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TOTP suffers from a similar issue - I use 1Password to store my TOTP codes, but both Google and the UK's HMRC tax website talk about using their own apps for co

TOTP suffers from a similar issue - I use 1Password to store my TOTP codes, but both Google and the UK's HMRC tax website talk about using their own apps for codes rather than anything agreed like "one-time passwords". The digital world is rife with this kind of jockeying for position through language. It took me far too long to understand that "podcasts" are just mp3 files from an RSS feed. Likewise, in the heyday of interactive TV in the early 2000s, when it was going to conquer the world because everyone had a TV but not a computer, an agency I worked for were invited for a demonstration of a choose-your-own-adventure game they were developing. They kept referencing a "carousel system" where all pages were sent in a looping system and when someone made a choice it waited until that page came round in the "carousel". I kept asking whether that was like Teletext - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext - but they absolutely refused to say that and kept saying "well, it's a carousel system". This refusal to deal in everyday language, alongside trying to get people to use their own apps / sytems, really hinders the adoption of useful technologies.

ffsm8 2y ago
[flagged]
- xethos 2y ago
  I'm not going to dictate MP3, but yes: podcasts absolutely are an audio file pulled from an RSS feed. Your description covers some podcasts, but not every podcast has video (which should be entirely optional if it's there at all, and frankly makes it less of a podcast in my opinion), and many go through some pretty heavy editing, even if just to balance audio levels, prune dead conversational branches, and remove filler words or dead air.
  - Izkata 2y ago
    Part of it is right there in the name: "pod" came from iPod. The device that was audio-only.
- hoherd 2y ago
  https://providersupport.spotify.com/article/podcast-delivery-specification-1-9 https://providersupport.spotify.com/article/podcast-delivery... shows literally every data element as "RSS/something" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast says "Podcasting is the preparation and distribution of audio or video files using RSS feeds to the devices of subscribed users."
  - ffsm8 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - bananagoat 2y ago
      Spotify does not have a trademark on rss podcast delivery. RSS feeds have historically been the primary delivery method for podcasts and it long predates Spotify and the JRE. Many of the most popular or historically significant primarily used RSS: Serial, This American Life, Stuff You Should Know—the list goes on and on. Some podcasts are distributed via video, but even many of those also have a corresponding rss feed for the audio version. Here’s the rss feed for Joe Rogan https://feeds.megaphone.fm/GLT1412515089 https://feeds.megaphone.fm/GLT1412515089 If you use a podcast app today, it is guaranteed to be primarily fetching from RSS feeds. I’m pretty sure the kind of insulting rhetoric you’re using is against the rules here. You may prefer Reddit for starting those kinds of arguments.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - ffsm8 2y ago
        I didn't claim it had a trademark, but if you literally skipped entirely over the comment I was responding to: he quoted the Spotify docs for their podcast APIs as an argument why podcasts are RSS/MP3 And his second link literally confirmed how entirely wrong his own claim was, within literally the first paragraph. Which you seem to have skipped over too.... So where does that leave us? With now two very confused commentors that seem to be unable to read, hence my previous quip about reading comprehension
- frereubu 2y ago
  That is definitively what they were when the term "podcast" was new and I was trying to figure it out - and in any case this seems like rather pointless hairsplitting.
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  - distributed as mp3 files via RSS protocol
- frereubu 2y ago
  You seem to be relatively new here, so you may not have read the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You're being pretty abusive in this thread, which in turn has provoked others to be abusive, which is why the guidelines specifically on comments say things like this - When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." - Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. - Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. You'll see one of your most abusive comments has been flagged. You'll find that happening more and more to you if you continue to comment like this.
nashashmi 2y ago
Not sure what you are talking about TOTP suffering from a similar issue. TOTP works via a secret key provided by the service. The TOTP(secret key + time) function generates a 6 digit code. This is a standard. The secret key can be stored on Authenticators and those authenticators sync to cloud services. When adding the secret key for the first time to your authenticator, you have to also copy that to a notepad. This way if you want to transfer the keys, you have them available. Authenticator apps don't always allow you to export the keys. TOTP.app is a good auth app that does allow but there is no sync to cloud capability.
- frereubu 2y ago
  What I mean is that they don't say "Scan this QR code with your time-based one-time password (TOTP) app." They say "scan this QR code with your Google Authenticator app" or "scan this code with the HMRC app", obfuscating the fact that you can scan that code with any app that supports TOTP authentication like 1Password, Bitwarden, Authy etc. All of those prompts should have a link saying "Click here if you're not sure what TOTP apps are" that goes to a page with links to a whole bunch of recognised authenticator apps, where they can show their own if they want to but also show others that people may already use.
  - nashashmi 2y ago
    Ah yes! TOTP education takes much time. There are very few people who have invested time in teaching the uninformed about TOTP. OTOH, many more have invested time in developing TOTP apps and hacks.

