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New Gmail Features Protect from Snooping

webmonkey.com — Gmail added protection from unauthorized logins Monday through new features allowing you to monitor usage and sign out remotely.

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  • ironeus, on 08/01/2008, -4/+109The "Sign out all other sessions” button is a useful feature if you suspect any snooping. Next I recommend developing a button which traces the IP address (already done) of user exploiting your machine, detecting the nearest bluetooth device and if it's a phone or PDA make it vibrate just to freak em out!
    • EBFoxbat, on 07/09/2008, -1/+20I'd prefer it remotely short the LiPo battery and cause personal injury to whomever is exploiting my machine.
    • Pittance, on 07/09/2008, -0/+7Or use the BT device to call the cops or DOS attack the host computer of whatever the snoop was using.
    • offtone, on 07/09/2008, -3/+4The "sign out all other sessions" button doesn't actually work, it seems. I have the account opened on my laptop and my PC, and after clicking said button on my PC, I'm still able to snoop around my inbox, compose messages, etc. on the notebook.

      Weird?
      • hpfreak26, on 07/09/2008, -0/+15Would they be connecting to the internet through the same router? I assume they detect other sessions by different IP addresses.
      • JCizle, on 07/09/2008, -2/+7^ this
    • 5urr3al5am, on 07/09/2008, -0/+4You must have seen that on one of those clever tech movies
    • laserdog, on 07/09/2008, -6/+3It's called NAT.
    • cutekelvins, on 07/09/2008, -9/+2Digg this if you don want google to remove this feature.
  • MarianaPeyton, on 07/08/2008, -2/+209It also can store 7GB of email for free!!
    • Rotzooi, on 07/09/2008, -5/+666909.664292 megabytes
    • proghead, on 07/09/2008, -10/+4WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
    • Rotzooi, on 07/09/2008, -5/+49Excuse me, 6909.750836 megabytes. Must have made a typo.
    • Rotzooi, on 07/09/2008, -4/+556909.777606 megabytes? What the hell is going on here!?
    • Pittance, on 07/09/2008, -11/+2So does anyone here even have that much email? Attachments don't count.
      • tiuk, on 07/09/2008, -0/+11I've had my account since late June 2004, haven't deleted anything but spam. Just under 3000 emails, 208 MB.
      • NathanielJ, on 07/09/2008, -0/+28Why on earth don't attachments count? That's like saying "Does anyone need a 120 Gb harddrive? Games and movies don't count."

        Of course no one has that much plaintext e-mail. Even if every e-mail that they ever received was 500 words long (much longer than the average e-mail), they'd need to have over 3 million e-mails sitting around to fill it up. When you send back and forth dozens of attachments every day though, it's a pain in the ass to try to find an appropriate place on your harddrive for each one, and it's just easier to leave them in your inbox and let Google's search feature organize it for you.
      • hotpuck6, on 07/09/2008, -0/+7Since december 04 i've accumulated 7k emails and that's only 344mb.
        I don't really deal with attachments too often though.
        and considering the attachment limit on gmail is 20mb, it shouldn't really strain you too much.
      • 4rp4n3t, on 07/09/2008, -0/+14Yes, attachments *do* count...
      • HueytheFreeman, on 07/09/2008, -0/+6"You are currently using 0 MB (0%) of your 6910 MB."
      • Vironex, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2I've had my Gmail account since October, with about 3000 emails at a total of 650 MB. That's only 9%. I've even downloaded a few albums through email. I don't have a graphing calculator handy, but I'll catch up with the limit in a few years at this rate, considering the amount of emails I receive is also slowly increasing.
      • hydroxic, on 07/09/2008, -1/+1Had the account since August 2004: "You are currently using 562 MB (8%) of your 6910 MB."
        So no, not yet, but if the storage had stayed at 1GB, I'd be more than halfway there.
      • abhissekk, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2i got my account in june 2004. as of now i am using 2636 MB of 6910MB....
    • markdr123, on 07/09/2008, -2/+76910.198487 megabytes actually. I'm only using 4% of it but I'm still looking forward to it hitting 7 gigabytes. =D
    • Nekiruhs, on 07/09/2008, -0/+4I'm only using 1% of the space, by the time I get to 7 GB it will be much higher anyway. They may as well just advertise unlimited storage.
      • skyroket, on 07/10/2008, -1/+1You know as soon as they advertise unlimited storage a bunch of jackasses are going to put like 80TB of porn on there, just to try and max it out.
    • str1fe, on 07/09/2008, -7/+1It's always increased by several kilobytes each minute.
    • MrLlama, on 07/09/2008, -1/+2[ ] 7GB storage
      [x] 6911.123272MB storage
    • skloona, on 07/10/2008, -0/+0This is the unique feature...waw!!
  • Buie, on 07/08/2008, -7/+49Google is on point for this little feature. Funny thing is any email/freemail service could do this but leave it to Google to write a good press release.
    • darkened, on 07/09/2008, -1/+14Where's the protect from snooping by google button?
      • MWeather, on 07/09/2008, -0/+4On the google apps page, under the Priemier Edition link.
      • microchp, on 07/09/2008, -0/+4Install the firefox/thunderbird add-on 'leet key' and AES encrypt all your email. The average non-technical person can use this. That is how simple it is.
    • microchp, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2Isn't it neat how a web interface that is intended to give Feds with admin privs easy access to your history can be turned around by giving users a view into their own history and spin it as their own 'privacy protection'. That is a good way to future proof it when a Google employee feels compelled to expose it.

