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I’ve had similar experiences with other google products: My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary r

I’ve had similar experiences with other google products: My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. We had a live session via thunderbird but there were no channels of support. Luckily we were able to register her old mobile number to achieve a password reset, thanks to a helpful phone provider and NOT google. My mailserver is marked as spam by gmail, a helpful HN commentor pointed out it may be my lack of ipv6 which appears to be the cause. I have no idea why ipv6 would indicate that I’m not a spammer, I can’t ask google because they don’t have a support line. I understand others have far more expensive (read: >1m$) problems with google specifically, and I know I’m not alone here. I just hope that by continually airing grievances with lack of (useful) customer service by major providers, they end up caving and investing in customer support. Until then, fuck you google.

superkuh 6y ago
Wow. I'm you in both respects. I just had the same problem with my dad and even though he can send and receive email from his gmail account they still won't tell him the password. All he has is the fragile oauth token on mail.app on his apple smart phone that can only connect via wifi due to the loss of the old phone number. Additionally, my mail from my independent mailserver just started being marked as spam by google (exactly when I sent mail to noaa.gov and fireeye's internal system was borked due to their solarwinds problems http://superkuh.com/spf-google-fuckery.txt http://superkuh.com/spf-google-fuckery.txt). I signed up for google's postmaster tools set my DNS TXT records but apparently I don't send enough mass mail to not be a mass mailer.
- KMag 6y ago
  > they still won't tell him the password The Google support people should have mentioned it, but hopefully, they wouldn't be able to tell him the password without investing tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cracking the hash. https://plaintextoffenders.com/ https://plaintextoffenders.com/
  - charliebrownau 6y ago
    If it was important People would WRITE IT DOWN People would RECORD IT People would BACK IT UP Its not the job of companies, corporations or tech repair stuff to remember stuff for you
  - superkuh 6y ago
    Is google really encrypting each individuals email based on a password they have no knowledge of? I know privacy oriented email hosts have tried to achieve this, but google? I'd hope the phone tech support understand the goal was to regain access to the account, through a reset or whatever mechanism, and not to just know the password. But maybe if my dad worded it like I did the same confusion could've happened.
    - KMag 6y ago
      > Is google really encrypting each individuals email based on a password they have no knowledge of? We're talking about giving out a forgotten password, not getting access to email contents. I used to work on the indexing system, not GMail, but my vague recollection is there are some master private keys (necessary for lawful intercept, etc.) locked in hardware modules for email storage, where very few binaries are able to get the hardware modules to perform public key decryptions. There are strong safeguards on humans using some of the binaries that do have access. Access to these encryption keys is orthogonal to access to the account password. My recollection of the Aurora attacks is that the intruders got access to some systems that were able to decrypt/display senders and subjects, but we believed they were unable to get at the email bodies.
    - Closi 6y ago
      They mean google does not have access to the password, as that is done via a one-way hash. They can do a password reset, however would need sufficient proof of account ownership. Having access to the account is unfortunately not enough proof to show ownership, as that could be achieved with access to someone else’s device.
- pen2l 6y ago
  You just have to wonder why this is. And I have a theory. My theory is they did the risk benefit analysis of all this and decided this was the best way to go. I think the the hole that opens up when you are open to appeals and special cases is too great, the bad press from one bad case is so bad that it's ok to ignore all the folks who have lost their accounts. I mean, what other explanation, what other reason can there possibly be for this?
- protomyth 6y ago
  I honestly wish the US government was banned from using Gmail. It has caused more problems than any usefulness warrants. Also, NSF is a pain too. [edit: I wonder how many of the down voters have actually sent email to a government agency using Gmail or dealt with some of NSF email issues firsthand?]
- harryh 6y ago
  Having access to a logged in account is definitely not sufficient evidence for a support team (at Google or anywhere else) to allow for a password reset on that account. If it was, then someone forgetting to log out on a machine they didn't own could be a much more serious problem than it is. Rather than just temporary access to the account that the true owner has the ability to revoke, it could result in a completely stolen account.
- hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago
  I would recommend ensuring the phone is backed up, that’ll reduce failure to deauthentication (as opposed to deauthentication and lost access to the phone) Edit: also consider setting up a mail forwarder to another address you own if you can from the app UI, I would do this on a test account first in case it forces you to reauthenticate, as it can be a suspicious action.
jjcon 6y ago
> My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. I’m in a similar position except I know my password. Google decided for whatever reason that my location was too different and now requires that I verify via a phone number I no longer have. I have access to the recovery email and even get ‘suspicious login prevented emails’ at the recovery address. I tried working through google support and was given a form to fill out but never heard back. I should have kept that number until I updated it yes... but I thought knowing the password and having the recovery email would be enough.... guess not. But yeah... fuck you google.
