at this point is it possible that these super-mega-uber "hackers" figured out a way to somehow nick recently-changed passwords and by causing some sort of panic where everybody changes their passwords then and only then can they nab a shit-ton of them wholesale?
this is like the 3rd of 4th time in the last year when i've been implored to "change my password" and when i go to do that microsoft/yahoo/google is like HEY WHILE YOU'RE DOING THAT DID YOU KNOW IF YOU GIVE US YOUR PHONE # YOU CAN NEVER BE LOCKED OUT OF YOUR ACCOUNT AGAIN? HEY YOU'D BETTER UPDATE US WITH YOUR PHONE # SO YOU'RE ALWAYS PROTECTED IN THE FUTURE! NEVER BE LOCKED OUT OF YOUR ACCOUNT AGAIN! CLICK HERE TO UPDATE YOUR SECURITY INFORMATION (WITH YOUR PHONE #)..... and then off in a tiny corner in font size=1 text is some "no thanks, i'll update it next time" option.
but eventually they're gonna force it out of you. google randomly demands a phone # from me when i'm popping around my g-mail accounts (and surely they'd out and out require me to provide one if i switched passwords) and microsoft is playing games where basically when you signed up for the bullshit hotmail/live.com account and you gave them some "alternate e-mail address" (example: if the account was
fuckface@live.com my alternate e-mail was usually like
fuck@face.com) well now all of a sudden because of security reasons it's going to verify that you're actually you by e-mailing
fuck@face.com and if you can't respond to that e-mail.... well clearly you're not you and we've got a problem here and uhhhh hey you know if you just give us your phone # you'll never have to deal with shit like this again?
so yeah TL;DR = the bait and switch with all of these "free" e-mail accounts is coming to roost, and now that people are dependent on them years after creating/using them they can turn the screws and try to force everyone to give them 100% correct/marketable information lest they run the risk of being locked out of a bunch of internet sites/accounts because they had the audacity to give anything but correct information.
ah well at least when they institute some federally-mandated "internet ID" stuff like this wil go by the wayside cuz you won't be able t use the internet unless you're logged in as yourself, eh?
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Curious Hair wrote:
Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?