  • crash331, on 07/09/2008, -0/+25Is this a rolling update like most Gmail features? My account doesn't seem to have the feature yet.

    edit: OK, it works in Firefox but not Opera. Why would they disable this on a per browser basis? It's a link that opens another window, not exactly browser specific.
    • arjung, on 07/09/2008, -0/+7go back to Opera and try it. it works for me in multiple browsers.
    • msmayhew, on 07/09/2008, -0/+11From Gmail Blog:

      Note: We are in the process of rolling this feature out to the latest version of Gmail, which is available for Firefox and Internet Explorer 7.

      http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/remote-sign- ...
    • DiddyWolf, on 07/09/2008, -0/+6It's not just that feature that is browser specific, it's the various versions of gmail that are. the version of gmail that loads on opera is different from the version that loads up in firefox, or IE 7, or IE 6 for that matter.
    • Rezistik, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2Google Docs and Gmail don't work in Opera, at least they didn't when I used opera only a month ago.
    • kjcdude, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1All Gmail updates are rolling.
  • dgaspard, on 07/09/2008, -37/+1Old. How is this just now on the front page? Seriously... my grandma told me about it after she heard it on her rock radio.
  • slapded, on 07/09/2008, -2/+13This is awesome. I have been waiting for this for years.
    • daza, on 07/09/2008, -0/+4Ditto. Been waiting for this and a disposable password system which would let you have 'throwaway' or 'one use' passwords you could use in public places where your master password wouldn't be compromised.
    • unusualbob, on 07/09/2008, -0/+8I actually specifically requested this feature after my session stayed open on my girlfriends laptop and she started going through my chat and email history. OMFG that sucked...

      So THANK YOU GOOGLE!
      • catastrophatic, on 07/09/2008, -11/+3hmp. I think I speak for all of the crazy girlfriends when I say, unless you have something to hide it shouldn't be a problem for us to go through your email, the same goes for us. And if you do have something to hide obviously you shouldn't be together at all, because hiding ***** and lying is not the qualities to a lasting and successful relationship. Their certainly not qualities I desire in a relationship.
      • lintmonkey, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2correction: ex-girlfriend's laptop
      • Vironex, on 07/09/2008, -0/+6@catastrophatic
        gtfo
    • monsterette, on 07/09/2008, -0/+3...agreed, this is a wonderful feature and many thanks to the google.
  • xaeon, on 07/09/2008, -2/+37Does this not also allow people who have managed to gain access to your account to log YOU off? That's just an extra kick whilst you're down, if you ask me.
    • peaceninja, on 07/09/2008, -0/+43sure, but you can just log back in and log them out, and then change your password. if the other person has your password to begin with then you wouldn't be any more safer than you were before they rolled this feature out.
      • Duositex, on 07/09/2008, -0/+11If they managed to get your password something tells me it wouldn't be long before they reacquired it.
      • Archos, on 07/09/2008, -0/+14If you can't remember that you left a Gmail session open somewhere, and thus it's likely that someone has your passport, then you should just change your passport.

