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Comment by fncivivue7 | Hacker News Reader

We're talking about hackers getting access to users accounts, that's not a Google problem, that's an everyone problem.

Yes, I am well aware of that. I have been on Hacker News since 2009 under my Mz handle and I have a Certificate in GIS from UC-Riverside, the most respected GIS program in the world at the time that I attended (2002, IIRC).

I don't try to crow about being some kind of tech genius because for the HN crowd I'm not. But I'm not poor due to being mentally retarded or something. I have an incurable medical condition as does one of my adult sons.

Perfectly average geographers on HN represent! I feel like seeing another GISer in the tech world is like seeing someone from your country while on vacation. You’ve just got to say hi because it feels so rare.

Edit: thanks! Solved. I’ve deleted this part of the comment because I always feel very socially awkward and afraid I’ll make others feel awkward.

https://doreenmichele.blogspot.com

Sorry for the pain

If you have been in hn so long you do know the numerous times people have lost accounts by not having backup to 2FA. TOTP is the only option.

I'm sure plenty of people would rather live with the small chance of a hacker even wanting to gain access to their account than the very large chance of eventually losing access to the account entirely.

Although they probably wouldn't want to live with all their emails being discarded because gmail becomes so easy to hack and everyone assumes gmail accounts are spammers.

Huge amounts of spam already originate from gmail addresses, so I don't think this is a good example. That's not to say that I think security should be weakened, though - it should not, but for other reasons.

I already assume all mail I receive is spam, Gmail or no.

Back at the start of 2FA rolling out it used to be an absolutely massive issue where the attackers would call up support and tell a sob story and have the account reset and in the control of the attackers.

As a user it doesn't matter how well you manage your own security when that can happen.

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