: post #3

Recently helped a small business set up a Google Workspace account and we hit a wall during registration. Told the owners that if Google is already being difficult during signup, imagine being locked out later with client work on the line. Pulled up a few horror stories about Google lockouts to drive the point home. They ended up with another workspace solution.

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.

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

#28

Post by windexh8er »

thrownaway561 wrote: post #27
8cvor6j844qw_d6 wrote: post #3

Recently helped a small business set up a Google Workspace account and we hit a wall during registration. Told the owners that if Google is already being difficult during signup, imagine being locked out later with client work on the line. Pulled up a few horror stories about Google lockouts to drive the point home. They ended up with another workspace solution.

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.

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

#29

Post by jmyeet »

Everything is going to get so much worse and AI really is to blame. So many websites now have these verification pauses and CAPTCHs because of AI agents. Part of it is agents. Part of it is everyone running their own awful versions of Googlebot.

Years ago IIRC there was a "bug" where the Android emulator allowed you to create real Google accounts. This was found and I'm sure millions of these accounts were created. There's a whole black market for Google accounts. Whereas I lost a Google account I'd created for a relative because it hadn't been used in awhile and it was tied to a mobile number I no longer had.

I don't see how this ends without registering for a service like Gmail being tied to your government ID.

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

#30

Post by b112 »

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.

If one takes the comment to mean, 50x better for support, I can believe that. After all, 50x almost nothing can be achieved fairly easily.
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