We reset your e-mail password
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The other day, my mailer refused to download new messages from my mail account with my ISP, complaining that my password was incorrect. I tried various things to fix it, but to no avail, so I went and looked at the ISP’s help pages. Those also didn’t provide any useful clues, except for trying to get me to log in using the password that wasn’t working anymore, so in the end, I phoned the helpdesk.
It turned out that the ISP had changed the password to protect me — I can live with that. But letting me know would have been nice … With the helpdesk guy’s help, I easily reset the password.
That done, one of the e-mails I had gotten in the meantime, reads:
From: "KPN" noreply@kpn.com
To: •••••••••@••••••••••••••.nl
Date: 29 Aug 2022 15:01:06 +0200
Subject: We hebben het wachtwoord van je e-mailaccount geresetVerander je wachtwoord, dan werkt alles weer
Beste meneer, mevrouw ••••••••••••••,
Volgens onze gegevens heeft iemand anders toegang gekregen tot je e-mailaccount.
(…)
Daarom hebben we het wachtwoord van je e-mailadres •••••••••@••••••••••••••.nl voor de zekerheid gereset.For those who have trouble with the language:
Subject: We reset the password of your email account
Change your password, then everything will work again
Dear sir, madam ••••••••••••••,
According to our data, someone else gained access to your email account.
(…)
For this reason, we reset the password of your email address •••••••••@••••••••••••••.nl just in case.Yes, an email to tell me they’ve reset the password of the email account they sent it to … Gee, great, thanks, KPN!
The chap on the phone confirmed this is KPN policy, and asked if I use a VPN sometimes. As it happens, I do occasionally (seeing as how KPN blocks access to things like torrent sites), and that is probably what triggered this. But still.
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@Gurth Perfectly logic.
Next time, just give them your fax number so that they can also inform you by
. 
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Yeah, retarded if they not CC to the recovery mail.
Never used ISP mailbox after my first ISP, here they offer zero or little time of forwarding after you change ISP
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@Gurth said in We reset your e-mail password:
e-mailadres
There's an orthographic fun:
- Dutch: e-mailadres
- English: email address
- German: Email-Adresse
Is there also a language where
addresshas 2dand 1s?
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@BernieTheBernie In English, it’s actually also
e-mailbut the-is dropped a lot more often than not. Interestingly, RFC 822 uses neither spelling, while RFC 2822 uses both, but only in some blurb at the end, and RFC 5322 has only “email” but again only in some additional text rather than the specification itself.Is there also a language where
addresshas 2dand 1s?Going by https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/address (show the bit titled “description of the location of a property; direction for correspondence” in the part about the noun), it doesn’t look like it. This is probably one of those cases where English got unnecessary letters added, because apparently, modern
addressderives from Middle Englishadressenwith only oned.
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@BernieTheBernie said in We reset your e-mail password:
@Gurth said in We reset your e-mail password:
e-mailadres
There's an orthographic fun:
- Dutch: e-mailadres
- English: email address
- German: Email-Adresse
French : adresse mail
The fussy Académie Française word for email is courriel, which is a portmanteau of courrier = (postal) letter and electronique, so pretty close in spirit to e-mail / email. Almost nobody outside of very formal governmentish contexts says, "courriel." Everyone seems to know what it means, but never uses it, preferring just mail.
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Last time I wanted to torrent something I used the 'pull a magnet uri out of the google cache' workaround, but it's been a while. Does that still work?
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@PleegWat said in We reset your e-mail password:
Does that still work?
Don’t ask, me I never thought to try. But yeah:
@Tsaukpaetra said in We reset your e-mail password:
Fuck around and find out! 😈
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@Gurth I'm moving this month. I won't have Internet till KPN sends someone over to plug the fiber in, currently scheduled for the 15th.
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@Tsaukpaetra mobile is different.
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They did it again … Last night just as I wanted to go to bed, I noticed I had an email from KPN saying “You can log in again!” This because, it explained, they “had reset” my password — notice the past tense. However, my mailer refused to download messages, saying the password was wrong.
Well, whatever, I’m going to bed, I’ll sort that out in the morning.
The email didn’t include anything about where I should go to change my password, so this morning I dug around the customer support pages until I found it. The page then wanted me to log in to change my password, but it refused the password my browser had saved. I would guess that’s for the same reason that I can’t download any emails. But there’s an “I forgot my password” — which, of course, says to enter my email address and they’ll mail me a link. Great, thanks, that’ll work …!
But there’s a phone number in the email about the reset, so let’s call that. “We are busier than usual so it may take longer than normal to help you.” Well, OK, I guess I’ll spend ages on the phone then. But just as I was resigning myself to that, I noticed a link on the login page that says I can change my email password if I know my customer number. Which is in the bill they email you each month, and which I for some reason don’t delete.
Good, that worked at least, so I changed the password (to the one the browser suggested) and copied that so I could also paste it into my mailer, and I could finally download my mail again. In which there is another message sent two seconds after the one informing me about how they had (past tense) reset my password, saying “We have reset your password” (present tense) and urging me to change it ASAP.