- Triv888 6y ago
  I've had that problem too, multiple times, where I knew the password but Google wouldn't let me use it (I almost lost my account). Google doesn't like users that clear cookies, block trackers, etc... I wish that there was a way to disable those "protections".
  - tharkun__ 6y ago
    There is a really really simple one (at least for your private life but if your company uses G-Suite, you always have the admin to take care of things you forget): Do not use Google! It's as simple as that. I have never had a Gmail account until an Android device sort of forced it on me, because I definitely didn't want to link things up to my real email address, so I just signed up for the whole thing. Do I ever use that email address? Definitely not! Why would I? What happens if I ever loose access to that account? I have to register a new one for my Android device(s). Boohoo. Some of this obviously requires 'abstinence' and not having the same 'cool toys' as other people. I.e. if I buy lots of fancy apps that I actually rely on for my daily life, then loosing this Google Account will hurt. No longer have a PC and do everything including your banking, gaming etc. with the tablet (i.e. things you really need or things you paid a lot of money for)? Well, welcome to the walled garden where Google practically owns you.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
dandare 6y ago
Anti-monopoly laws exist for a reason. Splitting Google (and other IT monopolies) is the only remedy their monopolistic behaviour.
- zionic 6y ago
  This is worse than monopolistic behavior. Show me where old school AT&T acted like this.
  - spacemanmatt 6y ago
    Oh, sweet summer child
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    “We don’t care, we’re the phone company!” ((Elbows buttons)) ...funny Lily Tomlin skit.
- sofixa 6y ago
  In theory, yes, but in practice, especially in Google's case, that won't work. YouTube could probably survive on its own ( due to the astronomical costs associated we can't be sure unless Google share more numbers), but no other part of Google's consumer-oriented services, and even some of their business oriented ones ( G Suite/Workspace/whatever it's called this week) can't be profitable, ever, and are only subsidised by data at scale and ads. How would you split Google into entities that won't go bankrupt within a year? ( And you wouldn't want that because it would piss off people and would help the cause of the anti-regulation and anti-government uneducated people). Maybe GCP, Android foundation, YouTube, rest of Google could work, but the "rest of Google" is still too big and too powerful. Forcing them to open their data and platforms ( e.g. allowing other ad networks to access Google's tracking data and to serve ads via them) could diminish their monopoly, but it could also diminish their profits and force them to cut some less profitable parts of the company even more ( and that might be good). Same thing with Facebook, just a bit easier - splitting off Instagram and Whatsapp will absolutely improve things, but the remainder is still to big and powerful. Twitter is even worse, you can't split anything. Anti-monopoly laws and frameworks need to be updated for the modern world, because the logic that worked for physical assets, sales and infrastructure ( e.g. the US split oil companies and telcos along physical lines) no longer works for Internet companies.
kenniskrag 6y ago
can't you just disable ssl and sniff the password via wireshark?
- ryan29 6y ago
  No. It'll be a token.
  - dhdhhdd 6y ago
    Thunderbird will store the password in password manager though. It should be accessible.
  - inetknght 6y ago
    What does it being a token have to do with anything? An unencrypted token is just as vulnerable as an unencrypted password.
    - freemonster 6y ago
      Tokens have defined scope and expire, so not the same as a password that doesn’t have these limitations.
      - inetknght 6y ago
        If the stream is encrypted that's great. The token is likely to expire before the stream could be decrypted. But if the stream isn't encrypted then it doesn't matter. A robot can easily collect the token and utilize it before the token expires.
viraptor 6y ago
> I have no idea why ipv6 would indicate that I’m not a spammer It's likely not about ipv6, but instead it's about your ipv4 having bad reputation in the past. Basically you changed your source address to a cleaner one.
- ryan29 6y ago
  This is very likely the case. Check the IP on a site that does IP reputation scoring [1]. They probably don't have a database of "bad" addresses for IPv6, so it squeaks by for now. I'm sure that'll change in the future though. My current IP shows "0 - low risk" with that tool. Grabbing a random PIA IP shows "93% - Abusive IP" with a warning about being a high risk proxy connection. The random VPN IP is also on SPAM blocklists. I'm guessing a huge portion of cheap shared hosting is the same. 1. https://www.ipqualityscore.com/ip-reputation-check https://www.ipqualityscore.com/ip-reputation-check
  - yokem55 6y ago
    FWIW - I suspect the "IP reputation" site you referenced is utter bullshit when it comes to its "Proxy Detection". Looking at my own residential public address it calls it a 'low risk proxy' when I can assure that it most definitely is not. It doesn't help that their explanation for how they attempt to detect this is a pile of marketing word salad. I don't expect them to be completely transparent to their methodology, but they should make some attempt at presenting a bit of technical background.
    - viraptor 6y ago
      It doesn't have to be bullshit. You have a sample size of 1 and realistically we can't expect 100% accuracy. We also don't know how often your IP is changing - maybe it was a proxy endpoint recently?
      - yokem55 6y ago
        It's a static address that hasn't changed for 3+ years. The only thing I can think of the makes it proxy-ish, is that I have a 6 person household here. Edit- The IP my employer uses as its outbound nat IP that we vpn from while WFH (so it actually is a proxy) gets a clean bill of health while our corporate email server (not a proxy at all) is tagged as one.
