When did the internet become like this?

mantidor · Apr 10, 2020

Old people alert: the last time I opened an email account was decades ago.

So I've been playing some Animal Crossing and got lazy about pulling out my memory card to share pictures, and Nintendo is fucking obtuse with their only facebook/twitter policy, so I went into the hell hole that it is opening an email/twitter/facebook account in this day an age and every service I could find is demanding a phone number and two step verification number with SMS. Every. Single. One. This is truly some Orwellian shit. Like really? It got to a point I tried to spoof a disposable number, which is just freaking absurd, I just gave up. I'm not opening a twitter account just to share some freaking pictures, and I'm not giving them my cellphone number or email. Is this the norm now? is free internet, truly free, really that "outlawed" for lack of a better word? I know is not technically impossible, but it seems too much of an effort, and obviously a huge barrier to most people, I assume the majority just gives out their personal data this freely.

hordak · Apr 10, 2020

1. get a google voice number.
2. use protonmail

Midramble · Apr 10, 2020

Sms/phone is for MFA (multi factor authentication) it is an anti-hacking measure as it requires you to have two forms of verification that you are who you say you are. This is the norm now as it is best practice against account theft.

Max|Payne · Apr 10, 2020

They're safety features to prevent account theft.

hateradio · Apr 10, 2020

You don't buy anything online that you need an email for?

Didn't you have to use your email to register here?

Protonmail is a free email without having a phone number, I think.

Proton Mail: Get a private, secure, and encrypted email account | Proton

Proton Mail is the world’s largest secure email service with over 100 million users. Available on Web, iOS, Android, and desktop. Protected by Swiss privacy law.

protonmail.com

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ProtonMail only gives you 500 MB, which should be fine since you don't use it a lot.
If you need more space the second one is 1 GB.

Illenium · Apr 10, 2020

hateradio said:
You don't buy anything online that you need an email for?

Didn't you have to use your email to register here?

Protonmail is a free email without having a phone number, I think.

Proton Mail: Get a private, secure, and encrypted email account | Proton

Proton Mail is the world’s largest secure email service with over 100 million users. Available on Web, iOS, Android, and desktop. Protected by Swiss privacy law.

protonmail.com

since they joined in 2017 it must've been a work or school email

arcadepc · Apr 10, 2020

It is not mandatory to give your phone number on facebook or Google so you can skip it. A mail address and an online manager with master password is enough. Besides if a real hacker were to target you, no measure would be safe.

Eg a friend who works in our national telecommunication industry had found a suspicious name on Facebook and wanted to see who he was. He asked an expert and he made him log into the that account in invisible mode. He only told him not to do anything suspicious like typing or accepting request because he would be revealed. In the end it turned out it was nothing to worry about

Bradford · Apr 10, 2020

Two factor security is literally only a good thing, lol. You should absolutely be using it. If you don't want to use your cell, just use an authenticator app or set up a Google voice number.

It is literally the opposite of orwellian.

Onlygames · Apr 10, 2020

hordak said:
1. get a google voice number.
2. use protonmail

Love Protonmail. Got a premium account and everything.

Have you used their VPN as well? I've only checked out the free version myself.

mantidor · Apr 10, 2020

I have email(s) of course, and facebook, and here (well back in the old forum) I used my university account. I'll check protonmail

Midramble said:
Sms/phone is for MFA (multi factor authentication) it is an anti-hacking measure as it requires you to have two forms of verification that you are who you say you are. This is the norm now as it is best practice against account theft.

I know this, I just want a throwaway account to share pictures! If this is to countermeasure bots I would be perfectly ok with it, but it doesnt seem to work, given how many bots exist in twitter and facebook.

arcadepc said:
It is not mandatory to give your phone number on facebook or Google so you can skip it. A mail address and an online manager with master password is enough. Besides if a real hacker were to target you, no measure would be safe.

In gmail it absolutely is, as far as I tried it 5 minutes ago, you are requested a cellphone number, and no option to opt out, not even a small button like it used to be. To create an account you are requested your cellphone and an SMS verification code, just to open it.

Griff said:
Two factor security is literally only a good thing, lol. You should absolutely be using it. If you don't want to use your cell, just use an authenticator app or set up a Google voice number.

It is literally the opposite of orwellian.

