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1 - patterns and pins are not as insecure as you apparently believe (consider that length isn't mandated and watch the search space explode). Enable the "10 tri
by Godel_unicode 10y ago
1 - patterns and pins are not as insecure as you apparently believe (consider that length isn't mandated and watch the search space explode). Enable the "10 tries and it's wiped" setting and get on with your life
2 - I wasn't talking about Joe public, I'm talking about the type of person who posts in smartphone security articles on HN. They'll pick a good enough PIN/Pattern
3 - we're not trying to secure against an advanced adversary, by far the most likely bad actor is the thief who pulled it out of your bag at Starbucks. A PIN/Pattern is fort Knox to them.
Security is all about risk mitigation, you have to consider against whom you want the system to be secured.
- gkya 10y ago3. You can't know. 2. No they won't. I don't. If I'll type a password once, twice a day, that's okay. But I draw that pattern or pin tens of times a day. 1. See VLM's post on this thread. 0. You can't ever know who you'll deal with. All you'll know will be "somebody has it".
- Godel_unicode 10y agoYou're totally missing my point. It's not that I can't know, it's that I don't care. You can't secure a phone against nation-state actors, so don't try. Do enough security so that the random person who steals your phone to sell it doesn't also steal your personal photos and bank info, order stuff from Amazon, use your phone to call their Uber, etc. They're more likely to be who has your phone anyway. Re-read the bottom of my other post, security is about balancing cost of mitigation against predicted impact of threat. State actors are very unlikely and very expensive to mitigate. Petty theft is more likely and cheaper.