donmcronald 6y ago
> My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. I've seen this before too. A huge problem right now is the massive tech companies want an unreasonable view into your life. They want your identity, phone number, photo id, location history, credit history, etc. before they'll treat you like a real person. If you think I'm joking, spin up a transient environment, connect to a VPN, and try to participate online without linking all of your accounts to a piece of real world identity information that, in turn, can be linked to all the other things I listed above. You can't even get an email address without a phone number. Part of the issue there is the huge tech companies are abusing their market positions to assign bad reputation to the IP blocks owned by everyone else. You can't use a VPS for ANYTHING but incoming connections because the IPs are flagged all by Google et al. How do you run an API server that needs to make any outbound connections if Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. all consider the IP block tainted? I guess you just need to buy your IPs from Google, right? That's exactly the same tactic Google used with GMail. The original spam filtering was super aggressive and shitty and the solution, according to Google, was to use GMail instead of other providers. "Get a big provider" is a very poor answer to a question that has a technical solution IMO. > My mailserver is marked as spam by gmail Have you tried GSuite (or whatever they're calling it these days)? /s
- Hnrobert42 6y ago
  Not to take away from your larger point, but you can get an email address without a phone number from ProtonMail. In the past, gmx.com also let you register privately, but I didn’t know anymore. Also, there are lots of sites that let you receive an SMS in their number.
  - ev1 6y ago
    On many (most) VPN connections, Protonmail prompts for another email or a SMS (due to abuse, presumably) or a non-disposable email (depending on severity)
- hertzrat 6y ago
  Speaking of con troubles, I think Bell (in Canada) blocks Firefox VPN. I can’t connect to anything when not on wifi.
mav3rick 6y ago
You can get support by paying for Google 0ne where a human helps you.
hertzrat 6y ago
Hmm... my mom forgot her outlook password recently and doesn’t have a cell phone so she can’t get any auth codes. She says she can’t find a way to contact support. Any suggestions?
- hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago
  See if a telco will provide her the old number. If it’s owned by another entity, kindly explain the situation and ask them (though, that’ll be an awkward conversation, as the messages quite often have ‘do not share this code with anyone’) The password reset also supports a backup email along with a ‘when did you sign up for this account’ question - for me the backup email was not working. I was able to derive the creation date via an email to my account (which was the backup email address). For me, the backup email function wasn’t working, thus sniping the mobile number from a provider was the solution.
codazoda 6y ago
Get your own domain for ~$13 a year and then forward your email to Gmail or another online provider you like. If Google kills your account you can forward it elsewhere. I recently started using the startup https://hanami.run https://hanami.run to forward my mail. It's a brand new startup that I read about here on HN and the creator is super helpful. Edit: I realize that parents Mom and my Mom are not going to do this, but us Hacker News types should.
- bbkane 6y ago
  Looks like the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy links from the front page 404
- hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago
  My mailserver can’t point to gmail unless I get gmail premium I chose instead to run my own mailserver (it’s a pain, but it’s very scaleable and I use a catch all often). Gmail have created an anticompetative situation where I can chose to pay them money, or have problems communicating with their customers.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    I prefer to pay someone... okay, anyone, who isn't Google. Fastmail, O365, Proton, whatever. Solves the problem and supports non-Google options.
    - nly 6y ago
      I actually want to switch to O365/outlook for my family domain name but refuse on principle because even with O365 Premium they require you to transfer your domain to GoDaddy... At the moment I'm with Fastmail, but the pricing isn't so competitive
      - CameronNemo 6y ago
        >they require you to transfer your domain to GoDaddy Not according to this page: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-your-own-domain-in-outlook-com-premium-61e21366-c809-44e5-a414-9bab47110e5f https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-your-own-doma...
tehlike 6y ago
Ex google employee here. I used to have two email accounts, one something I registered for fun (and my main email), other with my name+lastname@gmail. I set up forwarding from second one to first one, then I forgot the password. I tried to login probably a decade later last year. Couldn't remember the password. Asked internally if someone could help. They said they can't(they can easily verify who I am if they wanted). I asked them to send a password reset to the same email (name+lastname@gmail.com gets password reset email for name+lastname@gmail.com), they said they can't do. This would have worked for me due to forwarding, but no... Something's at google are great. Support is not one of them.
- LdSGSgvupDV 6y ago
  Maybe you just need a warrant?
BatteryMountain 6y ago
