this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
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Privacy

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53
A Researcher Figured Out How to Reveal Any Phone Number Linked to a Google Account (www.404media.co)
submitted 5 days ago by LWD@lemm.ee to c/privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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[–] VagueAnodyneComments@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 4 days ago (4 children)

oh great 404 is doing paywalls now

i fucking hate the internet

i guess i just don't get to learn about Google bleeding my phone number

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 15 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I received an email from 404 about this, so I got one extra detail that isn't available on the website without a subscription:

Hey there, Joseph here with what I think was a pretty nasty issue with Google account security. A researcher found out how to brute force the phone number linked to any Google account. How do we know that? Well we tested it out and it works. Google has since fixed it.

That's nice to know, at least.

[–] outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

google has since fixed it

I dont even know if i can believe this.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 7 points 4 days ago

Google's big on security. They don't want to let people have your phone number... without going through them and giving them money.

[–] VagueAnodyneComments@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 4 days ago

thanks that's helpful

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

I think it has been like that for a while. ~~It's not paywalled, but rather account-walled~~ (edit: I was wrong)

There may also be different versions of the article, since I don't always come across the wall

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 6 points 4 days ago

It seems about half of their articles are behind a subscription wall, and the other half are behind a paywall. It might be annoying, but I understand that journalistic outlets at least need to make money

[–] VagueAnodyneComments@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 days ago

this one is a paywall for money

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 5 points 4 days ago

They've been doing that since they opened shop