Identity crisis thanks to Google



  • A little background: for the past 6 weeks or so I (Marijn) have been contracting on-site for a rush job, which involved me hauling my 4 kilogram weighing laptop halfway across the country every day. Tiring, but well payed.

    For this project I had a scrum master (before you start: yes, that's TRWTF(tm)) called Servan. Nice and competent guy. On general things were going smoothly. Last week he added some meetings to my Google calendar, mainly involving the finishing up of the project. Fine.

    Today I'm back at my own office and want to put something else in my calendar. I'm using my office desktop, laptop is having a rest at home. I open Google Calendar, and after a minute or so I realise ALL the stuff I'd put in there is GONE. WTF. Then I look more closely and my jaw hits the desk.


    Google, really? How is this even possible? It's a different machine with a different session, and this man hasn't even been NEAR it. Also, I'm sure this isn't HIS calendar either, he's bogged down with appointments too. Anybody have ANY idea what's going on here???

    For bonus points, I tried Gmail and Google+ too. Sure enough, I'm still signed in as Servan (I can tell by the secondary email address it shows). I've no idea if he even uses those (Google+ probably not, Gmail he might but no idea). I'm actually a bit shocked - this means I'm not going to ever give people access to my calendar ever again...
    ..



  • The real WTF is using Iceweasel.

    Have they ever updated past Firefox version 3.x?



  • Google's account system is indeed one of the mysteries of the ages, one which will never be explained adequately.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Buttembly Coder said:

    The real WTF is using Iceweasel.

    Have they ever updated past Firefox version 3.x?

    TRWTF is updating Firefox past 3.x. Why aren't you using Iceweasel?



  • @Monomelodies said:

    Google, really? How is this even possible? It's a different machine with a different session, and this man hasn't even been NEAR it. Also, I'm sure this isn't HIS calendar either, he's bogged down with appointments too. Anybody have ANY idea what's going on here???

    In the absence of any kind of extraordinary evidence, I'd take the Occam's Razor option of assuming you're simply mistaken, and that he in fact has been near it and has logged into google using it, and that that is in fact his calendar after all.




  • @DaveK said:

    @Monomelodies said:
    Google, really? How is this even possible? It's a different machine with a different session, and this man hasn't even been NEAR it. Also, I'm sure this isn't HIS calendar either, he's bogged down with appointments too. Anybody have ANY idea what's going on here???
    In the absence of any kind of extraordinary evidence, I'd take the Occam's Razor option of assuming you're simply mistaken, and that he in fact has been near it and has logged into google using it, and that that is in fact his calendar after all.

    OP states this was on his desktop. I'm speculating now, but I think it's fair to assume he didn't take a tower PC on his commute.



  • @mott555 said:

    it's fair to assume he didn't take a tower PC on his commute

    I'm thinking Firefox Sync is a more plausible culprit.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    TRWTF is updating Firefox past 3.x. Why aren't you using Iceweasel?
     

    That depends.  Can I get grumpy cat on Iceweasel?  Is there more grumpy cat on Iceweasel than on Firefox?

     


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @DCRoss said:

    That depends.  Can I get grumpy cat on Iceweasel?  Is there more grumpy cat on Iceweasel than on Firefox?
    Since 3.6 didn't implement CTP, then yes. Yes there is more grumpy cat on Iceweasle than Firefox.

     



  • Certified Treasury Professional? Creative Teaching Press? Center for Theoretical Physics?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Certified Treasury Professional? Creative Teaching Press? Center for Theoretical Physics?

    CTP/PI. It's a protocol for dyslexic computers.



  • @Monomelodies said:

    Google, really? How is this even possible? It's a different machine with a different session

    @blakeyrat said:
    Google's account system is indeed one of the mysteries of the ages, one which will never be explained adequately.

    Oh, the joys of cloud-based account syncing! This is one reason I try to avoid any sort of auto-login, especially on a cloud system.



  • So your office computer is logged into a website as someone else from your office. Let's go through the possibilities, from most likely to least likely:

    1. They logged in on your computer and forgot to log out
    2. You're at their computer by mistake
    3. A janitor moved some things around and your stuff got mixed up with theirs
    4. You were cursed by a witch and you are actually Servan now
    5. insert 100000 newlines
    6. Google somehow mixed up the cookies from two different physical machines and it just happened to be the ones used by two people who knew each other


  •  

    @Ben L. said:

    So your office computer is logged into a website as someone else from your office. Let's go through the possibilities, from most likely to least likely:

    1. They logged in on your computer and forgot to log out
    2. You're at their computer by mistake
    3. A janitor moved some things around and your stuff got mixed up with theirs
    4. You were cursed by a witch and you are actually Servan now
    5. insert 100000 newlines
    6. Google somehow mixed up the cookies from two different physical machines and it just happened to be the ones used by two people who knew each other

    One of us is having a reading comprehension failure, and I don't think it's me. After reading the OP several times, I still think Servan is an employee of the client "half-way across the country," not a coworker in the OP's own office. If I understand it correctly, that makes your "most likely" three possibilities far less probable than your "least likely" possibility. Did you even read the other comments?



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    One of us is having a reading comprehension failure, and I don't think
    it's me. After reading the OP several times, I still think Servan is an
    employee of the client "half-way across the country," not a coworker
    in the OP's own office.

    The way I read it is that OP (Marijn) was travelling with his laptop half way across the country to be at Servan's location. He's now at his own office using his desktop PC and his laptop is having a rest.



  • @Ben L. said:

    So your office computer is logged into a website as someone else from your office. Let's go through the possibilities, from most likely to least likely:

    1. They logged in on your computer and forgot to log out
    2. You're at their computer by mistake
    3. A janitor moved some things around and your stuff got mixed up with theirs
    4. You were cursed by a witch and you are actually Servan now
    5. insert 100000 newlines
    6. Google somehow mixed up the cookies from two different physical machines and it just happened to be the ones used by two people who knew each other

    Arrogance and lack of wisdom, typical combo



  • I blame caching proxies.



  • @henke37 said:

    I blame caching proxies.
    Looks like I'm very wrong in my beliefs about HTTPS.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Zecc said:

    Looks like I'm very wrong in my beliefs about HTTPS.
    Your beliefs ought to be right.


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