Aside from the
of once more sending me an email that they themselves have just prevented me from receiving, I’m kind of worried by the security implications of being able to reset my password using my customer number alone. I hope there’s at least a check involved that I’m coming from the right IP address for that customer number, but it gives no indication of that.And then there’s the bonus
when I tried to also put the new password into Mail on my iPad. You’d think this would be simple: copy it from Mail on my Mac and paste it, via the universal clipboard, into Mail on the iPad. But no, if you go to the accounts preferences in Mac Mail, you cannot view the password and you cannot copy it. It will only display it as dots, there’s no button to make it visible, selecting it and hitting ⌘C gives a beep (meaning “this doesn’t work”), and selecting and right-clicking it pops up a menu in which “Cut” and “Copy” are greyed out. The same happens if you go to the window that has all of the stored passwords.So, what to do? Well, I reset the password in Safari and used its suggestion, so it will have stored it too. Back to Safari, into the prefs and view the stored passwords. Find the KPN one, and it too shows it as dots, of course. But if you just move your mouse pointer over it, it shows it as plaintext … Click it (left or right) and you get a menu with one option: “Copy Password” — not greyed out.
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@Gurth said in We reset your e-mail password:
“We are busier than usual dealing with people whose passwords we've reset so it may take longer than normal to help you.”
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@Zecc said in We reset your e-mail password:
@Gurth said in We reset your e-mail password:
“We are busier than usualdealing withre-resetting passwords of the people whose passwords we've reset so it may take longer than normal to help you.”
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@Gurth Huh, lesse if they hit me too.
(...)
Looks like nope. May or may not be because I'm ex-telfort.
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@Gurth said in We reset your e-mail password:
So, what to do?
FWIW, Don't know if that's still a thing but at the time I still used Macs there was a "Keychain" app that contained all the stored passwords of the system; chances are the mail password would be in there as well, at least if you use Apple Mail.
Filed under: I DID NOT ASK FOR HELP!
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@ixvedeusi It probably keeps it there, but I didn’t check because I could get it from Safari. The keychain manager would have been my next stop, though.
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@PleegWat said in We reset your e-mail password:
May or may not be because I'm ex-telfort.
I’m ex-XS4ALL, and I want that back … In the year and a half since KPN forced me to convert to their network, I’ve had more ISP trouble than in the 28 years I was with XS4ALL.
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@Gurth Ah yes they tried to convince me to stay, too. "Everything will stay the same", which they shamelessly sent me after informing me that my SIP phone number would no longer work the way I used it. Apparantly with KPN you can only connect to it from the IP address assigned to your connection, negating all the advantages of using SIP. Oh, and of course reverse dns for IPv6 addresses is not supported either.
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@Gurth said in We reset your e-mail password:
used its suggestion
Rookie. Unless you always and only use one ecosystem that syncs with everything, this will always cause pain if you're not able to retrieve it later.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in We reset your e-mail password:
@Gurth said in We reset your e-mail password:
used its suggestion
Rookie. Unless you always and only use one ecosystem that syncs with everything, this will always cause pain if you're not able to retrieve it later.
Toby faire, I could retrieve it easily — just not from the program where it would be most logical to get the email password from (that is, my mailer).
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@Gurth said in We reset your e-mail password:
And then there’s the bonus when I tried to also put the new password into Mail on my iPad. You’d think this would be simple: copy it from Mail on my Mac and paste it, via the universal clipboard, into Mail on the iPad. But no, if you go to the accounts preferences in Mac Mail, you cannot view the password and you cannot copy it. It will only display it as dots, there’s no button to make it visible, selecting it and hitting ⌘C gives a beep (meaning “this doesn’t work”), and selecting and right-clicking it pops up a menu in which “Cut” and “Copy” are greyed out. The same happens if you go to the window that has all of the stored passwords.
AFAIK this is standard behaviour for password inputs
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@hungrier I just checked in Safari, and yes, it does seem to be the normal behaviour for password fields. But the weird thing about Mac Mail is that it also does it in the window in which you can view the sites for which the computer has stored passwords. You need to enter your (local account) password to open that, but all it allows you to do is fill in the username and associated password into the mail account you’re currently working with. But do much the same in Safari, and you can see any password you want (the exact same ones as Mail shows) — and with less trouble than in the Keychain Manager because you only need to enter your password once to view any stored one, rather than every time you want to view a password.
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@Gurth said in We reset your e-mail password:
rather than every time you want to view a password.
Yeah, that is particularly pants-on-head. Chrome on Windows code that too.
I know why it does, but really, it could be done better...
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@Gurth TBH I would have just expected Apple to propagate the passwords from the Keychain to whatever device linked with your Apple account as needed, so you wouldn't have to faff around with copy pasting to e.g. set up the same mail account on your Mac and iPad
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@hungrier said in We reset your e-mail password:
TBH I would have just expected Apple to propagate the passwords from the Keychain to whatever device linked with your Apple account as needed
It does sync the keychain. It doesn't sync mail accounts between devices.