        It's useful. For example, I once logged in to Gmail on a computer at a bank to show some business plans. When I left, I realized that I hadn't logged out. I had to wait for like an hour to talk to the person that helped me again. With this simple function, I could've just logged out on the go.
      • peaceninja, on 07/09/2008, -0/+4@archos - I was in the same situation before, what I did was just change my gmail password which automatically closes the sessions on other computers that have me logged in. I actually have found myself in this situation a few times so it's much easier now they've rolled out this new feature
      • WELLDOITLIVE, on 07/09/2008, -1/+14The best password is password
      • str1fe, on 07/09/2008, -0/+3@WELLDOITLIVE:

        My password is password1. Just "password" has that "so obvious no one will guess it, but everyone knows -that- so they'll guess it anyway" feel to it, but they'll never guess password1!
    • bluezombie, on 07/09/2008, -0/+31) change your password
      2) log them out
    • bxblox, on 07/09/2008, -2/+31)They change your password
      2)Log you out
      • skyroket, on 07/10/2008, -1/+2The whole idea behind snooping someone's account is to not let them know you're doing it. I'm kinda disappointed with this feature, actually, because I have 2 or 3 people's accounts that I snoop into a couple times a month. I'm such a bad person. :(
    • chrishowie, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2If Google was smart they would require you to enter your password before remote sessions will be logged out. For sessions left open on a public computer this is good enough, since they won't know your password. If they know your password then you have already lost, unless you can change your password before they do.
  • th3st, on 07/09/2008, -1/+7very useful upgrade. thanks google :D
  • peaceninja, on 07/09/2008, -1/+6i was playing with google's image labeller last night, they are certainly adding a lot of value to their existing products as of late.
  • aliguana, on 07/09/2008, -0/+6good news if you forget to sign out at work or something. Slightly confusing if you have iGoogle open in one tab and Gmail open in another tab.
    • Tawm, on 07/09/2008, -0/+5Not really, it tells you the IP address of all activity, as well as what kind, even specifying if it's iGoogle ;)
      • aliguana, on 07/09/2008, -0/+4ah yeah, so it does. Well, it WAS confusing for about 2 minutes :)

        Fantasic feature.
  • easypie, on 07/09/2008, -15/+0ITS THE NWE UPGRADE FROM GOGOLE! LAWL!
  • Bigpapawes1, on 07/09/2008, -2/+102Wow wish they had this about a year ago when my now ex girlfriend was reading my emails between me and ex girlfriends that took place years and years ago. Her excuse well your password got saved on my laptop so I just would take a look. Bitches be crazy.
    • GiggleStick, on 07/09/2008, -10/+4You're so funny Sinbad. Love it!
    • eryximachus, on 07/09/2008, -3/+12My fiance did that 4 months before our wedding date, and rather than risk embarrassment I married her.

      Whoops.
    • mrbradg, on 07/09/2008, -1/+7Yeap, same thing here. Had a my girl snoop and then get all sorts of information that wasn't to be saw. Letters from old ex girlfriends just like you. We are now split up. So, so late google.
    • 4rp4n3t, on 07/09/2008, -1/+6Guys! You should know better! Always protect those accounts / passwords from those you (ahem) love the most...
    • thetanman, on 07/09/2008, -1/+17My cheating ex wife could have used this, but she was dumb enough to store her password in firefox so she probably wouldn't have used it anyways.