I have this problem with paypal: Made an account about 10 years ago with email address x, mobile telephone number y, bank debit card z with some security questions thrown in. I cannot remember my password from 10 years ago so I need to reset it. If I try to reset it, they want to send me an sms otp to the mobile number from 10 years ago which I no longer have. Obviously I cannot update the mobile number if I cannot log in. Another option they give me is to enter some portion of the debit card number that was linked to the account. I no longer have that account from that specific bank, nor have the old cards laying around. Another thing they offered was for me to fill out the answers to the security questions, but I absolutely hate these and always fill in random characters by mashing my keyboard, so no go here. In their help guide they say you can contact support if you cannot log in at all, but you have to log a support ticket.... which requires me to log in. Last time I gave up after 30 minutes of poking around their site to try and find a way to speak/email a human that can help me get back into the account, since almost every path leads back to the login screen which wants my debit card number from 10 years ago. So I've started ignoring paypal now. All their emails that I still get goes in the trash and I will never use them again. Keep in mind this was a business account linked to a business bank debit card (it was the only way back then to link to an account in my country, and only one bank offered the integration, since then things have become much more reasonable (cheaper business credit cards = international ease)). I'm fully willing (well not anymore) to send them a copy of my national id card to unlock my account while we speak on the phone, but they seem to have no path to support their clients unless logged in. Maybe its been fixed by now but I no longer care about it enough. If you build systems with an auth mechanism, please cater to all the unhappy paths your clients might fall into. I'm not one of those people who will go scream on twitter to get help, I just silently walk away and you lose a client. It's that simple. I'm not expecting them to treat me like a king, I just wanted to log into their site, that's all.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  > I cannot remember my password from 10 years ago > Another thing they offered was for me to fill out the answers to the security questions, but I absolutely hate these and always fill in random characters by mashing my keyboard, so no go here. This should go as a cautionary tale to always use a password manager. I, too, hate insecurity questions. But instead of mashing keys, I generate unique passwords for them and use the question as a username. Then save them in there as well.
criley2 6y ago
This is not what you want to hear, but if you pay Google you can get very quick support. The Google One product which includes cloud space and other features includes phone support for Google products. Turns out, when you use free services, you don't get support, but when you pay them even just like ~$1/mo (I think my Google One for more photo space in the cloud is $15/yr?) they'll pick up the phone and answer anything.
- abawany 6y ago
  I have Google One as well and while the support is quick, I don't have a good impression of their effectiveness when I asked a few basic questions (e.g. while GPhotos uses my overall quota, is its content accessible from GDrive)
  - criley2 6y ago
    That's fair, and obviously there is zero way you're going to get face time with an engineer that costs them $200k+/yr, and instead it's going to be someone they've hired at a tiny fraction of that. But that's true of nearly all consumer level support in all industries. Businesses pay big dollars for consultants and service level agreements for access to the higher level folks.
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
> My mailserver is marked as spam by gmail, a helpful HN commentor pointed out it may be my lack of ipv6 which appears to be the cause. I have no idea why ipv6 would indicate that I’m not a spammer, I can’t ask google because they don’t have a support line. It's actually a very old problem [0] introduced by Google in 2013. There are different workarounds depending on the MTA you use. Whenever you set up a new mail server you need to go through an increasingly longer checklist and it includes dealing with this issue. [0]
pjc50 6y ago
It would be a hilarious unintended outcome if the Google Union developed into the official unofficial Google Support Channel, because they care about public perception in a way that Google don't.
FreshFries 6y ago
There there is me: lost access to my gmail account (and reset telephone number) and all it took was a couple of emails & phone calls over a couple of days and I had the best customer experience for a free service ever. I was very happy with the proceedings. This happened twice over the last 10 or so years. Kind, professional, knowledgeable & acting according a strickt rulebook that tries to prevent social engineering as good as possible. I love google :)
- kwanbix 6y ago
  You are probably then the only people on earth that had a good support experience from google.
- bserge 6y ago
  We need to know the 10 minute work hours of this fantastic support :D
chewmieser 6y ago
FYI it could be something like ipv6 causing you to be seen as spam but I figured I'd share this tool (https://www.mail-tester.com/ https://www.mail-tester.com/) which I've used successfully many times to get into inboxes (particularly gmail) with custom mail servers.
daitangio 6y ago
I set up my email server for reducing GMail dependency. It was a bit a pain because Outlook.com banned my address, but Microsoft offer mw a way to resolve the issue and now I am appy with it. Now I use GMail as secondary email address along with my other emails, and avoid to use google docs. On my home network I installed PIHole and it works quite well. I live with no fear of banning and I am free to express my idea on my self hosted wordpress blog, and decide what to advertise in total freedom.
Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
I think one part of the solution to the social media and megacorp problem is mandating that all companies must provide 24/7/365 live customer support to all users at no additional cost with mandatory minimum fines per user per day for noncompliance or bad faith efforts. For most companies this represents no problem, they already do this, or are close enough. For Facebook Amazon tiktok Google etc it should be crippling to these loathsome racketeering enterprises.