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@loopback0 Right. Wouldn't the mail app get the credentials for the account from the keychain?
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@hungrier said in We reset your e-mail password:
@loopback0 Right. Wouldn't the mail app get the credentials for the account from the keychain?
One might think that.
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@hungrier said in We reset your e-mail password:
Wouldn't the mail app get the credentials for the account from the keychain?
The mail app that doesn't sync accounts between devices?
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@loopback0 It seems very un-Apple-like to me. You can get your text messages instantly blasted to all your devices when you get them, but you have to manually setup your mail account multiple times on (presumably) the official Apple mail app like some caveman
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@hungrier said in We reset your e-mail password:
@loopback0 It seems very un-Apple-like to me. You can get your text messages instantly blasted to all your devices when you get them, but you have to manually setup your mail account multiple times on (presumably) the official Apple mail app like some caveman
He's talking about a 3rd party mail service though.
Your text messages are blasted to all devices by iCloud and iCloud email is different, at least for the iCloud account you're signed into the device with. It's very Apple.
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@loopback0 I still don't see why it wouldn't sync. The workflow I have in my mind would go something like this:
- setup the account in Mail on the Mac
- credentials get saved to keychain and synced across devices
- on the ipad, go to add account
- it goes "You just setup a mail account on another device. Want to set it up here as well?"
- scan FaceID or whatever to confirm, and now you have your account on both devices, no copy pasta necessary
It seems like exactly the kind of feature that syncing keychain credentials would be used for
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@hungrier said in We reset your e-mail password:
I still don't see why it wouldn't sync.
Apple don't want it to be that easy to use a 3rd party mail service on multiple devices.
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@loopback0 as a comparison the workflow to have the iCloud email address that's linked to your iCloud account synced on all devices that your iCloud ID is signed into is:
- sign into device with iCloud ID
- fin
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@hungrier said in We reset your e-mail password:
@Gurth TBH I would have just expected Apple to propagate the passwords from the Keychain to whatever device linked with your Apple account as needed, so you wouldn't have to faff around with copy pasting to e.g. set up the same mail account on your Mac and iPad
How would it do that between my iPad and my iPhone, seeing as how my main computer(2) is on Windows. (And all my other physical(1) computers are on Windows 10 or 11 also...)
(1) I have some VMs on assorted flavours of Linux, but the host systems are all on Windows.
(2) Yes, I know that my iPhone is a pocket computer(3) and my iPad is a pocket computer for people with Tardis Trousers and my Apple Watch is a
Wrist Wizardwrist computer(3), but I don't think of them as computers, and I hope y'all know what I meant...(3) that can also make and receive phone calls. (Which is why I think of the Watch as a Wrist Wizard(4).)
(4) If you don't recognise the reference, I have no hope for you.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in We reset your e-mail password:
a Wrist Wizard
You're a Wrist Wizard, Harry!
That's what she said
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@hungrier said in We reset your e-mail password:
@loopback0 I still don't see why it wouldn't sync. The workflow I have in my mind would go something like this:
- setup the account in Mail on the Mac
- credentials get saved to keychain and synced across devices
- on the ipad, go to add account
- it goes "You just setup a mail account on another device. Want to set it up here as well?"
That last step is what it doesn’t do. Although, I just checked the iCloud preferences and I discovered it has an option to do iCloud synching for domains other than icloud.com. I didn’t try it, though, because things work right now and if there’s one thing I learned from about 40 years’ of using computers, it’s that, If something works, don’t fuck around with it.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in We reset your e-mail password:
@Steve_The_Cynic said in We reset your e-mail password:
I have no hope for you.
I'm not that young!
The reference is significantly more recent than I thought...
Wrist Wizard | Dick Tracy Wiki | Fandom
The Wrist Wizard was an invention of Diet Smith. It was introduced during Dick Tracy's encounter with the previously presumed-deceased B-B Eyes. It replaced the Wrist Geenee. The Wrist Wizard...
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@Steve_The_Cynic Woah! Powered by an advanced lithium battery.
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@loopback0 said in We reset your e-mail password:
@Steve_The_Cynic said in We reset your e-mail password:
a Wrist Wizard
You're a Wrist Wizard, Harry!
That's what she said
: be a jukebox hero, got...
: wrong! you're thinking of pinball wizard.
: quiet you!
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in We reset your e-mail password:
@Tsaukpaetra said in We reset your e-mail password:
@Steve_The_Cynic said in We reset your e-mail password:
I have no hope for you.
I'm not that young!
The reference is significantly more recent than I thought...
The Wrist Wizard was an invention of Diet Smith. It was introduced during Dick Tracy's encounter with the previously presumed-deceased B-B Eyes. It replaced the Wrist Geenee. The Wrist Wizard...
I thought that's what you were referring too but didn't want to explicitly call myself out. :3
