Today I learned you can turn this feature off. Just disabled 2FA for my Gmail so I don't get locked out if something happens to my phone/phone-number.
Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year
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Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not just the homeless, there was a post on HN from a librarian talking about the same issues for the elderly and socially disadvantaged. The issue is that Google forces 2FA on them, even if they otherwise don’t have a phone.
This post was also very misleading. The concerns the librarian raised were actually addressed . The doc was old and made public by somebody other than the librarian, who edited it after it blew up to make it clear that the content was out of date. ====== Addition, 08/02/2022, 3:03pm: I don’t know how this got shared to HackerNews. I appreciate all of the positive responses we have gotten. However, this was not an ope…
There was a followup comment on HN:
> Doesn't sound like it was completely resolved. In fact, it sounds like Google may have treated it as a "squeaky wheel," and only that library is getting better help.
Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consider that the decades of work has probably been done with the exact same blind spots we're discussing now.
I'm really curious. What would you propose? The best I can think of is trusted backup accounts, which already exist. A homeless person with regular attachment to a family member or a social worker could set up that person's account as a backup. But this already exists and is likely to fail for a large number of homeless people, who tend to struggle at maintaining long term relationships with family members or social…
> I'm really curious. What would you propose?
The solution is very simple. Don't force 2FA. I'm sure most homeless people would rather risk the unlikely case of their accounts being hacked if they didn't choose a strong enough password to memorize than risk getting locked out of their accounts permanently.
You can encourage 2FA but forcibly enabling it for everyone does more harm than good, especially to homeless people but also non-tech-savvy parents and such (though the latter would be more likely to have a working recovery method).
Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year
#224I can definitely understand not realizing that you could lose access to your account if you lose your phone number. But once it happens the first time, could you not pick any free email that does not require 2FA, and warn fellow homeless to avoid gmail? I disagree with the idea that because a very, very niche audience is in dire straits that the design decisions should be based on their needs. The forced 2FA system h…
There are over half a million homeless people in the USA right now. And only a quarter are "chronically homeless", meaning for ober a year or more than once. There are many, many people who will be homeless for a few months at some point during their lives.
There are 1.5+ billion gmail users. I don't have stats, but that intuitively means millions of vulnerable people who could be scammed or phished or whatnot because they would never think of using 2FA at all.
Among those half a million homeless, how many use gmail and are unable to change for whatever reason? Among those, how many have issues with 2FA? Thus we advocate for increasing the vulnerability of millions to do something that would not even help the homeless that much. The whole problem of having to replace their phones every 12 weeks sounds like a far more pressing issue to investigate and find solutions for.
Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Actually giving homes to the homeless would probably be cheaper than whatever we are doing now, even taking into account the mental illness and drug-abuse problems that factor into this. This point is worth reiterating. Homelessness can be solved by providing housing. Yes, homelessness is a complex multi-faceted problem, but the first order solution to the problem is to provide housing. Homelessness is a problem wi…
Unfortunately it's more complicated than this. There have been nonprofit organizations and government initiatives to give homeless people space in unoccupied hotels for example. What ends up happening is they generally just destroy the living space in a variety of ways. It's because the majority of homelessness is an issue of mental health. In the USA, there are pretty much zero mental health resources for people in…
What sometimes ends up happening. It’s true that we have huge gaps for mental health and substance abuse but there are examples (famously, Salt Lake City) of such programs working. The mixed history says we need to take the problem seriously, not give up.
Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would expect it to require a phone number and physical address before an email. I also wonder if this person on twitter would be willing to let his friends use his email or phone. The homeless have challenges, no doubt, but that does not imply google worrying about 2FA for the homeless is the best way to solve those challenges. It wouldn't even BE an issue if they weren't homeless in the first place, for example.
Did you even read the linked thread, of a person apparently actually working with homeless people? It explicitly mentions that email is the preferred method of communication for many of them, for reasons also mentioned in the thread. > The homeless have challenges, no doubt, but that does not imply google worrying about 2FA for the homeless is the best way to solve those challenges. You seem to be under the impressio…
And you seem to think doing the easiest thing is actually useful.
Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year
#227SMS as a second factor should be deprecated. I got locked out once because my phone was stolen that had the SIM inside, and I couldn't get back into my Google account. Now I just use a Yubikey and am never asked for OTP codes that are sent to my phone.
Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Actually giving homes to the homeless would probably be cheaper than whatever we are doing now, even taking into account the mental illness and drug-abuse problems that factor into this. This point is worth reiterating. Homelessness can be solved by providing housing. Yes, homelessness is a complex multi-faceted problem, but the first order solution to the problem is to provide housing. Homelessness is a problem wi…
Unfortunately it's more complicated than this. There have been nonprofit organizations and government initiatives to give homeless people space in unoccupied hotels for example. What ends up happening is they generally just destroy the living space in a variety of ways. It's because the majority of homelessness is an issue of mental health. In the USA, there are pretty much zero mental health resources for people in…
There's a positive feedback loop between mental health and housing, so it takes more than tilting either end of the equation to fix it.
Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year
#229sorry but why are they losing their phones ? stolen ? sell it for drugs?
Shit gets stolen nonstop, and not just by fellow unhoused. When the police come and tear down camps, there's no expectation of recovering anything left behind. 9 times out of 10 they're followed by a public works crew throwing everything into dumpsters. Good luck getting your phone (or any of your other possessions) back.
Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I'm certainly arguing with you. :) Maybe, on top of that, I'm also arguing with the author. But I assume he implicitly talked about Google (which doesn't provide that option).
>But I assume he implicitly talked about Google (which doesn't provide that option). Google provides backup codes. You can print them on any kind of paper you want. Regardless, OP argued that printed backup codes don't work because everything is lost every few weeks.
Oh really? I didn't see that option. Maybe it's new? If so, that's good!