5 ms·

eggs, meet basket

hinkley 5y ago
Turning your $800 personal electronics into the moral equivalent of your physical keychain sounds like a good idea to technologists but it really, really isn’t. I’ve stolen your phone and also can access your bank accounts? Is it my birthday or what? Watches are better this way because you don’t ever set them down (and they’re cheaper), but I suspect pickpockets have some things to say about those magnetic clasps. Something in your wallet or with your keys would be best but then you can’t interact with it easily. Those little physical security tokens you’d put on your keychain were always a PITA.
- StavrosK 5y ago
  They're only a PITA to me because my keychain isn't close by. Otherwise, I touch the phone to my keychain and that's it, I'm authenticated. What's painful about that?
  - sam_lowry_ 5y ago
    I have a Yubikey Nano permanently inserted in my Mac. It's always there, at the press of a finger.
    - StavrosK 5y ago
      I have one of those too on my work laptop, it's the most convenient thing ever. Not great if you have multiple computers, but it's great for a single one. Then again, your Mac already has a TPM chip you can use.
livre 5y ago
This worries me a lot, just having a dynamic IP in a third world country is enough for Google to lock you out of the account even if you had typed your password correctly. I would never trust them with my access to other sites, one simple mistake of logging in with a different IP and will leave me locked out of all my accounts. In the name of security they ask you to associate a phone number to unlock the account even though that makes little sense since anyone with the password can then provide any number and steal the account.
- hinkley 5y ago
  The dystopian novel practically writes itself. Imagine being locked out of your house and bank accounts because your Google account got suspended. Maybe Google could introduced an account protection service for people worried about this happening - for a small annual fee of course - and unofficially turn it into racketeering.

eggs, meet basket

Turning your $800 personal electronics into the moral equivalent of your physical keychain sounds like a good idea to technologists but it really, really isn’t. I’ve stolen your phone and also can access your bank accounts? Is it my birthday or what? Watches are better this way because you don’t ever set them down (and they’re cheaper), but I suspect pickpockets have some things to say about those magnetic clasps. Something in your wallet or with your keys would be best but then you can’t interact with it easily. Those little physical security tokens you’d put on your keychain were always a PITA.

StavrosK 5y ago
They're only a PITA to me because my keychain isn't close by. Otherwise, I touch the phone to my keychain and that's it, I'm authenticated. What's painful about that?
- sam_lowry_ 5y ago
  I have a Yubikey Nano permanently inserted in my Mac. It's always there, at the press of a finger.
  - StavrosK 5y ago
    I have one of those too on my work laptop, it's the most convenient thing ever. Not great if you have multiple computers, but it's great for a single one. Then again, your Mac already has a TPM chip you can use.

livre 5y ago

This worries me a lot, just having a dynamic IP in a third world country is enough for Google to lock you out of the account even if you had typed your password correctly. I would never trust them with my access to other sites, one simple mistake of logging in with a different IP and will leave me locked out of all my accounts. In the name of security they ask you to associate a phone number to unlock the account even though that makes little sense since anyone with the password can then provide any number and steal the account.

hinkley 5y ago
The dystopian novel practically writes itself. Imagine being locked out of your house and bank accounts because your Google account got suspended. Maybe Google could introduced an account protection service for people worried about this happening - for a small annual fee of course - and unofficially turn it into racketeering.