      /***** my life
    • LilRabbitFooFoo, on 08/11/2008, -1/+2If you can't trust her not to read your email, you can't trust her enough to marry her.
  • Phearce, on 07/09/2008, -4/+36New Gmail Features Protect from Spooning

    /dyslexia
  • kansai22, on 07/09/2008, -11/+3Doesn't Google keep copies of your emails forever and spy on you themselves?
  • isuisorisuaint, on 07/09/2008, -0/+12google >*
    • Versh, on 07/09/2008, -0/+82x > google

      Solve for x,
      and become a billionaire.
  • norbiu, on 07/09/2008, -0/+29Crap, I'm screwed!
    • cutekelvins, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1me too. Best way now is to delete the account or ask 5-6 people to login from different places. They seem to be recording only last 5 logins.
  • jeshjohn, on 07/09/2008, -2/+11What about that dot?
    • arjie, on 07/09/2008, -0/+24That's the camera through which they see if you're a snooper or not.
  • STKD, on 07/09/2008, -0/+11Can I delete attachments yet?
  • sachis, on 07/09/2008, -2/+45Blog SPAM!! Here is a direct link!!
    http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/remote-sign- ...
  • webkami, on 07/09/2008, -0/+39But that small CCTV in left top corner is still watching me....
  • havokdu, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1Really useful feature. If you forget to log out even in a trusted environment a quick, 10 seconds look to the starred emails may reveal personal data.
    Also in multitabbed browsers like Firefox if you close the Gmail tab and keep browsing on others, when you reopen gmail it will remain logged.
    Make sure you always manually Sign out
  • kleezy, on 07/09/2008, -0/+9Me thinks that many people will soon learn that their significant others aren't quite as trustworthy (or a little more human) than they thought.
    • NikkiA, on 07/09/2008, -1/+1See my comment lower down - I'm now worried about just what *Google* is doing with my account.
  • itsmoirob, on 07/09/2008, -6/+1Only supporting Firefox and IE, that's pretty poor for such a big company. FAIL IMO
    • NikkiA, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1If you read the google groups discussion groups for gmail, you'll see that *MANY* people have been complaining that IE support is broken anyway, since about march. So 'supporting IE' is a dubious claim at best at the moment.

      Many people have had to switch to firefox to access their gmail accounts.
      • waluigi14, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2Anyone using IE should switch to firefox anyway.
    • jer2eydevil88, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1Google seems to put more effort into new features than fixing the old ones. its a shame...
    • dobba, on 07/09/2008, -0/+3Works in Safari on the Mac I can report my good man. =)
  • wwwonka, on 07/09/2008, -0/+17I have to say this is one of the more exciting, useful, and just plain "duh why didn't we think of that" features that Gmail has introduced yet. I am just glad that they didn't have this back in the day when I was reading my cheating lying deceiving whoring around ex girlfriends email!!!!! ...er...I mean...yeah...great feature.
  • basye, on 07/09/2008, -0/+16Let's hope my father doesn't figure this feature out--snooping on his email is how we keep abreast of his online activities. Just this week he nearly fell for two separate scams on craigslist. If my sister and I hadn't known of this, he'd have been out over $7k. Beginning stages of Alzheimers is no picnic when they know how to still do some damage.
    • PosedMagnet, on 07/09/2008, -13/+3Hehe, you said breast.
    • SkippyDoorknob, on 07/09/2008, -0/+7Change his password
    • billbugger, on 07/09/2008, -0/+12Post-It notes on the monitor:

      Nigeria is Bad.
      Paypal Account info is Bad
      Requesting Bank Info is Bad
      Installing Codecs are Bad
      Etc.

      That might help him.
  • NikkiA, on 07/09/2008, -0/+20FFS, if they're going to do this, they could at least hide their own accesses to your account.

