Andy logged in to Gmail on Sunday, and his friend Jeff started to chat with him. Things seemed a bit off, but Andy really became suspicious when Jeff asked him to wire $500 to an injured friend in Nigeria. The real Jeff, of course, was off playing XBOX and has no friends in Nigeria. Like the scammers hitting up people’s friends for money via Facebook, thieves can log in to your e-mail and chat accounts, pretending to be you.
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GMail's Achilles Heel: Terrible Customer Service
By 10.5.08
Losing access to your GMail account is tantamount to banishment from the internet, but Google’s non-existent customer support makes it nearly impossible for rightful owners to regain control of their accounts. The New York Times asked Google why they couldn’t afford to offer phone-based customer support, a simple question Google needed three people to answer.
By 8.21.08
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Gmail recently rolled out a change to its settings, where now you can permanently turn on SSL encryption. Do it now—your personal data will thank you for it. Besides, it’s going to get a lot easier to hack Gmail sessions very soon, because some guy is planning on releasing a hacking tool to the public in order to force Google to implement better security. [monkey_bites]
EBay & PayPal Phishing Gone For Good On Gmail and Yahoo?
By 7.15.08
If your email account is with Google or Yahoo, your days of seeing phishing emails from fake eBay or PayPal addresses should be over. Google announced last week that it’s now using DomainKeys to verify messages really do come from paypal.com or ebay.com—if they don’t, they never even make it to your In Box. This is possible because eBay and PayPal are now making sure “that all their email is signed with DomainKeys and DKIM.” Since Yahoo! also uses DomainKeys and DKIM (they developed it, in fact), phishing attacks for Yahoo! Mail accounts should also disappear.
Google Thinks Spammers Might Be Giving Up
By 11.29.07
Brad Taylor, Google’s chief spam “watchdog,” suspects that spammers may actually be giving up as filters becomes more sophisticated and fewer of their messages get through.
Google won’t disclose numbers, but the company says that spam attempts, as a percentage of e-mail that’s transmitted through its Gmail system, have waned over the last year. That could indicate that some spammers have gotten discouraged and have stopped trying to get through Google’s spam filters.
Other experts disagree, claiming that spam is on the rise.
By 11.19.07
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Considering Google’s penchant for automated emails and redirects to Help files when things go wrong, what would you do if someone hacked your Gmail account and had access to all your emails, Google documents, etc etc? [Google Blogoscoped]
How Gmail Stops Spam
By 11.1.07
My spam has gone down like a million % since switching to Gmail from Yahoo mail. This amusing video shows you some of the techniques Google uses to keep spam out of your inbox. Just about all the spam we get is as a result of the forward set up from our old yahoo to our new gmail account.
Gmail Disables User Accounts Without Reason Or Warning
By 4.6.07
UPDATE: Gmail says they accidentally disabled a huge swatch of user accounts in an attempt to fight a large spammer network, and is actively reinstating these accounts.
Taking Passwords to the Grave
By 9.25.06
Reader JP, sends us this little tidbit about accessing online information after someone has passed away. From CNET: As more and more people move their lives, address books, calendars, financial information, online, they are taking a risk that some information formerly filed away in folders and desks might never be recovered. That is, unless they share their passwords, which poses security threats.
Shophackery: Filter Online Shopping Email with Gmail
By 12.22.05
Here’s a cool bit of shophackery: If you append a descriptor to the end of your Gmail name—say, consumerist+shopping@gmail.com, instead of consumerist@gmail.com—you can then add a filter to Gmail to catch all those emails. That allows you to filter out your potentially spammy online shopping mail using the same account.
