Couldn’t Log into His Gmail Address, Logged into Others’, Found Embassy Code

An Internet Service Provider from Kuwait delivered one of the most frustrating experiences a user can have. Abdulaziz Al-Shalabi was unable to log into his Gmail account, but at the same time he was free to log into other 30 or so people’s accounts and browse through their inboxes.

He couldn’t help but think that at the very same
time another person was going through his personal messages and metaphorically taking a peak in his life. Google admitted this to be true, but it was pretty difficult to deny it when a major news site posted the story backed up by two dozen screenshots. Al-Shalabi wrote to CNET News.com to present his version. On Wednesday, the problem was fixed, though, and access to his Gmail account was restored.

In the meantime, he was able to find a lot of useful information about personal identification numbers, usernames, passwords and the "keycodes for some embassy gate." Imagine the headlines if he were a master criminal: "Embassy robbed, Google’s Fault" would have been one of the prettier ones. Oh, and the political implications…

The ISP was not named, but there have been several reports of events, like this coming from Sri Lanka as well, so it must be a pretty big one. That or it’s a common error (not very plausible), and another distinct possibility is the Gmail team goof up when coding. And leaving a backdoor accessible when certain conditions are met.

An ISP in that region is having a caching problem on its servers that is affecting Gmail users there, as well as eBay accounts, Google spokesman Jason Freidenfelds acknowledged. Google has contacted the ISP and is supplying a workaround for Gmail, he said. Freidenfelds said he did not know which ISP it was or how widespread the problem was, News.com reported.