superkuh 6y ago

Wow. I'm you in both respects. I just had the same problem with my dad and even though he can send and receive email from his gmail account they still won't tell him the password. All he has is the fragile oauth token on mail.app on his apple smart phone that can only connect via wifi due to the loss of the old phone number. Additionally, my mail from my independent mailserver just started being marked as spam by google (exactly when I sent mail to noaa.gov and fireeye's internal system was borked due to their solarwinds problems http://superkuh.com/spf-google-fuckery.txt http://superkuh.com/spf-google-fuckery.txt). I signed up for google's postmaster tools set my DNS TXT records but apparently I don't send enough mass mail to not be a mass mailer.

KMag 6y ago
> they still won't tell him the password The Google support people should have mentioned it, but hopefully, they wouldn't be able to tell him the password without investing tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cracking the hash. https://plaintextoffenders.com/ https://plaintextoffenders.com/
- charliebrownau 6y ago
  If it was important People would WRITE IT DOWN People would RECORD IT People would BACK IT UP Its not the job of companies, corporations or tech repair stuff to remember stuff for you
- superkuh 6y ago
  Is google really encrypting each individuals email based on a password they have no knowledge of? I know privacy oriented email hosts have tried to achieve this, but google? I'd hope the phone tech support understand the goal was to regain access to the account, through a reset or whatever mechanism, and not to just know the password. But maybe if my dad worded it like I did the same confusion could've happened.
  - KMag 6y ago
    > Is google really encrypting each individuals email based on a password they have no knowledge of? We're talking about giving out a forgotten password, not getting access to email contents. I used to work on the indexing system, not GMail, but my vague recollection is there are some master private keys (necessary for lawful intercept, etc.) locked in hardware modules for email storage, where very few binaries are able to get the hardware modules to perform public key decryptions. There are strong safeguards on humans using some of the binaries that do have access. Access to these encryption keys is orthogonal to access to the account password. My recollection of the Aurora attacks is that the intruders got access to some systems that were able to decrypt/display senders and subjects, but we believed they were unable to get at the email bodies.
  - Closi 6y ago
    They mean google does not have access to the password, as that is done via a one-way hash. They can do a password reset, however would need sufficient proof of account ownership. Having access to the account is unfortunately not enough proof to show ownership, as that could be achieved with access to someone else’s device.
pen2l 6y ago
You just have to wonder why this is. And I have a theory. My theory is they did the risk benefit analysis of all this and decided this was the best way to go. I think the the hole that opens up when you are open to appeals and special cases is too great, the bad press from one bad case is so bad that it's ok to ignore all the folks who have lost their accounts. I mean, what other explanation, what other reason can there possibly be for this?
protomyth 6y ago
I honestly wish the US government was banned from using Gmail. It has caused more problems than any usefulness warrants. Also, NSF is a pain too. [edit: I wonder how many of the down voters have actually sent email to a government agency using Gmail or dealt with some of NSF email issues firsthand?]
harryh 6y ago
Having access to a logged in account is definitely not sufficient evidence for a support team (at Google or anywhere else) to allow for a password reset on that account. If it was, then someone forgetting to log out on a machine they didn't own could be a much more serious problem than it is. Rather than just temporary access to the account that the true owner has the ability to revoke, it could result in a completely stolen account.
hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago
I would recommend ensuring the phone is backed up, that’ll reduce failure to deauthentication (as opposed to deauthentication and lost access to the phone) Edit: also consider setting up a mail forwarder to another address you own if you can from the app UI, I would do this on a test account first in case it forces you to reauthenticate, as it can be a suspicious action.

jjcon 6y ago

> My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. I’m in a similar position except I know my password. Google decided for whatever reason that my location was too different and now requires that I verify via a phone number I no longer have. I have access to the recovery email and even get ‘suspicious login prevented emails’ at the recovery address. I tried working through google support and was given a form to fill out but never heard back. I should have kept that number until I updated it yes... but I thought knowing the password and having the recovery email would be enough.... guess not. But yeah... fuck you google.