    I just had the 'details' feature popup on my gmail, and checked it, to find an access to my email account from an IP other than my own (I have static IP), panicked, changed the password, ran around checking if my google checkout history showed any bad transactions, etc. Then hit dnsstuff, only to find:

    IP address: 72.14.240.144
    Reverse DNS: [Unknown]
    Reverse DNS authenticity: [Unknown]
    ASN: 15169
    ASN Name: GOOGLE
  • PosedMagnet, on 07/09/2008, -0/+61Well that's dumb. How am I supposed to stalk my ex-girlfriend now?
    • cutekelvins, on 07/09/2008, -2/+3forward is still an option open. Do it cleverly.
  • ekard14, on 07/09/2008, -0/+3Webmonkey! Holy crap, that brings me back.
  • powerfullogic, on 07/09/2008, -1/+2This is an awesome feature.
  • GramarNazi, on 07/09/2008, -0/+10Great, now I can find out when my girlfriend checks my email.
  • holdencaulfield, on 07/09/2008, -0/+8I wonder how long it will be before we have access to all logins - not just the last 5.
    Maybe they'll launch that right before Valentine's day... just to be assholes.
  • hotpuck6, on 07/09/2008, -0/+30Good thing my ex girlfriend doesn't know what an IP address is.
  • zmigliozzi, on 07/09/2008, -2/+1It doesn't protect snooping it just allows for monitoring, and kicking off people who also happen to be snooping while you are online.
  • flagrant, on 07/09/2008, -0/+5If you like privacy make sure you use httpS://mail.google.com/. It will keep unwanted people from skimming the e-mails you're reading on your network or any network your data travels through on the internet.
  • biznatch11, on 07/09/2008, -0/+11That grey box actually shoots a laser at you if you are logged in to someone's account without authorization.
  • NCSUspoon, on 07/09/2008, -0/+3Would have been awesome to have last year when my girlfriend went snooping on my computer.
  • vexious, on 07/09/2008, -0/+4I love it when people leave their personal info logged in the computers at the apple store :)
    • ZenFu, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1Yep. It's ever so fun to reply to love letters sent by girl/boyfriends-etc and tell them how the email owner has an STD-etc.

      Public internet access. Proving people are complacent and ignorant when it comes to personal info...one relationship at a time.
  • Ralyndia08, on 07/09/2008, -1/+6I think its really sad some of you are annoyed about this because you're worried about getting caught. Stop being shady jerks and maybe this wouldnt be an issue for you :P
    • LilRabbitFooFoo, on 08/11/2008, -1/+1Indeed. The untrusting are always untrustworthy.
  • GilbertZ, on 07/09/2008, -5/+1Fastmail has the IP Log feature for quite some time now.
    • susie13, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1really? *****. Guess my husband knows about my snooping then
      • str1fe, on 07/09/2008, -0/+3[obligatory insulting comment about a girl being on digg]
  • abbymats, on 07/09/2008, -1/+1bravo google......I wish all sites have such a feature including digg
    • allanak, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2Including digg? Seriously? Do you really give a ***** if some jackass stole your account and started digging stories that YOU didn't digg?
      • abbymats, on 07/10/2008, -0/+0Well y not.......y wud u like some one taking on your personality online.....hacking any such social networking site account would mean hijacking your virtual identity and I wud definitely not like that
      • holdencaulfield, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1i know! y not? I wud h8 4 sum 1 2 hack n 2 my account & tarnish my good name w/ comments that used full words & sentences.
  • lightn899, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2Now if only it would email us when someone else logged in.....oh wait.
  • Floris, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2Final F* Ly

    I am really happy with this! Big Bravo
  • postvivace, on 07/09/2008, -0/+1This still doesn't protect from *all* email hackings....I left the room for a minute and my friend went into my email preferences forwarding all incoming mail to his email address....so even though he wasn't actually on my account, he was reading all my damn mail.
  • kualla, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1SWEEEET!!! The one and only feature request I made to Google finally has been developed!!!
    • miaow, on 08/01/2008, -0/+1me too. we can half the royalties. its incredible that there are 2 genuises who came up with such a complex idea. It was understandably beyond all the google yahoo and microsoft employees intellectual capacity. Perhaps implementing the code took a few years to figure out.
  •  

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