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Comment by jsaxton86 | Hacker News Reader

"We use Gmail for email and Google Groups for lists."

"What we have today works pretty well for our current size—around 45 people."

So if I can manage to get the Google authentication credentials for just one of Stripe's 45 employees, I can get access to the vast majority of Stripe's email? I hope they require two factor authentication.

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Yes, we do require two factor auth, and we're very stringent about laptop security generally. We're pretty cognizant that, even at a less open company, compromising any employee can generally be used to obtain a surprising amount of sensitive company information.

In light of this issue, what have you done to restrict the amount of harm that even a trusted employee can do? I'd be happy to learn that after a suitable time period for disputes, literally no employee would be able to provide any demographic info related to a particular charge. You can't harm my customers if you don't have access to their data.

Yikes. I was just skimming HN before a meeting to talk about how we are going to handle payment flow. Literally just put a huge question mark next to Stripe on my list now.

A compromised employee machine will always cause problems. (Just look at Google, the New York Times, etc.) We're obviously careful about what goes in email, and I think the open-by-default policy largely makes the security properties of email clearer. (I.e., don't put sensitive material here.)

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