Triv888 6y ago
I've had that problem too, multiple times, where I knew the password but Google wouldn't let me use it (I almost lost my account). Google doesn't like users that clear cookies, block trackers, etc... I wish that there was a way to disable those "protections".
- tharkun__ 6y ago
  There is a really really simple one (at least for your private life but if your company uses G-Suite, you always have the admin to take care of things you forget): Do not use Google! It's as simple as that. I have never had a Gmail account until an Android device sort of forced it on me, because I definitely didn't want to link things up to my real email address, so I just signed up for the whole thing. Do I ever use that email address? Definitely not! Why would I? What happens if I ever loose access to that account? I have to register a new one for my Android device(s). Boohoo. Some of this obviously requires 'abstinence' and not having the same 'cool toys' as other people. I.e. if I buy lots of fancy apps that I actually rely on for my daily life, then loosing this Google Account will hurt. No longer have a PC and do everything including your banking, gaming etc. with the tablet (i.e. things you really need or things you paid a lot of money for)? Well, welcome to the walled garden where Google practically owns you.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago

dandare 6y ago

Anti-monopoly laws exist for a reason. Splitting Google (and other IT monopolies) is the only remedy their monopolistic behaviour.

zionic 6y ago
This is worse than monopolistic behavior. Show me where old school AT&T acted like this.
- spacemanmatt 6y ago
  Oh, sweet summer child
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  “We don’t care, we’re the phone company!” ((Elbows buttons)) ...funny Lily Tomlin skit.
sofixa 6y ago
In theory, yes, but in practice, especially in Google's case, that won't work. YouTube could probably survive on its own ( due to the astronomical costs associated we can't be sure unless Google share more numbers), but no other part of Google's consumer-oriented services, and even some of their business oriented ones ( G Suite/Workspace/whatever it's called this week) can't be profitable, ever, and are only subsidised by data at scale and ads. How would you split Google into entities that won't go bankrupt within a year? ( And you wouldn't want that because it would piss off people and would help the cause of the anti-regulation and anti-government uneducated people). Maybe GCP, Android foundation, YouTube, rest of Google could work, but the "rest of Google" is still too big and too powerful. Forcing them to open their data and platforms ( e.g. allowing other ad networks to access Google's tracking data and to serve ads via them) could diminish their monopoly, but it could also diminish their profits and force them to cut some less profitable parts of the company even more ( and that might be good). Same thing with Facebook, just a bit easier - splitting off Instagram and Whatsapp will absolutely improve things, but the remainder is still to big and powerful. Twitter is even worse, you can't split anything. Anti-monopoly laws and frameworks need to be updated for the modern world, because the logic that worked for physical assets, sales and infrastructure ( e.g. the US split oil companies and telcos along physical lines) no longer works for Internet companies.

kenniskrag 6y ago

can't you just disable ssl and sniff the password via wireshark?

ryan29 6y ago
No. It'll be a token.
- dhdhhdd 6y ago
  Thunderbird will store the password in password manager though. It should be accessible.
- inetknght 6y ago
  What does it being a token have to do with anything? An unencrypted token is just as vulnerable as an unencrypted password.
  - freemonster 6y ago
    Tokens have defined scope and expire, so not the same as a password that doesn’t have these limitations.
    - inetknght 6y ago
      If the stream is encrypted that's great. The token is likely to expire before the stream could be decrypted. But if the stream isn't encrypted then it doesn't matter. A robot can easily collect the token and utilize it before the token expires.

viraptor 6y ago

> I have no idea why ipv6 would indicate that I’m not a spammer It's likely not about ipv6, but instead it's about your ipv4 having bad reputation in the past. Basically you changed your source address to a cleaner one.

ryan29 6y ago
This is very likely the case. Check the IP on a site that does IP reputation scoring [1]. They probably don't have a database of "bad" addresses for IPv6, so it squeaks by for now. I'm sure that'll change in the future though. My current IP shows "0 - low risk" with that tool. Grabbing a random PIA IP shows "93% - Abusive IP" with a warning about being a high risk proxy connection. The random VPN IP is also on SPAM blocklists. I'm guessing a huge portion of cheap shared hosting is the same. 1. https://www.ipqualityscore.com/ip-reputation-check https://www.ipqualityscore.com/ip-reputation-check
- yokem55 6y ago
  FWIW - I suspect the "IP reputation" site you referenced is utter bullshit when it comes to its "Proxy Detection". Looking at my own residential public address it calls it a 'low risk proxy' when I can assure that it most definitely is not. It doesn't help that their explanation for how they attempt to detect this is a pile of marketing word salad. I don't expect them to be completely transparent to their methodology, but they should make some attempt at presenting a bit of technical background.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    It doesn't have to be bullshit. You have a sample size of 1 and realistically we can't expect 100% accuracy. We also don't know how often your IP is changing - maybe it was a proxy endpoint recently?
    - yokem55 6y ago
      It's a static address that hasn't changed for 3+ years. The only thing I can think of the makes it proxy-ish, is that I have a 6 person household here. Edit- The IP my employer uses as its outbound nat IP that we vpn from while WFH (so it actually is a proxy) gets a clean bill of health while our corporate email server (not a proxy at all) is tagged as one.

