[gexaha]

> You have multiple scenarios where papers can be published with authors using email addresses which they lose access to.

Btw, why is it considered normal? I think it would be much better to mention an e-mail, to which you will have (more-or-less) permament access.

[MereInterest]

Here’s an example. I have a [e-mail] address, which was intended to be permanent. Google turned on two-factor authentication, despite not having a second form of authentication available. Instead, they required the recovery address for 2FA. The recovery address was another Gmail address, which I haven’t used since 2010, and which also had 2FA turned on using its recovery address. That was an SBCGlobal address, a company which has long since been purchased by AT&T, and the email address is entirely defunct.

I place the blame here entirely on Google for misusing forms of identification. Two-factor authentication is having two locks on the same door, where recovery addresses are having two doors with separate locks. Using a recovery address for 2FA is absurd, and caused me to be locked out of my permanent email address.

[epanchin]

“I place the blame on Google because I didn’t update my recovery address to one that worked”

[MereInterest]

First, recovery addresses are for recovery when access has been lost. They are an alternate method of entry when the primary method of entry has been lost. They are NOT an extra method of validation to be used for the primary method of entry.

When Google switched from offering 2FA to requiring 2FA, it would have been acceptable for them to require a second form of authentication to be added on the next log-in. It is not acceptable for Google to pretend that they have a second form of authentication when they do not.

Second, up until the moment it was needed, I had access to my recovery address. Google locked me out of my primary address and my recovery address simultaneously.

[QuadmasterXLII]

Did you notice that the issue was that O0P had failed to update the recovery address of their recovery address, and google removed access to both the main email and the recovery email at the same time?

[chipdart]

> Btw, why is it considered normal?

What leads you to believe it isn't normal? I mean, do you have an eternal email address? Have you ever switched jobs?

Most papers are authored/co-authored by graduate students. Do you think all of them will hold onto their institutional address after they graduate? A big chunk of them will not even continue in the field.

[znpy]

There’s nothing permanent in life.

Dumb example: you might have published a paper while working at a company, but years later the company went bankrupt and ceased to operate. Now somebody else is owning the domains and they will not make you the favour to give you an email address.

Notable example: Sun Microsystems. But there are many more, of course.

Or you just moved from one university to another. Or you published while on grad school and then moved somewhere else.

[atoav]

Why would you expect any institution to support all email addresses of their ex-employees ad infinitum?

This would be a security nightmare for them. It is pretty normal for universities to have some sort of identity managmemt system that automatically provisions emails when you are employed there and deprovision them once you are gone.

[acka]

Why not have a system where students and staff have actual email inboxes but alumni have their email forwarded?

Most universities use a portal of some sort for easy access to personal information and preferences anyway, so it shouldn't be too difficult to limit access for alumni to only allow them to change a few personal details like name / address / phone number and the like, plus email forwarding settings. I think the extra cost is negligible compared to what universities already spend on alumni like newsletters, conferences, dinners, etc.

[oefrha]

If I run a university IT system I certainly don’t want someone who possibly attended a program thirty years ago walking around with an apparent affiliation with my institution. I find my institutions’ policies of (IIRC) one year forwarding + permanent alumni email pretty reasonable.

Additionally, making people who want to cold email work a little to acquire the current email address is actually a good thing, especially if they want to talk about something years old. I’ve generally had a lot more pleasant and engaging correspondence with people who worked out my email (say from a side project I develop pseudonymously) than ones who directly lifted my email from my professional profiles. So, expiring emails in papers generally isn’t a real problem anyway, and it’s basically never a hurdle if your target is still in academic circles. It only becomes a problem in this specific context of automated authentication (based on something not intended for that purpose).

[blackenedgem]

An awful lot of free student access programs revolve around the uni email address being accredited. Foe example Jetbrains will give you a full version of their products if you register with a uni email, then require you to verify it yearly.

If you forward emails automatically then you'd lose this accreditation. I suppose the solution would be an accreditatiom domain that forwards to your uni address only, but that's extra work now.

[atoav]

I can't answer for everybody, but my (German) university is prohibited from doing so by law. We are state employees and as such our university needs a comtract with the people runnimg services that process our (or our students) data.

Obviously our university isn't gonna make a 10k€/month contract just because some prof wants their mail forwarded to gmail. Especially not if they are not working here anymore.

[msteffen]

That is just not always possible. An example that should be familiar to HN: I worked for a period at startup, and used my email at that startup (my only work email at the time, as that’s where I was working!). Then the startup ran out of money money and was sold. Hence the email no longer worked.

Should I have waited until the startup had more revenue? We were profitable at the time (we were B2B and the layoffs did us in)

[dleeftink]

Security and affiliation purposes mostly.