Rant: I hate cellphones

[Paul Keith]

Just venting out some anger and apparently this is old news:

So it's been a while since I created a Gmail account. Lo and behold as soon as I hit the account creation menu it was asking for mobile phone number verification. Oh ****

There's probably a loophole out there if I just Google a bit but I ****ing hate it when companies do this. I hated when IMDB did this even though I wasn't even a poster at all because it didn't ****ing increase the intelligence of the posters there anyway and it just trains non-techies to hand out their personal information willy nilly.

The worse thing about this all is that unlike DRM it ****ing screws the guys who don't know or have the interest in abusing the system. Gmail could have ****ing gone freemium for this but no... apparently everyone must suffer in this ever changing world where cellphones are not phones but jiggle widget automatons of spam and pay. No wonder the IPhone was a success: It was the first ****ing affordable OSX!!!

P.S. Please delete this if this crosses the line. Lately I'm feeling strange. Maybe it's this energy drink I drank. I know I'm not drunk but **** it. Poor model for reducing spam or mail abuse. Worse gmail idea since Buzz's genius idea to make your gmail details public. Where's a ****ing genius when you need it: http://www.geekcultu...oyarchives/1504.html

Google, next time, just ****ing sell a pager (or put a ****ing Gmail serial in one of your new netbooks) before doing similar **** like this. You don't want Facebook to steal your e-mail market too.

[nudone]

Heheh. Sounds like a fair reaction (but then, I drink too many energy drinks too).

Perhaps expecting us all to have a mobile/cell phone (and willing to provide its number) will mean we'll all end up with secondary mobile phones for receiving spam - just like many of use have a secondary spammy email account.

[zridling]

I feel for you, Paul. I have an old crappy cellphone on purpose: it drops calls, the other person can't hear me clearly, and it has no text function. Whereas I'd rather text than talk (everyone I talk to wants to talk to me for 55 minutes except bill collectors; they all hang up on me). However, this little mobile phone number that Google asks saved my butt twice. Once when someone was using my account to send spam and a second time when my ID was being stolen. I was able to use the phone to change my password within five minutes of the first attack, locking them out.

As far as people asking for you phone, I almost always give a false number, such as 222-2228. But here's a trick I use at hardware stores which routinely ask for your phone number at the point of purchase to "help verify a return if needed": I just give them their own store number on the front door. I've never once had an employee notice. And it's almost always within view of the cash registers since they're near the door.

[timns]

And this is the Rick Roll number:

985-655-2500

[Paul Keith]

Once when someone was using my account to send spam and a second time when my ID was being stolen. I was able to use the phone to change my password within five minutes of the first attack, locking them out.

The thing with this though is that you can have this option AFTER you made an account if Google really want to save you from getting hacked.

As far as people asking for you phone, I almost always give a false number, such as 222-2228. But here's a trick I use at hardware stores which routinely ask for your phone number at the point of purchase to "help verify a return if needed": I just give them their own store number on the front door. I've never once had an employee notice. And it's almost always within view of the cash registers since they're near the door.

Thanks. But these tips are always personal tips handed down to lucky people and mostly invented by social engineers. The average person who needs a free unintrusive webmail better hope they're a social creature who visits donationcoder or knows a person who does this.

Nonetheless, the worse sin is still how it trains people to do a certain something to get a certain something. It may not seem that this is really hazardous right now but down the line you're going to get the next generation equivalent of users and programs who install adware, unknowingly click ads, unknowingly open their mails to spam but in the context of the future where users willingly subject themselves to contextual ads, facebook spam and service inconvenience if you are not a smart knowledgeable web aware person. All for what?! Nothing. Spam now has an easier venue. Demands for stealing telephones and gadgets increases. Thieves are given more incentives to not just steal items and erase them but steal the data inside. All so that we could be given the illusion of feeling a little safer "currently" IF something wrong happens. I hate these type of things. Google already has the carte blanche of information from offering Gmail for free - at the very least they should make it more convenient to their users but now we're starting to see the pseudo-idealize big companies follow suit with the tactics Microsoft and Apple is known for and it's going to be an even rockier road from here on out for casual users introduced to technology.

[Paul Keith]

To summarize my point, I think I'm going to paraphrase this

If you're not paying for it, you are not the customer. You are the guy selling the product you payed with your own hard earned money for free.

