Internet Services As Public Utilities: Recovering Your Account

I have learned something about cloud security: to secure your email or cloud, you need at least one account, somewhere, where you have a business or personal relationship with the provider (a smartphone serves this purpose for a lot of people), so that you can talk to them, or walk into their office, to recover your account. Otherwise, if an account is lost you may not be able to recover it.

Obvious, but I’ve never seen it stated anywhere.

When the internet started out, this was the norm; you were a member of some institution or other, or connected with some institution, and there was always someone you could go to to recover your account. Somewhere in all the chaos of creating the modern public internet, this got lost: you can lose your Google, Microsoft, or Apple account and never get it back. None of these firms are willing to accept your proofs of identity if you walk into their offices, not even Apple with its otherwise excellent customer service network. It's a hangover from the cypherpunk days of the 1990s, when everyone did business anonymously. Now, almost no-one is anonymous, except for trolls and spammers, but the major service providers still don't want to admit they know who you are, or who your account belongs to.

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