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The reason this happens is because of bad actors. This is why we can’t have nice things. Walk around and pay attention next time and you will notice all the lit

The reason this happens is because of bad actors. This is why we can’t have nice things. Walk around and pay attention next time and you will notice all the little things that are shitty because of bad actors like thieves.

cedws 3y ago
I came to this realisation not too long ago as well. It's saddening to imagine how much better the world in general would be if it weren't for criminals. Generations before mine talk about their childhood as a wonderful time. Not having to lock their bikes up when going into a shop. Not having security cameras watching their every move. Not having barriers everywhere to prevent theft. My local supermarket introduced receipt scanners a few months ago that block you from exiting. They treat you as a thief by default. I wish I could live in a high trust society. It sounds like in some parts of world (Japan for example) there are still elements of that.
- vt85 3y ago
  [dead]
- asylteltine 3y ago
  I agree! And I think we could if we had very harsh punishments. We are way too lenient on crime. Steal? Life in jail. Litter? Year long sentence. Assault? Life in jail. Criminals are going to commit crime and there is absolutely no evidence that rehabilitation works for those kinds of crime. We need to keep them away from society and change our culture to be entirely intolerant of crime.
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    I really hope this is facetious.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  Its not really so easy to peg the blame solely on the existence criminals. For one thing what makes a person a criminal changes over time as we redefine what is illegal and what technically illegal acts are given priority enough to enforce. More importantly though, generations past also often lived in smaller communities then we have today. When your world is smaller and you are only a degree or two of separation away from everyone, people often feel more bound to a certain standard of behavior. Stealing a bike in NYC today is one thing, stealing a bike in a town where you probably know whose bike it is and someone will recognize it if you ever actually ride it is very different. The larger we grow societal centers and the more we expand the boundaries of our own world, the more we break societal bonds and need laws to enforce rules that are more easily broken when your victim is just another random person living there.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  Bear in mind that the security/surveillance sector of the economy (including police) are heavily incentivized to exaggerate the risks of crime, as are politicians who want to appeal to a certain sort of voter. There's a lot of money to be made out of running a police state.
jampekka 3y ago
Thieves and other "bad actors" are often a consequence of deeper underlying problems. People don't tend to steal that much when they are economically comfortable. OTOH with no legal resort to get sustinence, you're guaranteed to get people to resort to illegal means. I'm rather baffled how educated adult human beings keep on analyzing the world using moralistic fairytale level concepts like "bad actors" or "evildoers" as if there are some inherently tainted souls doing bad things just because they are bad. In my, probably biased, assesment this is especially prevalent in the US public discourse.
- cedws 3y ago
  Nah, thieves are scum. People don't steal cars and bikes to buy food, they do it because they're selfish and want a shortcut to get the things they want. In any first world country there are ways to get food without resorting to taking other peoples' possessions that they worked hard for. There are many people out there having a really hard time who would never even think about stealing because they were raised with a functioning moral compass.
  - jampekka 3y ago
    This is why we can't have nice things.
    - cedws 3y ago
      I don't know how I'm supposed to have any sympathy for thieves when myself and my family have been victims of multiple thefts totalling tens of thousands of pounds over the past years. I comforted my mum while she bawled her eyes out for hours when her car was stolen off of our driveway at the crack of dawn. Fuck thieves.
      - BizarreByte 3y ago
        One a thief always a thief, there's a reason it was punished so severely throughout history. Theft has the highest recidivism rate too[1]. You can never trust someone who has stolen again, thieves are the scum of the earth and only hurt good people. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/proven-reoffending-statistics-january-to-march-2021/proven-reoffending-statistics-january-to-march-2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/proven-reoffending-...
teeray 3y ago
This happens because people won’t use a password manager and insist that “monkey123” is their super-secret unguessable password. The solution is to force them to use some kind of credential store (SMS 2FA, passkeys), because they can’t be entrusted to just hit the “generate secure password & save” prompt in the browser.
- hypeatei 3y ago
  2FA is more than defending against bad passwords but also compromised passwords (e.g. you accidentally share it in a public forum) and phishing attacks. It's very unlikely a bad actor has access to both factors.
jeroenhd 3y ago
I think it's the people who pick bad passwords that are making login flows worse. Bad actors are the reason we have passwords in the first place, yes, but authentication still shouldn't be as bad an experience as it is today. As it turns out, after thirty years of internet access, people just suck at picking a good password. When I generate random passwords, people complain that they're unreadable. When I ask them why the password they need to enter once every two years would need to be readable, they just shrug. When I bring up the ability to save passwords to their devices using a password manager or their browser, they say they're "not into IT" and ignore any advice beyond that. Then they change their passwords to Welcome2024!, and that's why we have to make things more complicated. I don't care about most random accounts, but the Welcom2024! people are the ones safeguarding personal data, medical information, and so much more, and if they don't care, you have to force them to use computers responsibly. Most websites would be perfectly fine with just a username and a randomly generated password. Even eBay or banks, if we're talking about <€100 worth of transactions/day. 2FA is a workaround only very few, very important services should actually need. However, in real life, we can't do that, because when the Welcome2024! people get their accounts taken over, their digital wallets drained, their credit cards emptied out, and their life ruined by people on another continent, it's always the websites' fault. People love to say "Google/eBay/PayPal/my bank should've prevented this" but when these services take steps to prevent that stuff, they get mad that everything gets so complicated. Bad actors will always cause things to be worse, but the general apathy the general public has to digital safety is the reason why it's _this_ bad.

