TriNetre - Archive for July 30, 2005
(no longer updated)
Now it is the Gentoo forums that have decided that Tor, a tool that can preserve privacy of users online, cannot be used to access their website. If you visit the website through the Tor network, you get the following message instead of the website:
Due to people abusing it you can not view this site whilst using Tor.
Gmail has locked down my email account for 24 hours for no reason I can think of! I got this message while I was trying to read one email:
Our system indicates unusual usage of your account. In order to protect Google Mail users from potentially harmful use of Google Mail, this account has been disabled for up to 24 hours.
If you are using any third party software that interacts with your Google Mail account, please disable it or adjust it so that its use complies with the Google Mail Terms of Use. If you feel that you have been using your Google Mail account according to the Terms of Use or otherwise normally, please contact us at gmail-lockdown@google.com to report this problem.
I was using a normal Firefox browser (Ubuntu 1.0.6 package) to access the email account. The only suspect I can think of is that I was using Tor network to protect my privacy.
I have sent an email to the email address listed in the "lockdown" message. This is the first time in my 10 years on the Internet that one of my accounts have been suspended! Feels weird and terribly unhappy.
Update 1 - An automated email from Gmail guys:
Our system has detected abnormal usage of your Gmail account. As a result, we have temporarily disabled access to this account.
It will take between one minute and 24 hours for you to regain access, depending on the behavior our system detected.
Your account may be temporarily disabled if, among other things, you are:
- sending or receiving an excessive volume of mail
- using any third-party software that automatically logs in to your account and is not supported by Gmail
- using certain browser extensions that change the behavior of a website (Greasemonkey, a popular Firefox extension, often interferes with Gmail. We suggest disabling Greasemonkey to use Gmail without any issues.)
For your protection, we ask that you disable any non-supported software before accessing Gmail again.
If you feel that access to this account should not have been disabled, please respond to the following questions:
1. List the date and time of day when you were locked out of the account.
2. What task were you performing when you were locked out? (ex: sending an email, downloading an attachment, etc.)
3. Has access to your account been disabled before this occurrence? If so, when and for how long?
4. Indicate which of the following, if any, Gmail features you use: POP, auto-forwarding, or Gmail's Notifier
5. Are you using any type of browser extensions? If so, please specify.
6. Do you use any third-party software in conjunction with Gmail? If so, please specify.
I have answered to them saying I don't have Greasmonke installed, among other things. Do people still use Greasemonkey there at Google? Hmm.. interesting!
Update 2 - Come to think of it, I got locked down when I tried to view an email exchange that had 150 odd replies. Given the way Gmail works, that request would have triggered the fetch of over 150 average sized emails and maybe leading to triggering of a max. download limit? If that is the case, I wonder how I should read emails which have lots of replies?
Update 3 - The account access was restored after about 12 hours of lockdown, but just for half an hour! I was in the process of deleting the emails and unsubscribing from the various mailing list so that I can close the Gmail account, when the next lockdown occured. Looks like deleting emails and sending a couple of unsubscribe emails is also considered "unusual usage". Oh well. Time to move on.
Update 4 - Access back up after four hours. Started the process of migration. Deleted all emails (thank God all those email were dispensable) and unsubscribed from all mailing lists. Started a new Yahoo! mail account. They haven't failed me for as long as I can remember. Just a couple of admin issues to take care of and it will be buh-bye to Gmail. I just can't be bothered to defend my software installations and actions every time something like this happens. What I look for in an email account is reliability more than coolness.
Update 5 - A reply from Gmail support in reply to my query on what caused the lockdown:
Thanks for your report. We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced. For your security, we have temporarily disabled access to your account because our system detected abnormal usage. It will take between one minute and 24 hours for you to regain access to your account, depending on the behavior our system detected.
Abnormal usage includes, but is not limited to:
- Receiving, deleting, or popping out large amounts of mail in a short period of time
- Sending mail to a large number of recipients in a short period of time
- Using 3rd party file-sharing or storing software in your account
- Logging in from multiple locations in a short period of time
- Using your account for purposes other than email
We appreciate your patience while we work to protect the security of Gmail users.
To this I replied:
This is interesting. So if I have an email conversation that has around 150~200 replies, how do I go about reading them? Every time I try to read even one of these replies, I would be "receiving" "large amounts of mails in a short period of time". This is, if I am not mistaken, exactly what happened to my account the first time around, though I am still mystified as to why it was locked down the second and third time.
Please advise.
Update 6 - Gmail team's reply to my email above:
Thanks for bringing this issue to our attention. We have forwarded the information you provided to the appropriate team for further investigation. We appreciate your patience while we work to protect the security of Gmail users.
I am surprised that this usage scenario was not considered/caught by the team. I know Gmail is in beta (like most of Google's products), but a lockdown for 12 hours due to what seems more and more like an error at Gmail's side is a bit too much. Gmail seems to presume that it is never wrong, that the users are the ones who are evil.
