Account Security Improvements
We'll do an announcement next week when the writers have time to craft my poor semblance of sentences into an announcement, but here's an early heads up for both of you that have dev alerts on.
Not one, but two changes for your account protection pleasure.
First, changing your e-mail will send an notification e-mail to the old account, so at least you'll get a warning that someone is potentially doing something nefarious to your account. This is in effect for all accounts.
Second, we are making available an additional security measure available to users. In Account Settings there is now a checkbox for "IP Verification." If you click this checkbox, you will get an e-mail with a) a link to turn it on, and b) an emergency link to turn it off. Neither link requires you to be logged in. IP Verification will not be turned on until you click on the first link.
Once IP Verification is turned on, logging in from a new location won't work right away. Instead, we'll give you a message that says:
"Hold it! Your login IP has changed and your account settings tell us to check with you first. Please verify this change of IP by clicking the link e-mailed to you. If you do not want to verify this IP, please use the previously verified IP to login."
If this has happened, then we have detected you logging in from a location that we haven't seen before. You'll get an e-mail with a verification link; you'll need to click the verification link before you can log in from that location.
Now, this is more bothersome if you change locations frequently, but on the other hand it makes your account significantly more secure. This option has been mandatory for staff accounts for a while, and it has really helped cut down on the number of problems.
100
50
150
