6 ms·

I’ve owned a blank WASD board for years. Im no expert typist but i’ve had a similar experience to the author. Anecdotally it serves as a layer of computer secu

I’ve owned a blank WASD board for years. Im no expert typist but i’ve had a similar experience to the author. Anecdotally it serves as a layer of computer security i didn’t expect. Friends of mine (IT pros, graduate students, programmers, etc) who make their livelihoods on computers throw tantrums completing simple tasks with it, such as typing “youtube” into an address bar. Entering their passwords is particularly impossible exercise in my experience.

thom 6y ago
At a company I worked for, there was a security policy that if you left your machine unlocked, someone could send an email on your behalf offering to buy the entire company donuts. You were expected to make good on the offer. The only person immune to this was a Dvorak user (who I believe also had the additional security layer of using Emacs as a mail client).
- Raed667 6y ago
  A colleague of mine was the "victim" of this a couple of times. After that he had some sort of script that would lock the laptop if you type "croissant".
  - taneq 6y ago
    That is such a wrong yet effective solution to the problem.
- comprev 6y ago
  I've been several places where this was the unofficial policy and saw it happen a few times. Once while the CISO was abusing someone else's computer, he forgot to lock his own. Credit due to him - he kept his word - and since he was CISO, he paid for donuts TWO weeks running. The policy worked most of the time though.
ponker 6y ago
Reminds me of a police case from my hometown where a car thief stole some kind of sports car, can't remember whether it was a Corvette or similar, but then got promptly caught because he couldn't drive a stick shift and kept stalling.
082349872349872 6y ago
I've heard a war story about someone being able to consistently enter their password when standing up but never while sitting down. In the end, it turned out to be a QWERTY vs. QWERTZ thing: standing up, they'd look at the keycaps, but sitting down they'd touch type. (if Rocky Balboa had been rated on WPM instead of KOs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugcwp1g9Bao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugcwp1g9Bao )
- rchard2scout 6y ago
  That's probably this story: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52pw/i_cant_log_in_when_i_stand_up/ https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p... It wasn't QWERTY vs QWERTZ, someone had swapped out two keys as a joke. But the story might have evolved over the years.

thom 6y ago

At a company I worked for, there was a security policy that if you left your machine unlocked, someone could send an email on your behalf offering to buy the entire company donuts. You were expected to make good on the offer. The only person immune to this was a Dvorak user (who I believe also had the additional security layer of using Emacs as a mail client).

Raed667 6y ago
A colleague of mine was the "victim" of this a couple of times. After that he had some sort of script that would lock the laptop if you type "croissant".
- taneq 6y ago
  That is such a wrong yet effective solution to the problem.
comprev 6y ago
I've been several places where this was the unofficial policy and saw it happen a few times. Once while the CISO was abusing someone else's computer, he forgot to lock his own. Credit due to him - he kept his word - and since he was CISO, he paid for donuts TWO weeks running. The policy worked most of the time though.

ponker 6y ago

Reminds me of a police case from my hometown where a car thief stole some kind of sports car, can't remember whether it was a Corvette or similar, but then got promptly caught because he couldn't drive a stick shift and kept stalling.

082349872349872 6y ago

I've heard a war story about someone being able to consistently enter their password when standing up but never while sitting down. In the end, it turned out to be a QWERTY vs. QWERTZ thing: standing up, they'd look at the keycaps, but sitting down they'd touch type. (if Rocky Balboa had been rated on WPM instead of KOs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugcwp1g9Bao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugcwp1g9Bao )

rchard2scout 6y ago
That's probably this story: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52pw/i_cant_log_in_when_i_stand_up/ https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p... It wasn't QWERTY vs QWERTZ, someone had swapped out two keys as a joke. But the story might have evolved over the years.