{"items": [{"author": "Jess", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978426603122", "anchor": "fb-978426603122", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff, do you know why Google doesn't have a mechanism to allow people to pay for a restoration of access to their account using non-automated means? Like you get on the phone with a live human, provide a bunch of legal documents to prove you are who you say you are, etc. This would be relatively expensive (compared to everything else being free), maybe a few hundred bucks, but would provide a backstop on how terrible things could get if you were locked out of your account.", "timestamp": "1548121921"}, {"author": "Jess", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978426603122&reply_comment_id=978426957412", "anchor": "fb-978426603122_978426957412", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I don't really have a sense of how often this happens. The best reason I can think of that Google might not do it is because it would look bad or create bad incentives to more aggressively block suspicious accounts, or for them to profit off poor design. If it's pretty rare, they could even just set a high enough fee to deter people from over-using it and give the money away.", "timestamp": "1548122060"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978426603122&reply_comment_id=978428234852", "anchor": "fb-978426603122_978428234852", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Jess I don't know, but one issue is that providing lots of documentation showing I'm Jeff Kaufman doesn't prove that I should have jeff.t.kaufman@gmail.com. You could have an automated thing where you could upload documents to Google in advance to register your identity, and then you could use the documents later to authenticate and reclaim an account? I doubt many people would upload their docs, though, mostly because it's a hassle but also because of \"giving Google more data\" concerns.", "timestamp": "1548123414"}, {"author": "Jess", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978426603122&reply_comment_id=978428828662", "anchor": "fb-978426603122_978428828662", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I don't think up-front documentation is necessary. All you need to do ahead of time is give them enough information to uniquely identify a single person. (The costly authentication process is only necessary in the rare case of being locked out.) The info might be just your social security number, which seems hardly any privacy invasion at all if they agree to use it only for that purpose. (And you already trust them to not read all your email.) And if you didn't want to do that, you could just say something like \"The Jess who lived at 123 Main st, Springfield, OH in 2007\", and then if you lost your account you'd need to get something notarized or something proving this to be the case.
I agree lots of people would not do this ahead of time, but it seems like much less of a hassle than all the stuff involved with 2FA, which Google clearly thinks is worth at least asking the user to set up.", "timestamp": "1548123907"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978426603122&reply_comment_id=978434637022", "anchor": "fb-978426603122_978434637022", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Jess that makes sense, though getting something notarized wouldn't really help. All a notary does is verify your documentation, which is the same thing sending your documentation in for review would allow.", "timestamp": "1548127346"}, {"author": "Jess", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978426603122&reply_comment_id=978472830482", "anchor": "fb-978426603122_978472830482", "service": "fb", "text": "→ I think a notary can be used to create affidavits. I affirm in a document that a bunch of things are true, then sign it and swear that it's accurate in front of a notary who has seen my ID. Now I can be sued (or convicted of perjury?) if I lied.
This is obviously not as good as physical proof that I am the person with a certain social security number, since I might lie and it would be costly for Google to find and punish me (say, if the real owner of the account surfaced also with an affidavit), but if it's super rare or if Google makes affidavit submission very expensive, then in principle I think it could work.", "timestamp": "1548165475"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978426603122&reply_comment_id=978476642842", "anchor": "fb-978426603122_978476642842", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Jess ok, but in that case all the notary is adding is legal protection. You would definitely still want to send the documents in to the company, because the notary does a pretty cursory check.", "timestamp": "1548168054"}, {"author": "Jonah", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978427890542", "anchor": "fb-978427890542", "service": "fb", "text": "Do you use google drive for linux or mac OS? I've heard rumors there is an internal gDrive linux client that isn't public", "timestamp": "1548123061"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978427890542&reply_comment_id=978427945432", "anchor": "fb-978427890542_978427945432", "service": "fb", "text": "→ For OSX; I have a Mac laptop. My linux server gets data into Drive via first rsyncing to my laptop.", "timestamp": "1548123105"}, {"author": "Jonah", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978427890542&reply_comment_id=978429686942", "anchor": "fb-978427890542_978429686942", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Oh, I understand, thanks! (All linux over here so not as easy)", "timestamp": "1548124379"}, {"author": "Bil", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978429282752", "anchor": "fb-978429282752", "service": "fb", "text": "Always a physical disk of mine own, off-site, every 6 months or so. (Google can go bankrupt, my Apartment can burn down, but I'll only lose a little.)", "timestamp": "1548124250"}, {"author": "Bob", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978431263782", "anchor": "fb-978431263782", "service": "fb", "text": "me: iCloud (continually for every device i own), Google Drive (rarely, runs automatically if i reboot the laptop, then i kill the process), Crashplan (constantly), Time Machine (whenever i think of it, and very intentionally offline most of the time), because i wouldn't Dream of not having a local physical backup. once a year maybe: Carbon Copy Cloner.", "timestamp": "1548125230"}, {"author": "Bob", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978437675932", "anchor": "fb-978437675932", "service": "fb", "text": "and remember kids: digital data does not exist until it is in 3 places.", "timestamp": "1548128891"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/978425829672?comment_id=978437675932&reply_comment_id=978438075132", "anchor": "fb-978437675932_978438075132", "service": "fb", "text": "→ Bob the tricky part is deciding how many places to count a solid cloud storage provider as. A major reason for them to exist is so they can replicate your data for you.", "timestamp": "1548129090"}]}