Tag Archives: Verification

Re-activating gmail on Blackberry after setting up 2-step verification for Google

After reading this viral post, ‘How Apple and Amazon’s security flaws led to my epic hacking’ I decided to set up 2-step verification for my Google Account for good. If you are reading this, chances are you already know what 2-step verification for Google is and if you don’t, read this.

If you have integrated your gmail on Blackberry, after having set up that 2-step verification your mails will stop working on your phone.  Here’s what you need to do to fix it

Option 1: While you are on https://accounts.google.com/SmsAuthConfig, click on Blackberry link (on right) in the Mobile application section

On clicking Blackberry, you’ll see this

I couldn’t get to use this method as the authenticator link didn’t open on my phone, so in search of an alternate I discovered another way out(option 2)

Option 2: Open https://accounts.google.com/IssuedAuthSubTokens and generate password from here (You can use any name you want, say my BB)

After clicking generate password, you’ll see the application password. In another tab open the website for your blackberry internet service provider (https://airtel.blackberry.com in my case). While editing the email id, it will ask for gmail password. Once you validate that, it will again present you a screen to validate your gmail password.

Now instead of inputting your gmail password again here, you need to input the application password that was generated doing the step mentioned above (copy paste the generated password and click ok).  This should work just fine

 

ZipDial plugs hole in its verification service

One of the emails from themorpheus email list that caught my attention last week was how @bevenky found a hole in the ZipDial’s phone number verification process. ZipDial for those who don’t know was in news recently for signing up some big ticket Indian e-commerce players and TutorVista to end their vows(in sending verification SMS’s) anticipated to occur because of TRAI’s revised guidelines applicable from 1st April.

I’ve been following the conversations on Venky’s Blog Post and was glad to note that ZipDial team’s response to the pointed flaw changed from ‘It doesn’t really matter’ to ‘Thanks for sharing the flaw, we’ve made the suggested changes to fix it’

It’s a good idea for companies(especially startups) to acknowledge the flaws in their offerings and try to fix ’em rather than proclaiming “All’s Well” when it is not.