On my birthday, April 5th, Tim gave me a new phone.
I have been using Blackberry since I first got a smart phone in 2009. I fell in love with the full QWERTY keyboard because I like to type without looking and I found I could do that with my thumbs on a Blackberry. I've had three or maybe four different ones.
I have, for reasons I won't go into, a need to make things big on my screen. It involves eyes and shockingly enough seeing. So when I tried a touchscreen a few times, I found it really difficult to use. But now Androids are big enough that I can effectively use a touchscreen keyboard. And the Blackberry had become less and less useful. Twitter stopped supporting it. Other apps wouldn't work. I struggled to make WhatsApp work on it.
So it started with HOORAY! A NEW PHONE!
I have been using Blackberry since I first got a smart phone in 2009. I fell in love with the full QWERTY keyboard because I like to type without looking and I found I could do that with my thumbs on a Blackberry. I've had three or maybe four different ones.
I have, for reasons I won't go into, a need to make things big on my screen. It involves eyes and shockingly enough seeing. So when I tried a touchscreen a few times, I found it really difficult to use. But now Androids are big enough that I can effectively use a touchscreen keyboard. And the Blackberry had become less and less useful. Twitter stopped supporting it. Other apps wouldn't work. I struggled to make WhatsApp work on it.
So it started with HOORAY! A NEW PHONE!
On my birthday, Tim helped me get my phone set up. My main use for my phone right now is to check the various email accounts that I care about without having to go to each one on my desktop computer (a laptop plugged into a monitor, keyboard and mouse). So he set up some of them. Then he got to my secondary account, which is connected to my Twitter. It's also one I've used to exchange private email threads since I lived in the US for fear that someone would try to read my email back then.
I knew the password and he put it in. It asked him to put in the phone number for verification. That's normally no big deal, but as I hadn't had to actually log in to that account for who knows how long, (because it was permanently logged in on my Blackberry) all the other security information I didn't know. I was able to look up the phone number. (I keep my phone numbers in my contacts under my own name) but here is where the problems started.
A while ago, this number stopped working. I didn't know why, but I half-thought it was because I needed to top it up. It's a pay as you go number that I got just before I moved to London in 2010. I contacted EE and gave them the deets. A very friendly and helpful team member assisted me. Unfortunately, he told me that the company had "cancelled down" the number for lack of use. It's true, I hadn't used it because Tim and I live in Europe now. Also, I couldn't figure out how to top it up from here.
I knew the password and he put it in. It asked him to put in the phone number for verification. That's normally no big deal, but as I hadn't had to actually log in to that account for who knows how long, (because it was permanently logged in on my Blackberry) all the other security information I didn't know. I was able to look up the phone number. (I keep my phone numbers in my contacts under my own name) but here is where the problems started.
A while ago, this number stopped working. I didn't know why, but I half-thought it was because I needed to top it up. It's a pay as you go number that I got just before I moved to London in 2010. I contacted EE and gave them the deets. A very friendly and helpful team member assisted me. Unfortunately, he told me that the company had "cancelled down" the number for lack of use. It's true, I hadn't used it because Tim and I live in Europe now. Also, I couldn't figure out how to top it up from here.
IT ALL WENT HORRIBLY WRONG AFTER THAT
I went through the account recovery steps for getting into my email again. Several times. Hey, it said I could.
One of the other things that I didn't even remember I'd set up (and which I have since learned Gmail no longer supports) was a verification question. The question, which I must have set up in 2009, was not familiar, though I knew what it was about at least. I could imagine myself submitting this question. Unfortunately, past me was far too clever for her own good. I used to imagine that if someone were trying to break into my account, I would need a question no one on Earth could answer except me. Well, so many years later, I know what the question is getting at, but not how past me would have phrased the answer. Google said I could try more than once and I began going through the possible ways the answer could have been written. I quickly realised that there were far too many of them to have much chance of accidentally getting it right. So in spite of knowing the email and the password, I can't use either of my back up methods.
Gmail has double locked me out, it seems.
But what's weird for me is that I actually am logged in on my old phone. Which is right here on my desk, alongside the laptop I can't get in on, and the new phone I can't get in on. I do have my recovery email -- and the email I can't get into is also my recovery email for my main account, as well as my twitter-linked email, and I may have even set them up at or near the same date.
The photo above felt like Google mocking me. I get it twice, on my main account and the account they refuse to let me into on any new device (or even my main computer that I've been using for five years). We blocked someone who used your password. Yes, Google. You blocked me. I know my password.
One of the other things that I didn't even remember I'd set up (and which I have since learned Gmail no longer supports) was a verification question. The question, which I must have set up in 2009, was not familiar, though I knew what it was about at least. I could imagine myself submitting this question. Unfortunately, past me was far too clever for her own good. I used to imagine that if someone were trying to break into my account, I would need a question no one on Earth could answer except me. Well, so many years later, I know what the question is getting at, but not how past me would have phrased the answer. Google said I could try more than once and I began going through the possible ways the answer could have been written. I quickly realised that there were far too many of them to have much chance of accidentally getting it right. So in spite of knowing the email and the password, I can't use either of my back up methods.
