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Comment by Matt_Cutts | Hacker News Reader

I wasn't exactly sure who would look into this, but I started the ball rolling internally and asked if someone could investigate.

The post has been updated: "UPDATE: After doing extensive checking with extended family, this has proven to be legitimate (though very unexpected). Please ignore the post and move along, Gmail is still secure for now! My sincere apologies for raising an alarm."

So, back to your regular Christmas Eve activities.

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Fantastic, Matt, really appreciate it! Hopefully we can fix it.

I actually think that it is more fantastic for them that you have brought this to their attention then it is for you. Hard to believe that this is so random that it has only happened to you.

I saw it happen once in the early days of gmail. I assumed it was an early bug that got weeded out quickly

We occasionally get something like this reported to us against Chrome (people assume the browser is doing something fishy). So far it's always turned out that someone else simply logged in to check their email without the primary computer owner's knowledge. So, the first thing I'd suggest checking is if anyone else may have used the computer, or perhaps let a visiting friend use it. It's the holidays after all, and most people have a lot more traffic around the house than usual.

This isn't to say there couldn't be a bug in the session handling, just that my repeated experience has shown the human element to be far more likely.

Hey it's Matt Cutts - I didn't realize you were on HN. Keep up the great work on your SEO Videos :)

You may want to cancel that ball...

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