I recently turned on a computer that I hadn't used in a while and couldn't remember the correct password. I signed in with another account, and the computer asked to send a confirmation code to my email. The code appeared to be sent successfully even though the computer supposedly had no Wi-Fi or wired internet connection. How could that happen?
4 Answers
If this was a Windows sign-in using an online account, the computer may have contacted the account provider before you logged in. Saved Wi-Fi credentials can reconnect automatically, and the operating system can use that connection independently of the account you’re trying to access.
A time-based authenticator code is another possibility, since those can be generated without internet access. However, that would not send a new email; an email confirmation request specifically requires some device with internet access to contact the mail or account service.
If the confirmation email actually arrived, the computer had some kind of network access at that moment. Wi-Fi may have reconnected automatically after startup, a previously saved network may have been available, or the Ethernet connection may not have been noticed. A computer can also connect to the network before anyone signs in.
It’s possible the screen only confirmed that the system would try to send the code. If no email ever arrived, the request may simply have been queued or failed because there was no connection. Sending a real email requires the request to reach the service’s servers.
On many systems, networking and account services start at the login screen, so being logged out doesn’t necessarily mean the machine is offline.