Joined
·
11,557 Posts
I'm starting to wonder.
I wouldn't worry about the hackershow much of that information Google has collected would be accessible to good hacker?
A guess colchar: could you make this deliberately-painful process easier by "just" giving up your mobile number to identify yourself?Google is royally pissing me off this week. They have gone to a new sign-in feature for Gmail and every day since I have had to go through extra security measures (ie. typing out a word to demonstrate that I am human) just to get access to my primary email account. Hell, I jump through fewer hoops to access my bank and credit card accounts online! If I could get Gmail to work with Outlook I would do so, but I somehow suspect that this new sing-in procedure would screw that up even more. Maybe it is time to ditch my Gmail account and starting using my outlook.com account for personal email.
The funny thing is that they are not asking for a cell number, they are simply asking that I re-type some random word to verify that I am human.A guess colchar: could you make this deliberately-painful process easier by "just" giving up your mobile number to identify yourself?
Mobile numbers are the Holy Grail for the big online players; give up that cherry and you are theirs so they are increasingly aggressive about trying to collect them.
In one of his recent podcasts, Marc Maron recalled a quote from someone regarding the internet: "When you don't pay for the product, that means you're the product". Well-stated.Google is royally pissing me off this week.
They have gone to a new sign-in feature for Gmail and every day since I have had to go through extra security measures (ie. typing out a word to demonstrate that I am human) just to get access to my primary email account. Hell, I jump through fewer hoops to access my bank and credit card accounts online! If I could get Gmail to work with Outlook I would do so, but I somehow suspect that this new sing-in procedure would screw that up even more.
Maybe it is time to ditch my Gmail account and starting using my outlook.com account for personal email.
Maybe it's just you. I just accessed my gmail acct from this laptop, my cell and a tablet. No secret questions or anything like that. Same with the wife's acct that was set up 4 years ago when she got an android phone and hasn't been checked or used since. If I have to give a phone number I send '867-5309. I don't think I've given that out for about a year or so.The funny thing is that they are not asking for a cell number, they are simply asking that I re-type some random word to verify that I am human.
That being said, I do get the request for a cell number every few months. How many times do they need to be told 'no' before they understand that the person simply refuses to supply this info?
I have an acct. specifically set up for registering software, for youtube and things like that. For actual mail, some one walks up to the house and puts it in the slot. The e-mail acct is one that was set up years ago and is not traceable to me. Leave no paper trail. I only access it from one laptop.In one of his recent podcasts, Marc Maron recalled a quote from someone regarding the internet: "When you don't pay for the product, that means you're the product". Well-stated.
In other words, we need to learn to be wary of things we have gotten accustomed to getting for free. All free services eventually get monetized in some manner, like selling the information. Maybe not right away, but eventually. Not many people like to work for nothing.
I had to register a gmail account in order to be able to post demo videos on Youtube and respond to comments and questions. But for actual mail, I pay for a service that gives me a clean interface, and keeps much of the spam out.
Maybe it's just you. I just accessed my gmail acct from this laptop, my cell and a tablet. No secret questions or anything like that. Same with the wife's acct that was set up 4 years ago when she got an android phone and hasn't been checked or used since. If I have to give a phone number I send '867-5309. I don't think I've given that out for about a year or so.