-
16 votes
-
Seven ways music exposes our feelings about technology
3 votes -
How to grant your child an inner life
8 votes -
Multiple whistleblowers raise grave concerns with White House efforts to transfer sensitive US nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia
20 votes -
Passwords
This will probably be controversial, but I disagree with the current password policy. Checking against a list of known broken passwords sounds like a good idea, but that list is only ever going to...
This will probably be controversial, but I disagree with the current password policy. Checking against a list of known broken passwords sounds like a good idea, but that list is only ever going to get bigger. The human factor has to be taken into account. People are going to reuse passwords. So whenever their reused password gets hacked from a less secure site, it's going to add to that list.
Ideally, a password would be unique. Ideally, users should maybe ever use a password manager that generates garbage as a password that no one could hack. An ideal world is different from reality. Specific requirements are going to lead to people needing to write things down. In the past, that was on paper, like Wargames. Now, it's going to lead to people pasting their username and login into text documents for easy reference. That's probably what i'm going to have to do. Was my previous method of reusing passwords safe? No. Will my new method of remembering passwords be safe? Probably not either.
I'm not entirely sure what all the account security is about, either. For my bank, sure, a complex password. I have a lot to lose there. For an account on a glorified message board? There's better ways to establish legitimacy. 4chan, of all places, dealt with this (nod to 2chan), by having users enter a password after their username that got encoded and displayed as part of their username to verify that they were, in fact, the same user.
So the topic for discussion would be, what's the endgame here? Where is the line drawn between usability and security? I may well be on the wrong side of this, but I think it's worth discussing.
Edit: I think there may be some good reasons, evidenced in this reply. I think it was a good discussion none the less, since it wasn't obvious to me and perhaps not to other people.
Edit 2: I'm going to hop off, but I think there's been some good discussion about the matter. As I said in the original post "I may well be on the wrong side of this". I may well be, but I hope I have addressed people well in the comments. Some of my comments may be "worst case" or "devil's advocate" though. I understand the reason for security, as evidenced above, but i'm unsure about the means.
17 votes -
Data privacy bill unites Charles Koch and Big Tech
6 votes -
Where will the materials for our clean energy future come from?
7 votes -
Chicken and egg problems: Successful product placement in highly competitive markets
5 votes -
Sentry mode: Guarding your Tesla
5 votes -
2019 Annual Letter from Bill & Melinda Gates: "We didn’t see this coming"
16 votes -
Older video game animation may have been limited by technology, but does that make it worse?
5 votes -
Spotify has bought two podcast startups and it wants to buy more
17 votes -
A look at the revival of the reel to reel tape format
4 votes -
Can we ditch intensive farming - and still feed the world?
11 votes -
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff review – we are the pawns
7 votes -
The patents behind pasta shapes
5 votes -
In the era of electronic warfare, bring back pigeons
4 votes -
Demand for cassettes surges as music fans hit rewind
10 votes -
Waste crisis looms as thousands of solar panels reach end of life
8 votes -
The 'future book' is here, but it's not what we expected
9 votes -
Ten personal finance lessons for technology professionals
8 votes -
Machine learning can offer new tools, fresh insights for the humanities
10 votes -
A short history of computers in the movies: Panel lights, spinning tapes, and lab coats
4 votes -
Have you quit any social media?
Have you quit social media? Why? Why not? I have been thinking about it (specifically Facebook). I have not done so, because I fear that I'll lose contact with friends from my past (even though I...
Have you quit social media? Why? Why not?
I have been thinking about it (specifically Facebook). I have not done so, because I fear that I'll lose contact with friends from my past (even though I have not messaged any of them, or seen their profile, in years).25 votes -
These portraits were made by AI: None of these people exist
16 votes -
Tubi is a good alternative to Netflix
17 votes -
Dead musicians are touring again, as holograms. It's tricky — technologically and legally
5 votes -
Formula E starts season five in Saudi Arabia with a faster electric race car
7 votes -
How we lost our ambitions for the tech-enabled home
16 votes -
More than porn: Tumblr affirmed trans youths' identities
12 votes -
Kelly Slater’s Shock Wave
5 votes -
Apple Watch's ECG feature is already proving its worth
6 votes -
Chinese scientist who used CRISPR on human babies gone missing
15 votes -
Macedonia's former ruling party organized a trolling apparatus for spreading hate speech, threats
8 votes -
First gene-edited babies claimed in China
12 votes -
The 100 greatest innovations of 2018
6 votes -
Magnetic levitation: The return of transport's great 'what if?'
6 votes -
'Sci-fi' plane with no moving parts flies successfully
12 votes -
A program to reduce Earth's heat capture by injecting aerosols into the atmosphere from high-altitude aircraft is possible, but unreasonably costly with current technology.
9 votes -
Healing the body electric: In the next five to ten years, a new generation of small networked sensors will provide doctors with up-to-the-moment insight into patients’ health
5 votes -
The future of aging just might be in Margaritaville
9 votes -
Cat tongue spines help smear saliva and inspire new 3D-printed brush
4 votes -
DeepMind’s move to transfer health unit to Google stirs data fears
11 votes -
Period-tracking apps are not for women
28 votes -
Denuvo: Four years later
14 votes -
Near the end of the Middle Ages a device came into service that helped avid readers: the book carousel or book wheel
14 votes -
'There are no rules': The unforeseen consequences of sex robots
21 votes -
Waymo has been granted the first permit in California to begin driverless testing on public roads
7 votes -
What are some current examples of "the emperor's new clothes?"
For those unfamiliar with the story, "The Emperor's New Clothes" is about an emperor who parades around naked, but nobody will point out the obvious for fear of being seen as ignorant....
For those unfamiliar with the story, "The Emperor's New Clothes" is about an emperor who parades around naked, but nobody will point out the obvious for fear of being seen as ignorant. Idiomatically, it refers to something seen as true or widely praised, simply because nobody is willing to speak out against it.
I saw a rant about "blockchains" being the new overhyped hotness for tech companies, and it made me wonder what other "new clothes" are out there right now. What's something you have a strong takedown for that everybody else seems to love/support?
38 votes -
Amy Winehouse hologram to start touring in 2019
13 votes