YHK - yet another hacker news clone

26 points keymasta 54 minutes ago 21 comments

As we know, google has been effective at automating a lot of their systems, to the point where it can feel like there isn't any help available from a human. So what is supposed to be the plan when this type of situation happens?

Basically I have a situation that after my phone was stolen, I can't get into any of my accounts that are either connected to google, or connected to the phone via 2FA. This has made it complicated/impossible not only to get info about my phone, but also my banking, email, drive, etc.

Of course they offer you "multiple options" to recover an account, but not if you forgot your old email's password. At that point the options you get are,

  a) Use old phone (obviously the phone is long gone)
  b) Use current phone (the phone is gone)
  c) Use old email (I haven't used it in like 12 years)
Does anyone know if their is a process to appeal 2FA or anything to deal with this type of situation?

I'd imagine that this has happened to people many many times, and given how phones and particularly, google auth have become so critical to accomplishing essential tasks within society, there must be some way. Or maybe it's just like, once your phone is gone, you are completely over with society? If anyone has any experience with this or inside knowledge please share it!

I'm sure people here have heard of this, and maybe experienced it themselves.

Is there a secret option that exists that allows us to use passwords instead of rigamarole? I would love an account that let me simply log in with a password, like google used to be.

runjake 47 minutes ago | parent

The only secret option I know of is to have a popular social media account and complain online.

Other than that, I copy/pasted your post into Claude and it had some good ideas.

phildougherty 47 minutes ago | parent

need to save your recovery keys (text file) before you lost the phone

mococa 45 minutes ago | parent

There's no way, no human contact. That's why I de-googled myself.

lotsofpulp 37 minutes ago | parent

No human contact is a plus for security, as the human is the weakest link that can give up your authentication to someone that isn’t you.

mococa 30 minutes ago | parent

Have you heard about Meta AI doing support?

tempfile 29 minutes ago | parent

"I am permanently locked out of my account with no recourse" is also a security issue.

ks2048 6 minutes ago | parent

The human factor is walking into your local branch with your face and an ID - something that can’t be done on a large scale by bots.

sampullman 43 minutes ago | parent

If you don't have the authenticator backup codes and you didn't turn on cloud sync in the app, you might be out of luck.

You can get a replacement SIM though and use it with a new phone, so the phone number recovery option should work.

uberman 40 minutes ago | parent

This. Can't you get your number moved to a new phone? I have never don't anything magic when upgrading my phone other than move contacts.

Apreche 40 minutes ago | parent

You were supposed to save your backup codes.

ticulatedspline 40 minutes ago | parent

Isn't there an SMS option? buy a new phone and have them send you an OTP via SMS.

> once you're phone is gone, you are completely over with society?

yes, I'm waiting for the Black-Mirror episode where someone drops their phone and basically dies, can't contact anyone, can't unlock or start their car, can't get an uber, can't pay for anything, can't navigate without gps, can't log into anything etc.

keymasta 18 minutes ago | parent

Pretty similar to how my life feels right now.

SAI_Peregrinus 37 minutes ago | parent

The same way you recover any other deleted data for which you didn't make a backup: you don't. You eat the loss & make new accounts. Then you remember to make and test backups for the future.

Even if they had customer support, if that customer support had a backdoor to unlock your account it would be regularly used by malicious parties to steal people's accounts & data.

dvngnt_ 19 minutes ago | parent

They could do ID verification

wccrawford 28 minutes ago | parent

Everything you listed, plus a recovery email option, plus backup codes, plus SMS.

That's already a lot and anything easier would allow people to just take over accounts that they don't have a right to.

SoftTalker 25 minutes ago | parent

You're going to have more success working with the providers of the other accounts and services rather than Google. That means a lot more legwork on your part but banks and other online services all have processes to deal with lost passwords. In some cases you may have to physically go somewhere with ID and other documents.

Consider it a learning experience.

pards 21 minutes ago | parent

Going forward, consider using an authenticator that securely syncs across multiple devices to remove the single point of failure risk.

I use Proton Authenticator now [0]

Authy used to do this, then they enshittified their app and bricked the desktop version.

[0]: https://proton.me/authenticator

flowerlad 12 minutes ago | parent

Google authenticator supports syncing across multiple devices.

mixmastamyk 20 minutes ago | parent

Does your browser have the email password saved?

autoexec 18 minutes ago | parent

Man, passwords sure are nice aren't they! All you have to do is remember one because your password manager remembers all the rest of your randomly generated passwords for you and as long as you keep a backup of the password database you never have to worry about this bullshit.

thrownaway561 4 minutes ago | parent

Honestly.... This is why I have everything in Bitwarden. All 2FA runs through it so even if my phone got stolen, I could still access everything. I honestly don't understand why more people don't pay the $10 a year and just use Bitwarden.