donmcronald 6y ago

> My mom forgot her gmail password and no longer had the same mobile number for a reset, the secondary reset option was set to my email but would not send a reset despite this. I've seen this before too. A huge problem right now is the massive tech companies want an unreasonable view into your life. They want your identity, phone number, photo id, location history, credit history, etc. before they'll treat you like a real person. If you think I'm joking, spin up a transient environment, connect to a VPN, and try to participate online without linking all of your accounts to a piece of real world identity information that, in turn, can be linked to all the other things I listed above. You can't even get an email address without a phone number. Part of the issue there is the huge tech companies are abusing their market positions to assign bad reputation to the IP blocks owned by everyone else. You can't use a VPS for ANYTHING but incoming connections because the IPs are flagged all by Google et al. How do you run an API server that needs to make any outbound connections if Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. all consider the IP block tainted? I guess you just need to buy your IPs from Google, right? That's exactly the same tactic Google used with GMail. The original spam filtering was super aggressive and shitty and the solution, according to Google, was to use GMail instead of other providers. "Get a big provider" is a very poor answer to a question that has a technical solution IMO. > My mailserver is marked as spam by gmail Have you tried GSuite (or whatever they're calling it these days)? /s

Hnrobert42 6y ago
Not to take away from your larger point, but you can get an email address without a phone number from ProtonMail. In the past, gmx.com also let you register privately, but I didn’t know anymore. Also, there are lots of sites that let you receive an SMS in their number.
- ev1 6y ago
  On many (most) VPN connections, Protonmail prompts for another email or a SMS (due to abuse, presumably) or a non-disposable email (depending on severity)
hertzrat 6y ago
Speaking of con troubles, I think Bell (in Canada) blocks Firefox VPN. I can’t connect to anything when not on wifi.

mav3rick 6y ago

You can get support by paying for Google 0ne where a human helps you.

hertzrat 6y ago

Hmm... my mom forgot her outlook password recently and doesn’t have a cell phone so she can’t get any auth codes. She says she can’t find a way to contact support. Any suggestions?

hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago
See if a telco will provide her the old number. If it’s owned by another entity, kindly explain the situation and ask them (though, that’ll be an awkward conversation, as the messages quite often have ‘do not share this code with anyone’) The password reset also supports a backup email along with a ‘when did you sign up for this account’ question - for me the backup email was not working. I was able to derive the creation date via an email to my account (which was the backup email address). For me, the backup email function wasn’t working, thus sniping the mobile number from a provider was the solution.

codazoda 6y ago

Get your own domain for ~$13 a year and then forward your email to Gmail or another online provider you like. If Google kills your account you can forward it elsewhere. I recently started using the startup https://hanami.run https://hanami.run to forward my mail. It's a brand new startup that I read about here on HN and the creator is super helpful. Edit: I realize that parents Mom and my Mom are not going to do this, but us Hacker News types should.

bbkane 6y ago
Looks like the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy links from the front page 404
hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago
My mailserver can’t point to gmail unless I get gmail premium I chose instead to run my own mailserver (it’s a pain, but it’s very scaleable and I use a catch all often). Gmail have created an anticompetative situation where I can chose to pay them money, or have problems communicating with their customers.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  I prefer to pay someone... okay, anyone, who isn't Google. Fastmail, O365, Proton, whatever. Solves the problem and supports non-Google options.
  - nly 6y ago
    I actually want to switch to O365/outlook for my family domain name but refuse on principle because even with O365 Premium they require you to transfer your domain to GoDaddy... At the moment I'm with Fastmail, but the pricing isn't so competitive
    - CameronNemo 6y ago
      >they require you to transfer your domain to GoDaddy Not according to this page: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-your-own-domain-in-outlook-com-premium-61e21366-c809-44e5-a414-9bab47110e5f https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-your-own-doma...

tehlike 6y ago

Ex google employee here. I used to have two email accounts, one something I registered for fun (and my main email), other with my name+lastname@gmail. I set up forwarding from second one to first one, then I forgot the password. I tried to login probably a decade later last year. Couldn't remember the password. Asked internally if someone could help. They said they can't(they can easily verify who I am if they wanted). I asked them to send a password reset to the same email (name+lastname@gmail.com gets password reset email for name+lastname@gmail.com), they said they can't do. This would have worked for me due to forwarding, but no... Something's at google are great. Support is not one of them.

LdSGSgvupDV 6y ago
Maybe you just need a warrant?

