3 ms·

Relatedly, is "brownout" the best word for this case? If they did a percentage of auths or maybe intentionally made them take an excessively long time I could s

Relatedly, is "brownout" the best word for this case? If they did a percentage of auths or maybe intentionally made them take an excessively long time I could see it. Otherwise this looks more like planned blackouts. Or maybe an "auth flex period", since "brownout" or "blackout" might be offensive.

tialaramex 6y ago
Brownout is the term I'm used to seeing for this practice. It's from electrical distribution where a brownout is distinct from blackout because you are delivering electricity but not as specified (e.g. voltage sag beyond agreed limits) and on simple incandescent lights the effect is they're dimmer than before. I don't think it has any greater claim to being offensive than blackout (from electrical distribution) or whiteout (from weather reporting)
- rob-olmos 6y ago
  I believe that's what I'm saying, password auth isn't being dimmed, it's experiencing a blackout. Ie, "password authentication blackout". Regarding the offensiveness, I was hinting at GitHub's prior remarks for racial sensitivity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500093 -- among the many other projects that have actively changed black/white to block/allow and other variations.
  - jackson1442 6y ago
    I honestly think block/allow is better language-- black/whitelist is something I had to look up when I first encountered it, so you might as well use language that isn't idiomatic and follows literal textbook definitions.
    - rob-olmos 6y ago
      I agree on more descriptive language. Sounds like then "blockout" or "password authentication blockout" would be the better language than "brownout", since that's what they're doing, blocking password auth.
      - tialaramex 6y ago
        The thing about a "brownout" is that service goes away, and then it comes back - for a while. The idea is that even though you wrote a blog post, maybe sent out formal notices to users, even in some cases put up billboards or did PSAs on TV - some people won't know it applies to them, or may even mistakenly believe it doesn't apply even though it does. The brownout is an opportunity for those people to notice. "Hey, why doesn't the Foozle work?" "I dunno. Ask on Reddit?" "Huh. Reddit says we need to use tokens, but I'm sure we... oh... did you actually update the Foozle script?" "I thought you were doing that" "D'oh". Users who can't react immediately when things go bang will get a reprieve - for a while - when it starts working again the next day. So that's why "blockout" isn't an appropriate description. There's some degree of art and some science to planning these so that they're disruptive enough that humans notice something went wrong, while not being disruptive enough that they're worse than just a one shot change.
        rob-olmos 6y ago
        > The thing about a "brownout" is that service goes away, and then it comes back - for a while. I don't want to beat a dead horse at this point, but that's basically a planned blackout. It'd be similar to a power company cutting off a residence's power for a couple hours to remind them to pay their overdue bill. I can't see that being correctly called a brownout.
chiph 6y ago
Brownout is the commonly used term for this.
Macha 6y ago
A former employer used "Scream test" for this

tialaramex 6y ago

Brownout is the term I'm used to seeing for this practice. It's from electrical distribution where a brownout is distinct from blackout because you are delivering electricity but not as specified (e.g. voltage sag beyond agreed limits) and on simple incandescent lights the effect is they're dimmer than before. I don't think it has any greater claim to being offensive than blackout (from electrical distribution) or whiteout (from weather reporting)

rob-olmos 6y ago
I believe that's what I'm saying, password auth isn't being dimmed, it's experiencing a blackout. Ie, "password authentication blackout". Regarding the offensiveness, I was hinting at GitHub's prior remarks for racial sensitivity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23500093 -- among the many other projects that have actively changed black/white to block/allow and other variations.
- jackson1442 6y ago
  I honestly think block/allow is better language-- black/whitelist is something I had to look up when I first encountered it, so you might as well use language that isn't idiomatic and follows literal textbook definitions.
  - rob-olmos 6y ago
    I agree on more descriptive language. Sounds like then "blockout" or "password authentication blockout" would be the better language than "brownout", since that's what they're doing, blocking password auth.
    - tialaramex 6y ago
      The thing about a "brownout" is that service goes away, and then it comes back - for a while. The idea is that even though you wrote a blog post, maybe sent out formal notices to users, even in some cases put up billboards or did PSAs on TV - some people won't know it applies to them, or may even mistakenly believe it doesn't apply even though it does. The brownout is an opportunity for those people to notice. "Hey, why doesn't the Foozle work?" "I dunno. Ask on Reddit?" "Huh. Reddit says we need to use tokens, but I'm sure we... oh... did you actually update the Foozle script?" "I thought you were doing that" "D'oh". Users who can't react immediately when things go bang will get a reprieve - for a while - when it starts working again the next day. So that's why "blockout" isn't an appropriate description. There's some degree of art and some science to planning these so that they're disruptive enough that humans notice something went wrong, while not being disruptive enough that they're worse than just a one shot change.
      - rob-olmos 6y ago
        > The thing about a "brownout" is that service goes away, and then it comes back - for a while. I don't want to beat a dead horse at this point, but that's basically a planned blackout. It'd be similar to a power company cutting off a residence's power for a couple hours to remind them to pay their overdue bill. I can't see that being correctly called a brownout.

chiph 6y ago

Brownout is the commonly used term for this.

Macha 6y ago

A former employer used "Scream test" for this