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A comment on Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access 3 times a year. Parent comment

Re:Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access ... by judge2020 on Friday October 07, 2022 @10:31AM (#33121875)
Who's to say that your email account getting hacked is less dire than losing access to it? Attackers can easily search your inbox for 'verify your email', visit any website of value, and use their access to change the account away from your email to an address that they own, effectively removing your access to your third-party website accounts entirely.
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Re:Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access ... by Wowfunhappy on Friday October 07, 2022 @10:35AM (#33121931)
I don't know that it is less dire, but I do think it's less likely. Are homeless people's email accounts getting hacked three times per year?

Also—maybe getting hacked is worse, maybe loosing access is worse... but who are you to make that decision? Google can set the default, but the user should be able to decide on the balance that's appropriate for them.

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Re:Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access ... by yellowapple on Friday October 07, 2022 @01:39PM (#33124543)
> Are homeless people's email accounts getting hacked three times per year?

The aversion to 2FA makes them seem like easy targets if I'm looking for addresses to use for spam.

> maybe getting hacked is worse, or maybe loosing access is worse, but the user should have the right to make that decision

Getting hacked makes losing access considerably more likely. This ain't one or the other.

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Re:Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access ... by Wowfunhappy on Friday October 07, 2022 @06:58PM (#33127973)
> The aversion to 2FA makes them seem like easy targets if I'm looking for addresses to use for spam.

If you want to spam people, why not just sign up for your own gmail account?

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Re:Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access ... by yellowapple on Friday October 07, 2022 @07:07PM (#33128061)
Because then it'd be tied to my number (assuming I haven't figured out some workaround) and could then be traced back to me.
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Re:Gmail 2FA causes the homeless to permanently lose access ... by sph on Friday October 07, 2022 @11:21AM (#33122558)
Because you can still use an account everybody knows the password of.

It's a terrible place to be in, but isn't nowhere as bad as being a homeless person with no access to HN and Twitter, having Google delete your account and nowhere to complain about. Because that is even worse.

[ Parent | on HN ]