Lab Notes

Gmail started out limiting accounts to people who had been invited by other Gmail account holders. Now they've opened up access to everyone (well, everyone in the US for now), but with a twist: before you can create an account, you must register your cell phone number with Google. After entering your number, Google will send you an SMS message with a number that has to be entered at the Gmail web site to complete the account creation. The apparent idea is to prevent fraudsters from getting anonymous email accounts — at a minimum, Google has a valid cell phone number to verify a user's identity.