I'm absolutely ok with 2FA, I'm not ok with giving my cellphone number. There is no option for an authenticator app in gmail or any other email service I looked (I will check protonmail as has been sugested), Twitter demands either an email or a phone number, and Im not giving my personal facebook account either.

I know privacy is becoming more and more of an illusion, for sure Google knows about my email accounts with them, but it still bothers me, I just want a throwaway account for sharing pictures it shouldn't be this bizarre. If I wanted to do crappy things like creating bots I could actually do it, it's not really something hard.

shaneo632 · Apr 10, 2020

After almost losing my PSN account I will never badmouth 2FA.

WhiteRabbitEXE · Apr 10, 2020

Requiring an email address to register has been a thing for uh...

decades?

Bradford · Apr 10, 2020

mantidor said:
I'm absolutely ok with 2FA, I'm not ok with giving my cellphone number. There is no option for an authenticator app in gmail or any other email service I looked (I will check protonmail as has been sugested), Twitter demands either an email or a phone number, and Im not giving my personal facebook account either.

I use an authenticator for Gmail just fine. Google has their own darn authenticator app and API, too. It should be in your account settings dashboard.

Deleted member 31873 · Apr 10, 2020

I don't mind services requiring a phone number and/or email address for 2FA, but there is a trend lately of services requiring a phone to work at all, which is annoying as fuck.

WhatsApp is the most obvious example, but my country also has an online supermarket that requires a phone app instead of using a standard web interface to make themselves available across all devices (because I guess that would make too much sense). For me that's a deal-breaker; I'm not doing my grocery shopping on a tiny shitty phone screen when I have a 28" monitor and keyboard and mouse in the same room.

Sidebuster · Apr 10, 2020

Onlygames said:
Love Protonmail. Got a premium account and everything.

Have you used their VPN as well? I've only checked out the free version myself.

I got (email) plus and unless something has changed comes with premium VPN as well (come to think of it, might have been a discounted add on). You should see it in your settings. It's a good service with their secure core (does an extra hop). They also have a couple vpn servers with tor exit nodes and some VPN for P2P (which I guess is blocked on the other servers). They just recently expanded their server count as well.

mantis · Apr 10, 2020

Sidebuster said:
I got (email) plus and unless something has changed comes with premium VPN as well (come to think of it, might have been a discounted add on). You should see it in your settings. It's a good service with their secure core (does an extra hop). They also have a couple vpn servers with tor exit nodes and some VPN for P2P (which I guess is blocked on the other servers). They just recently expanded their server count as well.

VPN has to be paid extra. But you get a discount if you use it with a paid mail account.

Pargon · Apr 10, 2020

Midramble said:
Sms/phone is for MFA (multi factor authentication) it is an anti-hacking measure as it requires you to have two forms of verification that you are who you say you are. This is the norm now as it is best practice against account theft.

There are two problem with this:

These services require you to enter a phone number to enable 2FA; even though 2FA does not require SMS.
SMS-based 2FA is the least-secure implementation.

P.S. For everyone saying "get a Google Voice account" the service is US-only.

Officer Big Mac · Apr 10, 2020

Admiral Woofington · Apr 10, 2020

Griff said:
Two factor security is literally only a good thing, lol. You should absolutely be using it. If you don't want to use your cell, just use an authenticator app or set up a Google voice number.

It is literally the opposite of orwellian.

It is only a good thing because it reached the point it even became a necessity. I wish it wasn't even necessary. Why the fuck does a random guy across the world want access to my God damn Microsoft account lmao

Brandino · Apr 10, 2020

Typically, they won't spam your phone with messages. It's just to verify you when you sign on from some place unusual.

fieldafar · Apr 10, 2020

Admiral Woofington said:
Why the fuck does a random guy across the world want access to my God damn Microsoft account lmao

Some MS accounts may have financial information attached, so a hacker can use it to buy anything from Xbox games to high-end laptops.

julia crawford · Apr 10, 2020

I use an auth app and it's a godsend. I wish every place would let me use my Google authenticator.

julia crawford · Apr 10, 2020

Also OP just take the card out and put the pictures in your computer dude. It's that simple.

Modest Mauser · Apr 10, 2020

"It is Orwellian that some online services require me to use two factor authentication to protect my account."

Vilix · Apr 10, 2020

John Kowalski said:
I use an auth app and it's a godsend. I wish every place would let me use my Google authenticator.