...or something even more simple:

We gave away our freedom to them without much of a battle, now they want to take our slavery too.

Anyways I'm obviously not thinking rational and am talking over myself a lot so now I'm not going to post anything in DC for awhile. I apologize if I was unknowingly rude to anyone.

[4wd]

So it's been a while since I created a Gmail account. Lo and behold as soon as I hit the account creation menu it was asking for mobile phone number verification. Oh ****

-Paul Keith (February 18, 2011, 07:20 AM)

I have a question: What account creation menu?

I just created a GMail account and it didn't ask for a mobile number.

[Paul Keith]

http://mail.google.c...en&answer=114129

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=dgbIQNJqOrM

[tomos]

So it's been a while since I created a Gmail account. Lo and behold as soon as I hit the account creation menu it was asking for mobile phone number verification. Oh ****

-Paul Keith (February 18, 2011, 07:20 AM)

I have a question: What account creation menu?

I just created a GMail account and it didn't ask for a mobile number.

-4wd (February 18, 2011, 10:55 AM)

maybe it depends on country?

[jgpaiva]

So it's been a while since I created a Gmail account. Lo and behold as soon as I hit the account creation menu it was asking for mobile phone number verification. Oh ****

-Paul Keith (February 18, 2011, 07:20 AM)

I have a question: What account creation menu?

I just created a GMail account and it didn't ask for a mobile number.

-4wd (February 18, 2011, 10:55 AM)

maybe it depends on country?

-tomos (February 18, 2011, 11:59 AM)

There must be something else also. I've tried once to create a second account for myself and it asked for cell phone number, but just now I tried creating it in a private tab and it didn't ask me for anything.

[4wd]

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=dgbIQNJqOrM

-Paul Keith (February 18, 2011, 10:59 AM)

That explains it then, I've always selected to use my own security question on any account that gives you the option.

Maybe that also highlights how insecure the 'standard' security questions are.

<Slightly OT>
The Australian Governments' Medicare site asks for the answers to five (5) security questions which it will randomly ask for the answers to two of at random times as you access online.   Good idea except I can only remember the answers to 2 or 3 of them, so I have to keep refreshing pages occasionally until the right questions come up.  If they let me choose my own I'd have a better chance of remembering.

[zridling]

Interesting experiment -- If you want to know what Google knows about you, even with AdBlock installed, go here:
http://www.google.co...ads/preferences/view

They know I'm an old guy (49) who likes music, but that's about it. Good thing they haven't visited my basement.

[kartal]

Interesting experiment -- If you want to know what Google knows about you, even with AdBlock installed, go here:
http://www.google.co...ads/preferences/view

They know I'm an old guy (49) who likes music, but that's about it. Good thing they haven't visited my basement.

-zridling (February 18, 2011, 07:21 PM)

I tried it

"
Request blocked by Privoxy: Path matches generic block pattern.
See why this block applies or go to http://www.google.co...ds/preferences?hl=en anyway.

"

[4wd]

They seem to know stuff all about me, I just go straight to the page kartal mentions.

I guess that means that Adblock+ and OptimizeGoogle are working plus I don't allow 3rd party cookies or keep any cookies beyond the current session.

[Renegade]

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=dgbIQNJqOrM

-Paul Keith (February 18, 2011, 10:59 AM)

That explains it then, I've always selected to use my own security question on any account that gives you the option.

Maybe that also highlights how insecure the 'standard' security questions are.

<Slightly OT>
The Australian Governments' Medicare site asks for the answers to five (5) security questions which it will randomly ask for the answers to two of at random times as you access online.   Good idea except I can only remember the answers to 2 or 3 of them, so I have to keep refreshing pages occasionally until the right questions come up.  If they let me choose my own I'd have a better chance of remembering.

-4wd (February 18, 2011, 12:22 PM)

Security questions are simply useless most of the time except for adding an extra layer of failure.

What street did you live on?
Real Answer: Sunny Street

Wrong Answers:
sunny street
sunny
sunny st
sunny st.
Sunny St.
etc.

Just how does that help? It needs to be semantic and not syntactic.

[40hz]

We gave away our freedom to them without much of a battle, now they want to take our slavery too.

-Paul Keith (February 18, 2011, 10:52 AM)

Bravo Mr Keith! There are times when you come out with something so absolutely spot-on that it floors me. Brilliant insight, to say nothing of a nice turn of phrase.