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Well, they definitely do fail at the very core. For the non-enterprise Gmail accounts, there is basically no way for account owners to reattain control over an

Well, they definitely do fail at the very core. For the non-enterprise Gmail accounts, there is basically no way for account owners to reattain control over an account if it was hijacked. Google product forums full of people blocked from the recovery of their account by sudo-AI recovery form and all the support they get is repeated "use recovery form" from some kind of "google community volunteers" (or something like that). E-mail account is basically a concentration of personal data and doing so little to protect that negates everything else.

confounded 8y ago
You make an excellent point, but I’d say the bigger problem with Gmail from a privacy stand-point is that your contacts and email contents are surrendered to an ad-surveillance company, and deliberately stored in plain-text, for any international government that fancies a look. Even if you accept that that’s a price worth paying for the service, you’re “snitching” on all your friends you exchange numbers/emails with. If you avoid Gmail, they still have all your email, just from the other end.
- TheReveller 8y ago
  How do you know they are stored in plain text?
  - hartator 8y ago
    If they scan it for ads, spam, and search, it has to be plain text.
  - gruez 8y ago
    it any better if it's encrypted, but google holds the keys? it's obviously not e2e encrypted (otherwise IMAP access won't work)
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
Buge 8y ago
Whenever you make the recovery process easier, you make it easier for attackers to "recover" victims' accounts. Switching from pseudo-AI to humans isn't necessarily better. I had an attacker successfully social engineer a support person into changing the email associated with one of my videogame accounts which had some valuable items. Preventing attackers from getting my password is something I can do myself. Preventing attackers from "recovering" my account is not something I can do myself. So I prefer services to have difficult recovery.
- grimskin 8y ago
  Well, I've actually faced an opposite situation. I have two Gmail accounts, main one gathers mail from the secondary, and I'm pretty sure that main address is set up as "recovery e-mail" in the secondary account. I've registered them more than 10 years ago, and since I have no need to login into secondary account - I forgot my password. But recently I've received e-mail from Gmail saying "we've prevented login into your account from unusual place" which usually means - somebody has your password. And now I have no way to change a password for my secondary account meaning bad guys still have a valid password. And since some services don't allow you to change e-mail you've used during registration (usually when your e-mail is your login) - I'm basically hostage to Google's login security system and have to rely on it preventing bad guys from logging in into my account while I can not do so myself.
- ksk 8y ago
  >Whenever you make the recovery process easier, you make it easier for attackers to "recover" victims' accounts. Only if you define easier as 'badly designed process'. > I had an attacker successfully social engineer a support person into changing the email associated with one of my videogame accounts which had some valuable items. That is unfortunate, but why do you believe this will always be the case? >So I prefer services to have difficult recovery. Maybe this can be an opt-in for the more 'security-minded' minority. There is no reason to have the same process for every user. Both of the positions "Preventing attackers from getting my password is something I can do myself." and ". Preventing attackers from "recovering" my account is not something I can do myself." rely on humans not making mistakes. We can improve on both (service & user) sides to reduce mistakes.

confounded 8y ago

You make an excellent point, but I’d say the bigger problem with Gmail from a privacy stand-point is that your contacts and email contents are surrendered to an ad-surveillance company, and deliberately stored in plain-text, for any international government that fancies a look. Even if you accept that that’s a price worth paying for the service, you’re “snitching” on all your friends you exchange numbers/emails with. If you avoid Gmail, they still have all your email, just from the other end.

TheReveller 8y ago
How do you know they are stored in plain text?
- hartator 8y ago
  If they scan it for ads, spam, and search, it has to be plain text.
- gruez 8y ago
  it any better if it's encrypted, but google holds the keys? it's obviously not e2e encrypted (otherwise IMAP access won't work)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

Buge 8y ago

Whenever you make the recovery process easier, you make it easier for attackers to "recover" victims' accounts. Switching from pseudo-AI to humans isn't necessarily better. I had an attacker successfully social engineer a support person into changing the email associated with one of my videogame accounts which had some valuable items. Preventing attackers from getting my password is something I can do myself. Preventing attackers from "recovering" my account is not something I can do myself. So I prefer services to have difficult recovery.

grimskin 8y ago
Well, I've actually faced an opposite situation. I have two Gmail accounts, main one gathers mail from the secondary, and I'm pretty sure that main address is set up as "recovery e-mail" in the secondary account. I've registered them more than 10 years ago, and since I have no need to login into secondary account - I forgot my password. But recently I've received e-mail from Gmail saying "we've prevented login into your account from unusual place" which usually means - somebody has your password. And now I have no way to change a password for my secondary account meaning bad guys still have a valid password. And since some services don't allow you to change e-mail you've used during registration (usually when your e-mail is your login) - I'm basically hostage to Google's login security system and have to rely on it preventing bad guys from logging in into my account while I can not do so myself.
ksk 8y ago
>Whenever you make the recovery process easier, you make it easier for attackers to "recover" victims' accounts. Only if you define easier as 'badly designed process'. > I had an attacker successfully social engineer a support person into changing the email associated with one of my videogame accounts which had some valuable items. That is unfortunate, but why do you believe this will always be the case? >So I prefer services to have difficult recovery. Maybe this can be an opt-in for the more 'security-minded' minority. There is no reason to have the same process for every user. Both of the positions "Preventing attackers from getting my password is something I can do myself." and ". Preventing attackers from "recovering" my account is not something I can do myself." rely on humans not making mistakes. We can improve on both (service & user) sides to reduce mistakes.