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11 votes
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The only way to rein in Big Tech is to treat them as a public service
18 votes -
NASA's flagship James Webb Space Telescope, will run Javascript for instrumentation control using a defunct & proprietary interpreter with a list of errata last updated in 2003
12 votes -
When a treatment costs $450,000 or more, it had better work
8 votes -
The sharing economy is going to innovate us into the Victorian Era
15 votes -
Extinct flower rediscovered in Hawaii, via drones - A rare cliff-dwelling flower that was thought eliminated has been found by scientists in Kauai.
7 votes -
New scientific device creates electricity from snowfall
8 votes -
The age of robot farmers - Picking strawberries takes speed, stamina, and skill. Can a robot do it?
14 votes -
When tech makes food insecurity worse
5 votes -
Blind people can struggle to understand memes, so they made their own
11 votes -
The golf ball that made golfers too good
6 votes -
Climate chaos is coming and the Pinkertons are ready
13 votes -
Emoji keep getting more inclusive. So why is there no trans pride flag?
14 votes -
Battery reality: There’s nothing better than lithium-ion coming soon
12 votes -
Laptops to stay in bags as TSA brings new technology to airports
11 votes -
Chinese rocket company Linkspace successfully tests hovering a rocket
@linkspace_china: LinkSpace did a very successful test on rocket recycling on March 27, 2019. It will support us to open the next PLAN. Thank you Dr. @robert_zubrin for being here to witness this exciting milestone. Later, NewLine Baby(RLV-T5) will undergo higher flight tests in the future. https://t.co/9aIpLopstW
5 votes -
Energy secretary Rick Perry approves deal to sell nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia
9 votes -
Brain implants are happening — are you ready for yours?
21 votes -
The rise of robot authors: Is the writing on the wall for human novelists?
4 votes -
Software is everywhere, but it's not always an upgrade
8 votes -
Lumotive says it's got a solid-state lidar that really works
5 votes -
Making grass flow like water
7 votes -
The Lighting Budget of Thomas Jefferson
5 votes -
America's Cup breakthrough as US make flying start towards Auckland 2021
6 votes -
Apple and Stanford’s Apple Watch study identified irregular heartbeats in over 2,000 patients
5 votes -
Online activists are silencing us, scientists say
24 votes -
Elizabeth Warren proposes breaking up Amazon, Google, and Facebook
48 votes -
What if you could diagnose diseases with a tampon?
7 votes -
Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction
15 votes -
Technology takes center court in the basketball world: The NBA elevates the game and fan experience thanks to technology and tech-savvy team owners willing to try new things.
6 votes -
Promoting Time Management on Mobile Devices
I had this idea for a phone that would be a feature phone, but with a Google or an Alexa powered assistant so it could have most of the functionality of an newer phone, but not as many avenues to...
I had this idea for a phone that would be a feature phone, but with a Google or an Alexa powered assistant so it could have most of the functionality of an newer phone, but not as many avenues to become lost within it. Probably wouldn't be that big of a market for it, but going off of that idea, what sort of changes would you like in phones to promote less mindless engagement sessions and allow users to better manage their own time. Is this more the responsibility of the end user to manage their own time, or can more be done at an OEM, GUI, or otherwise have these functionalities baked into the phone?
6 votes -
Revealed: Facebook’s global lobbying against data privacy laws
19 votes -
Scientists release controversial genetically modified mosquitoes in high-security lab
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 -
No, Elon, the Navigate on Autopilot feature is not ‘full self-driving’
11 votes -
Scientists create liquid fuel that can store the sun's energy for up to eighteen years
15 votes