cedws 3y ago

I came to this realisation not too long ago as well. It's saddening to imagine how much better the world in general would be if it weren't for criminals. Generations before mine talk about their childhood as a wonderful time. Not having to lock their bikes up when going into a shop. Not having security cameras watching their every move. Not having barriers everywhere to prevent theft. My local supermarket introduced receipt scanners a few months ago that block you from exiting. They treat you as a thief by default. I wish I could live in a high trust society. It sounds like in some parts of world (Japan for example) there are still elements of that.

vt85 3y ago
[dead]
asylteltine 3y ago
I agree! And I think we could if we had very harsh punishments. We are way too lenient on crime. Steal? Life in jail. Litter? Year long sentence. Assault? Life in jail. Criminals are going to commit crime and there is absolutely no evidence that rehabilitation works for those kinds of crime. We need to keep them away from society and change our culture to be entirely intolerant of crime.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  I really hope this is facetious.
_heimdall 3y ago
Its not really so easy to peg the blame solely on the existence criminals. For one thing what makes a person a criminal changes over time as we redefine what is illegal and what technically illegal acts are given priority enough to enforce. More importantly though, generations past also often lived in smaller communities then we have today. When your world is smaller and you are only a degree or two of separation away from everyone, people often feel more bound to a certain standard of behavior. Stealing a bike in NYC today is one thing, stealing a bike in a town where you probably know whose bike it is and someone will recognize it if you ever actually ride it is very different. The larger we grow societal centers and the more we expand the boundaries of our own world, the more we break societal bonds and need laws to enforce rules that are more easily broken when your victim is just another random person living there.
anigbrowl 3y ago
Bear in mind that the security/surveillance sector of the economy (including police) are heavily incentivized to exaggerate the risks of crime, as are politicians who want to appeal to a certain sort of voter. There's a lot of money to be made out of running a police state.

jampekka 3y ago

Thieves and other "bad actors" are often a consequence of deeper underlying problems. People don't tend to steal that much when they are economically comfortable. OTOH with no legal resort to get sustinence, you're guaranteed to get people to resort to illegal means. I'm rather baffled how educated adult human beings keep on analyzing the world using moralistic fairytale level concepts like "bad actors" or "evildoers" as if there are some inherently tainted souls doing bad things just because they are bad. In my, probably biased, assesment this is especially prevalent in the US public discourse.

cedws 3y ago
Nah, thieves are scum. People don't steal cars and bikes to buy food, they do it because they're selfish and want a shortcut to get the things they want. In any first world country there are ways to get food without resorting to taking other peoples' possessions that they worked hard for. There are many people out there having a really hard time who would never even think about stealing because they were raised with a functioning moral compass.
- jampekka 3y ago
  This is why we can't have nice things.
  - cedws 3y ago
    I don't know how I'm supposed to have any sympathy for thieves when myself and my family have been victims of multiple thefts totalling tens of thousands of pounds over the past years. I comforted my mum while she bawled her eyes out for hours when her car was stolen off of our driveway at the crack of dawn. Fuck thieves.
    - BizarreByte 3y ago
      One a thief always a thief, there's a reason it was punished so severely throughout history. Theft has the highest recidivism rate too[1]. You can never trust someone who has stolen again, thieves are the scum of the earth and only hurt good people. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/proven-reoffending-statistics-january-to-march-2021/proven-reoffending-statistics-january-to-march-2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/proven-reoffending-...

teeray 3y ago

This happens because people won’t use a password manager and insist that “monkey123” is their super-secret unguessable password. The solution is to force them to use some kind of credential store (SMS 2FA, passkeys), because they can’t be entrusted to just hit the “generate secure password & save” prompt in the browser.

hypeatei 3y ago
2FA is more than defending against bad passwords but also compromised passwords (e.g. you accidentally share it in a public forum) and phishing attacks. It's very unlikely a bad actor has access to both factors.

jeroenhd 3y ago

I think it's the people who pick bad passwords that are making login flows worse. Bad actors are the reason we have passwords in the first place, yes, but authentication still shouldn't be as bad an experience as it is today. As it turns out, after thirty years of internet access, people just suck at picking a good password. When I generate random passwords, people complain that they're unreadable. When I ask them why the password they need to enter once every two years would need to be readable, they just shrug. When I bring up the ability to save passwords to their devices using a password manager or their browser, they say they're "not into IT" and ignore any advice beyond that. Then they change their passwords to Welcome2024!, and that's why we have to make things more complicated. I don't care about most random accounts, but the Welcom2024! people are the ones safeguarding personal data, medical information, and so much more, and if they don't care, you have to force them to use computers responsibly. Most websites would be perfectly fine with just a username and a randomly generated password. Even eBay or banks, if we're talking about <€100 worth of transactions/day. 2FA is a workaround only very few, very important services should actually need. However, in real life, we can't do that, because when the Welcome2024! people get their accounts taken over, their digital wallets drained, their credit cards emptied out, and their life ruined by people on another continent, it's always the websites' fault. People love to say "Google/eBay/PayPal/my bank should've prevented this" but when these services take steps to prevent that stuff, they get mad that everything gets so complicated. Bad actors will always cause things to be worse, but the general apathy the general public has to digital safety is the reason why it's _this_ bad.