I wish Apple came out with an authenticator.

Kthulhu · Apr 10, 2020

Hopefully we'll get to a point where we no longer need passwords, but that's probably not happening anytime soon.

UltraJay · Apr 10, 2020

I can understand not wanting to use your phone number, but pretty much every account will need an email. The account NEEDS a way to contact you for password resets and the like. The fact that you don't have one to use is insane. Resetera requires one!

As it has already been suggested, protonmail can create a quick anonymous one. Or just make a gmail or hotmail/outlook one. This isn't some complicated issue.

TeenageFBI · Apr 10, 2020

2FA is great. I enable it for every site I can. Even garbage SMS-based 2FA is better than nothing.

Doober · Apr 10, 2020

Two-factor doesn't bother me. I'm more irritated by the fact that every single fucking thing on the Internet now requires it's own account complete with username and (ideally, but totally unrealistic) unique password.

I literally have over a dozen different password protected accounts, and they're all only essential services like banking, bill pay, email, etc.

If you do any amount of online shopping or social media, you probably have another dozen easily.

Hell, my own bank has a rewards program that requires a separate account from my goddamned bank account!

The username/password paradigm needs to end.

MJForum Poster · Apr 10, 2020

In the time you've been asleep OP, the entire technology and security community advanced twenty years and realized that just simple usernames/passwords are ripe for compromise and lead to breaches

Raccoon · Apr 10, 2020

op getting screenshots off the switch is really easy with a microsd card

set screenshots to save to microsd in the settings (you can transfer any existing ones from internal memory to the card as well), turn off the system, remove the card, put it into a computer, and they'll all be image files in the "Album" folder

Transistor · Apr 10, 2020

2FA is one of the best security things on the internet....

CaptainUnderpants · Apr 10, 2020

mantidor said:
In gmail it absolutely is, as far as I tried it 5 minutes ago, you are requested a cellphone number, and no option to opt out, not even a small button like it used to be. To create an account you are requested your cellphone and an SMS verification code, just to open it.

A newly added requirement perhaps? I wouldn't be surprised, given all the tech corporations wanting our data.

Älg · Apr 10, 2020

I totally see where you're coming from. In an ideal world account verification information wouldn't be personally identifiable at all. Not to mention that 2FA via SMS is practically no 2FA at all. It's especially weird in the case of Gmail, seeing as Google has a 2FA app of their own, although it hasn't been updated for several years at this point.

The Albatross · Apr 10, 2020

Imagine criticizing services that require two factor auth as orwellian.

The internet "got like this" because for the last 30 years people like you were having your indentity stolen online and then blaming Twitter and Facebook for not having stronger protection.

Twitter doesn't require a phone number either. You can use a 2FA all like Google Authenticator, Authy, etc.

If there's any blame here it's not Twitter or Facebook, it's Nintendo's shitty poorly built online system that is a relic of 10 years ago.

arcadepc · Apr 10, 2020

mantidor said:
In gmail it absolutely is, as far as I tried it 5 minutes ago, you are requested a cellphone number, and no option to opt out, not even a small button like it used to be. To create an account you are requested your cellphone and an SMS verification code, just to open it.

Tbh it is quite a while since I registered so now they made it mandatory. But I went to my security gmail settings and see that you can remove your phone number and they do not ask you about adding a new one

xxracerxx · Apr 10, 2020

Oh no, not security features!!

Midramble · Apr 10, 2020

Pargon said:
There are two problem with this:

These services require you to enter a phone number to enable 2FA; even though 2FA does not require SMS.

SMS-based 2FA is the least-secure implementation.

P.S. For everyone saying "get a Google Voice account" the service is US-only.

SMS MFA is the least secure MFA yes, but it is more secure than no MFA. I agree more services should use OTP or similar MFA.

Heart of Poumn · Apr 10, 2020

The real issue is that all the consoles need a better way to get your screenshots and videos. I don't want to post them on facebook/twitter, they'd be downgraded there anyway. I also don't want to use usb drives/sd cards.

MegaRockEXE · Apr 10, 2020

shaneo632 said:
After almost losing my PSN account I will never badmouth 2FA.

Ironically, after almost losing my Nintendo account, I won't trust 2FA.

maximumzero · Apr 10, 2020

I'm only bummed when services that offer 2FA want to use the Google Authenticator app with no real alternative.