BatteryMountain 6y ago

I have this problem with paypal: Made an account about 10 years ago with email address x, mobile telephone number y, bank debit card z with some security questions thrown in. I cannot remember my password from 10 years ago so I need to reset it. If I try to reset it, they want to send me an sms otp to the mobile number from 10 years ago which I no longer have. Obviously I cannot update the mobile number if I cannot log in. Another option they give me is to enter some portion of the debit card number that was linked to the account. I no longer have that account from that specific bank, nor have the old cards laying around. Another thing they offered was for me to fill out the answers to the security questions, but I absolutely hate these and always fill in random characters by mashing my keyboard, so no go here. In their help guide they say you can contact support if you cannot log in at all, but you have to log a support ticket.... which requires me to log in. Last time I gave up after 30 minutes of poking around their site to try and find a way to speak/email a human that can help me get back into the account, since almost every path leads back to the login screen which wants my debit card number from 10 years ago. So I've started ignoring paypal now. All their emails that I still get goes in the trash and I will never use them again. Keep in mind this was a business account linked to a business bank debit card (it was the only way back then to link to an account in my country, and only one bank offered the integration, since then things have become much more reasonable (cheaper business credit cards = international ease)). I'm fully willing (well not anymore) to send them a copy of my national id card to unlock my account while we speak on the phone, but they seem to have no path to support their clients unless logged in. Maybe its been fixed by now but I no longer care about it enough. If you build systems with an auth mechanism, please cater to all the unhappy paths your clients might fall into. I'm not one of those people who will go scream on twitter to get help, I just silently walk away and you lose a client. It's that simple. I'm not expecting them to treat me like a king, I just wanted to log into their site, that's all.

Semaphor 6y ago
> I cannot remember my password from 10 years ago > Another thing they offered was for me to fill out the answers to the security questions, but I absolutely hate these and always fill in random characters by mashing my keyboard, so no go here. This should go as a cautionary tale to always use a password manager. I, too, hate insecurity questions. But instead of mashing keys, I generate unique passwords for them and use the question as a username. Then save them in there as well.

criley2 6y ago

This is not what you want to hear, but if you pay Google you can get very quick support. The Google One product which includes cloud space and other features includes phone support for Google products. Turns out, when you use free services, you don't get support, but when you pay them even just like ~$1/mo (I think my Google One for more photo space in the cloud is $15/yr?) they'll pick up the phone and answer anything.

abawany 6y ago
I have Google One as well and while the support is quick, I don't have a good impression of their effectiveness when I asked a few basic questions (e.g. while GPhotos uses my overall quota, is its content accessible from GDrive)
- criley2 6y ago
  That's fair, and obviously there is zero way you're going to get face time with an engineer that costs them $200k+/yr, and instead it's going to be someone they've hired at a tiny fraction of that. But that's true of nearly all consumer level support in all industries. Businesses pay big dollars for consultants and service level agreements for access to the higher level folks.

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

> My mailserver is marked as spam by gmail, a helpful HN commentor pointed out it may be my lack of ipv6 which appears to be the cause. I have no idea why ipv6 would indicate that I’m not a spammer, I can’t ask google because they don’t have a support line. It's actually a very old problem [0] introduced by Google in 2013. There are different workarounds depending on the MTA you use. Whenever you set up a new mail server you need to go through an increasingly longer checklist and it includes dealing with this issue. [0]

pjc50 6y ago

It would be a hilarious unintended outcome if the Google Union developed into the official unofficial Google Support Channel, because they care about public perception in a way that Google don't.

FreshFries 6y ago

There there is me: lost access to my gmail account (and reset telephone number) and all it took was a couple of emails & phone calls over a couple of days and I had the best customer experience for a free service ever. I was very happy with the proceedings. This happened twice over the last 10 or so years. Kind, professional, knowledgeable & acting according a strickt rulebook that tries to prevent social engineering as good as possible. I love google :)

kwanbix 6y ago
You are probably then the only people on earth that had a good support experience from google.
bserge 6y ago
We need to know the 10 minute work hours of this fantastic support :D

chewmieser 6y ago

FYI it could be something like ipv6 causing you to be seen as spam but I figured I'd share this tool (https://www.mail-tester.com/ https://www.mail-tester.com/) which I've used successfully many times to get into inboxes (particularly gmail) with custom mail servers.

daitangio 6y ago

I set up my email server for reducing GMail dependency. It was a bit a pain because Outlook.com banned my address, but Microsoft offer mw a way to resolve the issue and now I am appy with it. Now I use GMail as secondary email address along with my other emails, and avoid to use google docs. On my home network I installed PIHole and it works quite well. I live with no fear of banning and I am free to express my idea on my self hosted wordpress blog, and decide what to advertise in total freedom.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago

I think one part of the solution to the social media and megacorp problem is mandating that all companies must provide 24/7/365 live customer support to all users at no additional cost with mandatory minimum fines per user per day for noncompliance or bad faith efforts. For most companies this represents no problem, they already do this, or are close enough. For Facebook Amazon tiktok Google etc it should be crippling to these loathsome racketeering enterprises.