Gmail has double locked me out, it seems.
But what's weird for me is that I actually am logged in on my old phone. Which is right here on my desk, alongside the laptop I can't get in on, and the new phone I can't get in on. I do have my recovery email -- and the email I can't get into is also my recovery email for my main account, as well as my twitter-linked email, and I may have even set them up at or near the same date.
The photo above felt like Google mocking me. I get it twice, on my main account and the account they refuse to let me into on any new device (or even my main computer that I've been using for five years). We blocked someone who used your password. Yes, Google. You blocked me. I know my password.
DON'T DO WHAT I DID NEXT
So what I did next was to join Google One, which is a paid file storage service run by Google. I admit I did it to get access to Google support. I found it suggested on the web, by someone who used it to get their account back. He said it was the quickest way. Well, it isn't. At least not now. I imagine the poor beleaguered Google One team being inundated with requests to recover email accounts. The person (or people using the name Jane -- I don't imagine you always get just one person -- was apologetically chatty. I could sense the fear that I would have some sort of tantrum. We are all so alike, people who've lost access to their email accounts, in the end. We freak out.
I started out hopeful and ended up feeling lied to and betrayed by this team member who was just using the Google playbook to answer my questions. To say things like "Even Google employees have to use the account recovery sequence" and "I hope you and your family are doing well during these difficult times." I feel as if the responses -- which were clearly intended to stop me from trying to get in without the account recovery system that was never, ever going to work for me -- pushed me to ask more questions. Don't lie to people in a world where everyone lies. Say, "Look, I'm sorry but I can't help you. I work for Google One, not Gmail. There's no support for Gmail. You don't pay for that account and it's not our fault you lost your phone number." Or "Do you know how many people come here looking for help? We are not allowed to help you because we'll get done for GDPR violations."
Please don't say "Use a familiar device." I *am* using a familiar device. I don't know why it's not familiar to you as it's ben my main computing device for at least four years.
Don't say "We need to verify your identity". Say, "You can get in if we can text or call you on the phone number you put in there yourself eleven years ago. We don't care if you let it get deactivated. That is not our problem." I would rather you say that than, "We will get you sorted in a little while. Just do this recovery thing". I had already shown them that I'm receiving "Critical Security Alerts" from that account on my Blackberry whenever they block one of my attempts to get in.
The truth is that I have all sorts of evidence that it's my account. Just not the particular evidence that they want.
I started out hopeful and ended up feeling lied to and betrayed by this team member who was just using the Google playbook to answer my questions. To say things like "Even Google employees have to use the account recovery sequence" and "I hope you and your family are doing well during these difficult times." I feel as if the responses -- which were clearly intended to stop me from trying to get in without the account recovery system that was never, ever going to work for me -- pushed me to ask more questions. Don't lie to people in a world where everyone lies. Say, "Look, I'm sorry but I can't help you. I work for Google One, not Gmail. There's no support for Gmail. You don't pay for that account and it's not our fault you lost your phone number." Or "Do you know how many people come here looking for help? We are not allowed to help you because we'll get done for GDPR violations."
Please don't say "Use a familiar device." I *am* using a familiar device. I don't know why it's not familiar to you as it's ben my main computing device for at least four years.
Don't say "We need to verify your identity". Say, "You can get in if we can text or call you on the phone number you put in there yourself eleven years ago. We don't care if you let it get deactivated. That is not our problem." I would rather you say that than, "We will get you sorted in a little while. Just do this recovery thing". I had already shown them that I'm receiving "Critical Security Alerts" from that account on my Blackberry whenever they block one of my attempts to get in.
The truth is that I have all sorts of evidence that it's my account. Just not the particular evidence that they want.
HERE'S THE QUESTION
Does Google "Don't be evil" (revised to "Oh well, we no longer care about being evil, let's change our mission statement") have an ethical obligation not to effectively steal people's private conversation history and just keep it? Not read it, but not let its owner have it back, ever, like some wizard in a cave with a riddle no one can answer?
I'm pretty sure they'll say that's not what they're doing. They're protecting my privacy and security. To my knowledge, no one else has ever tried to get into my account. Just me. Is protecting it from me part of their remit?
Do you believe for one minute that they could not get me back in there if they wanted to? Because on this question their entire email service -- which I'll point out is now the primary email service for huge corporations and for universities like the University of Michigan where I used to work -- succeeds or fails. If anyone at any time can be permanently locked out of their email based on a fluke of a cancelled phone number, would anyone trust their company's thousands of emails to Gmail?
I'm pretty sure they'll say that's not what they're doing. They're protecting my privacy and security. To my knowledge, no one else has ever tried to get into my account. Just me. Is protecting it from me part of their remit?
Do you believe for one minute that they could not get me back in there if they wanted to? Because on this question their entire email service -- which I'll point out is now the primary email service for huge corporations and for universities like the University of Michigan where I used to work -- succeeds or fails. If anyone at any time can be permanently locked out of their email based on a fluke of a cancelled phone number, would anyone trust their company's thousands of emails to Gmail?
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