I'm trying to stay away from Google's nonsense, thank you very much.

Dodongo · Apr 10, 2020

2FA is necessary in these times.

Unfortunately that's just part of web security now

amanset · Apr 10, 2020

Years ago I used to use a crappy email account at my ISP. I eventually moved away from it and for years have been using gmail with a different account for signing up to places, so my main account doesn't get spam. Anyway, I also years ago signed up for a Ubisoft account using the ISP account and didn't set up two factor. I was only using it for free games (they were doing a giveaway) and so didn't think too much about it.

Well recently Ubisoft gave away a Rayman game because of people staying at home and I wanted to claim it, so I tried to log in. Password incorrect. So I tried "change password" and didn't get the email. So I logged into that old email's webmail and got an "ooops we were hacked you probably should change your password" popup.

Turns out they got my password as part of that hack, logged in to that old email, set up a forwarder and deleted any other incoming mail. Clearly they didn't change the password as they wanted me to think everything was normal. Luckily just about the only service that account is attached to now is Ubisoft, so they used it to change my password and set up 2 factor, so even once I changed the password (after I had disabled the forwarder) I still couldn't log in as I needed to use Google Authenticator but was not the person that set that up.

So I contacted Ubisoft to try and wrestle control back. What surprised me was how easy it was. I just used their chat, gave my story and they said they would send me an email and if I clicked on the link inside it, to prove I had access to the email, they would remove 2 factor. Which I did and then they did. And then I set up 2 factor myself.

It was that easy. If I was a hacker and had access to the email but not the 2 factor I could have got rid of it easily. I was shocked.

EloKa · Apr 10, 2020

OP literally states that he's just too lazy to use an other method for the data transfer in the first sentence (between the "fucking" "hell hole" overreaction stuff).

ISPs forcing 2FA onto the average user because those can't be bothered with account protection (or the responsibility for their online presence) is a good thing.

super-famicom · Apr 10, 2020

maximumzero said:
I'm only bummed when services that offer 2FA want to use the Google Authenticator app with no real alternative.

I'm trying to stay away from Google's nonsense, thank you very much.

You don't have to use Google Authenticator. Authy works great as an alternative, even when services say to use Google's.

maximumzero · Apr 10, 2020

super-famicom said:
You don't have to use Google Authenticator. Authy works great as an alternative, even when says to use Google's.

Hmm, I'll give that a try later.

Hollywood Duo · Apr 10, 2020

OP how many Nigerian princes do you know

BossAttack · Apr 10, 2020

OP, are you insane or just incredibly old? It's not Orwellian for Google to ask for your phone number to protect your own account from hackers. I don't give a fuck about my phone number, my Gmail is WAY more important than a number. If a hacker ever got access to my Gmail they'd have access to everything including my phone. 2FA is a great, simple way to keep your account protected.

jelly · Apr 10, 2020

With how worthless people are with passwords and general security asking for a phone number is the only way to really to help secure accounts like if it notices you are logging in from a different place or different computer it might ask for authentication and text you a little code you have to enter which keeps hackers away and the accounts of people safe. It's no big deal, Google or Microsoft aren't going to spam the fuck out of you knowing your phone number. I get it, people don't like handing over information, I agree, less the better but a phone number to companies like that is safe as can be unless you have a tin foil hat on, everyone has your number already, applied for job, driving license, passport, gas, electricity, online shopping etc.

theSoularian · Apr 10, 2020

mantidor said:
I'm absolutely ok with 2FA, I'm not ok with giving my cellphone number. There is no option for an authenticator app in gmail or any other email service I looked (I will check protonmail as has been sugested), Twitter demands either an email or a phone number, and Im not giving my personal facebook account either.

I know privacy is becoming more and more of an illusion, for sure Google knows about my email accounts with them, but it still bothers me, I just want a throwaway account for sharing pictures it shouldn't be this bizarre. If I wanted to do crappy things like creating bots I could actually do it, it's not really something hard.

This is incorrect.

Turn on 2-Step Verification - Computer - Google Account Help

With 2-Step Verification, also called two-factor authentication, you can add an extra layer of security to your account in case your password is stolen. After you set up 2-Step Verification, you can s

support.google.com

When did the internet become like this?

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