[OT] Nick's being an ass again (ok, *way* OT)

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir at thecybershadow.net> wrote in message 
news:op.v215o1z3tuzx1w at cybershadow.mshome.net...
> On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 02:56:34 +0300, Nick Sabalausky <a at a.a> wrote:
>
>> [snip rant]
>
> I believe the reason why Google has started requiring phone numbers was to 
> curb usage of its free services by spammers. Captchas aren't cutting it 
> any more, when you can get people in developing countries to solve 
> thousands of captchas for a few dollars.
>
> I've recently started getting spam from random people who have e-mailed me 
> in the past. I guess spammers have intensified efforts to hack into 
> peoples' mail accounts, which Gmail's spam filter trusts, and start 
> sending spam from them. Perhaps that's what happened in your case?
>
> If you have a Gmail account you have access to, you can send yourself an 
> invite. I believe that bypasses phone validation, since it establishes a 
> trust relationship between the two accounts.

I do actually (my domain's contact/technical/billing/etc. address, since it 
obviously wouldn't be very helpful to have that on my domain ;) ). How do I 
send an invite?

> Alternatively you could post  a non-Gmail address here, and me or someone 
> else could send you an invite.
>
> By the way, if you think it you got it hard - Google requires the same 
> phone number validation for my country, and yet does not support phone 
> validation for my country. No Gmail for Moldova :(
>

Ouch!