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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

#61

Post by valenterry »

UncleMeat wrote: post #34
angry_octet wrote: post #19

This problem, and the not-my-problem responses, really highlight the self centered mindset we have encouraged. What if that homeless person was your substance-abusing sibling? A friend from school with mental health issues? We need to collectively take more responsibility for those in the worst situations. If you've every tried to teach an old person how to use 2FA you know it's an uphill battle. Using a fingerprint…

"Not-my-problem" is a bad response, but the actual response is that without 2FA even more people lose access to their accounts. Anything that makes it harder for adversaries to take over an account almost necessarily adds friction for the users themselves. This isn't a "fuck the people who don't have regular access to a phone, they don't matter" situation. It is a "there is an aggravating balancing act in this situat…

> but the actual response is that without 2FA even more people lose access to their accounts

This is not black and white. It is possible to encourage 2FA but allow to opt out. The same for phone numbers.

And that's why companies enforce 2FA: they want your juicy phone-number or other data. And yeah, maybe they also want to reduce support costs and avoid bad publicity. Still, it's not in your interest, it's in theirs.

If they at least would allow for a sufficient number of options. Like paper-tan (even self printed), yubikey or similar, second email address, an authenticator, ... but even big companies often only require a phone number.

EDIT: Yes, Google offers more than a phone number when creating a gmail account. I didn't say they don't. However: they don't make it easy and I would even go as far as saying that they are evil here. If you don't believe me, try to create a gmail account right now and don't google/search how to do it without phone number.

Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year

#62

Post by the_only_law »

stevesearer wrote: post #46
angry_octet wrote: post #19

This problem, and the not-my-problem responses, really highlight the self centered mindset we have encouraged. What if that homeless person was your substance-abusing sibling? A friend from school with mental health issues? We need to collectively take more responsibility for those in the worst situations. If you've every tried to teach an old person how to use 2FA you know it's an uphill battle. Using a fingerprint…

My dad helps people navigate the system to find housing. Recent story was a 65yo + veteran living in a shelter. They hadn’t started collecting social security due to some debts and was worried it would ALL be garnished. After explaining that veterans get expedited in line for housing and that they would still get almost all of their SS, they have applied for it and should be housed soon. It doesn’t surprise me at all…

> They hadn’t started collecting social security due to some debts and was worried it would ALL be garnished.

Is this common? I knew a guy who had the same mindset. I ended up paying him in cash for some work, he was convinced that if he made any money in a traditional role it would be instantly garnished.

Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year

#63

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

krzyk wrote: post #36

I'm a bit surprised, homeless people have phones and email addresses? Sorry for question, but it is a bit mind blowing for me, in my country homeless people are rare and the ones I see don't worry about anything besides something to eat and alcohol. So having a mobile for them would be like having cash to buy the mentioned things.

Most homeless people aren't permanently homeless. Of the homeless population at any given time (very) roughly 50% will only be homeless for a few days, 20% will be homeless for a few weeks, and 30% will be homeless for months or longer.

Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year

#64

Post by ifqwz »

>Unhoused people tend to get their phones through the "Obamaphone" program, which means that replacing a lost or stolen phone results in a completely new phone number.

Maybe that's part of the issue. Why recycle numbers so aggressively? Give the user a few months to recover their old number if they can prove they are the same person.

Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year

#65

Post by UncleMeat »

wavelen wrote: post #24
uup wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So use one of the other 2FA options.

afair you need to set up a phone number before you can choose to add another 2FA option (which is stupid imho)

Even if this is the case, this isn't a problem for the poster. They have a phone number, it just changes frequently. They can sign up, enroll in a TOTP or U2F system, and then they are set.

Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year

#66

Post by MonkeyMalarky »

macspoofing wrote: post #37
Cerium wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we don't need to meet all those requirements simultaneously. The on boarding process could try to determining if 2fa would actually benefit you or not.

>The on boarding process could try to determining if 2fa would actually benefit you or not. How?

Ask. Default to yes but allow to opt out.

Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year

#68

Post by jakelazaroff »

UncleMeat wrote: post #34
angry_octet wrote: post #19

This problem, and the not-my-problem responses, really highlight the self centered mindset we have encouraged. What if that homeless person was your substance-abusing sibling? A friend from school with mental health issues? We need to collectively take more responsibility for those in the worst situations. If you've every tried to teach an old person how to use 2FA you know it's an uphill battle. Using a fingerprint…

"Not-my-problem" is a bad response, but the actual response is that without 2FA even more people lose access to their accounts. Anything that makes it harder for adversaries to take over an account almost necessarily adds friction for the users themselves. This isn't a "fuck the people who don't have regular access to a phone, they don't matter" situation. It is a "there is an aggravating balancing act in this situat…

That's also a bad response. The tech industry literally exists to invent things. That's its entire purpose. Why should we satisfied with a status quo that neglects the most vulnerable among us? What is the point of technology if not to solve these problems?

Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year

#69

Post by jqpabc123 »

codegeek wrote: post #25

Maybe we can build some sort of a "reverse proxy" solution where you can get a number from Twilio etc and just forward to an actual phone number from your carrier. Bonsu, you can add some "firewall" rules and boom. If you lose your phone from your carrier, your twilio number is the same. Just change the rule in Twilio ? Isn't there a service like this already ? If not, there is your billion dollar startup idea.

Won't work. VOIP numbers can be easily identified and Google and most other providers refuse to accept them.

Re: Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year

#70

Post by macspoofing »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #45
macspoofing wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The on boarding process could try to determining if 2fa would actually benefit you or not. How?

By asking you?

Well .. yeah. And I think that's what OP (of the twitter thread) is advocating (without explicitly stating it). Namely, that 2FA doesn't work for homeless.
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