Google Security Issue - No Timeout 1

[seaport]

It happened to me twice.

Before I left work I checked my gmail and then close the Internet Explorer (I am not sure whether I intentionally signed off gmail.) The second morning I was back in office and started IE. Then I saw my gmail (or iGoogle) was OPEN! That was about 12 hours after IE was closed and I am pretty sure that no one touched my PC during that time.

Did anyone have the same experience?

How should I handle that problem? Now I have to remember to log off gmail, close IE, then open the IE and ensure that I have signed out, then close IE again.

Seaport

 

[franklin97355]

Why not shut down the computer when you leave?

The answer is "42"

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

Are you really sure you closed IE?

Dan



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[seaport]

I do not shut down the computer because I might use remote access sometime.

I am very certain that I closed IE. It is my habit of closing everything before I leave.

My belief is that once I closed IE all sessions ended. That's why I was so stunned when I started IE (with google as my homepage) and saw my gmail was open right on the page.

Seaport

 

[ZaSter]

My experience has been that if you close IE while you are still logged into your Google account, then the next time you open IE it will still be logged into your Google account. Firefox does not do this; if you close Firefox while logged into Google, you are not logged into Google the next time Firefox is started.

 

[ZaSter]

UPDATE: The recent 2nd-Tuesday-patched IE no longer exhibits the "still-logged-in-Google" behavior.

 

[seaport]

ZaSter,

Thanks.

Seaport

 

[ZaSter]

Hmmm. Even the patched IE7 will log back into Google if you quit out of it and start it up right after closing. Apparently, it takes some amount of time before it forgets the login information.

 

[seaport]

Even if I never sign out the gmail and leave it open on IE for 10 hours, am I supposed to be timed out automatically?

Seaport

 

[ZaSter]

Seaport,

That is a good question for Google and one that I could not find an answer for, but the answer appears to be no matter how long you leave IE open when you are logged into your Google account, the login will be valid until the cookies expire which is a very long time.

Google is currently rethinking its cookie lifetime policy.

Here are Google's suggested work-arounds .



ZaSter