ffsm8 2y ago

[flagged]

xethos 2y ago
I'm not going to dictate MP3, but yes: podcasts absolutely are an audio file pulled from an RSS feed. Your description covers some podcasts, but not every podcast has video (which should be entirely optional if it's there at all, and frankly makes it less of a podcast in my opinion), and many go through some pretty heavy editing, even if just to balance audio levels, prune dead conversational branches, and remove filler words or dead air.
- Izkata 2y ago
  Part of it is right there in the name: "pod" came from iPod. The device that was audio-only.
hoherd 2y ago
https://providersupport.spotify.com/article/podcast-delivery-specification-1-9 https://providersupport.spotify.com/article/podcast-delivery... shows literally every data element as "RSS/something" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast says "Podcasting is the preparation and distribution of audio or video files using RSS feeds to the devices of subscribed users."
- ffsm8 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - bananagoat 2y ago
    Spotify does not have a trademark on rss podcast delivery. RSS feeds have historically been the primary delivery method for podcasts and it long predates Spotify and the JRE. Many of the most popular or historically significant primarily used RSS: Serial, This American Life, Stuff You Should Know—the list goes on and on. Some podcasts are distributed via video, but even many of those also have a corresponding rss feed for the audio version. Here’s the rss feed for Joe Rogan https://feeds.megaphone.fm/GLT1412515089 https://feeds.megaphone.fm/GLT1412515089 If you use a podcast app today, it is guaranteed to be primarily fetching from RSS feeds. I’m pretty sure the kind of insulting rhetoric you’re using is against the rules here. You may prefer Reddit for starting those kinds of arguments.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - ffsm8 2y ago
      I didn't claim it had a trademark, but if you literally skipped entirely over the comment I was responding to: he quoted the Spotify docs for their podcast APIs as an argument why podcasts are RSS/MP3 And his second link literally confirmed how entirely wrong his own claim was, within literally the first paragraph. Which you seem to have skipped over too.... So where does that leave us? With now two very confused commentors that seem to be unable to read, hence my previous quip about reading comprehension
frereubu 2y ago
That is definitively what they were when the term "podcast" was new and I was trying to figure it out - and in any case this seems like rather pointless hairsplitting.
jazzyjackson 2y ago
- distributed as mp3 files via RSS protocol
frereubu 2y ago
You seem to be relatively new here, so you may not have read the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You're being pretty abusive in this thread, which in turn has provoked others to be abusive, which is why the guidelines specifically on comments say things like this - When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." - Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. - Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. You'll see one of your most abusive comments has been flagged. You'll find that happening more and more to you if you continue to comment like this.

nashashmi 2y ago

Not sure what you are talking about TOTP suffering from a similar issue. TOTP works via a secret key provided by the service. The TOTP(secret key + time) function generates a 6 digit code. This is a standard. The secret key can be stored on Authenticators and those authenticators sync to cloud services. When adding the secret key for the first time to your authenticator, you have to also copy that to a notepad. This way if you want to transfer the keys, you have them available. Authenticator apps don't always allow you to export the keys. TOTP.app is a good auth app that does allow but there is no sync to cloud capability.

frereubu 2y ago
What I mean is that they don't say "Scan this QR code with your time-based one-time password (TOTP) app." They say "scan this QR code with your Google Authenticator app" or "scan this code with the HMRC app", obfuscating the fact that you can scan that code with any app that supports TOTP authentication like 1Password, Bitwarden, Authy etc. All of those prompts should have a link saying "Click here if you're not sure what TOTP apps are" that goes to a page with links to a whole bunch of recognised authenticator apps, where they can show their own if they want to but also show others that people may already use.
- nashashmi 2y ago
  Ah yes! TOTP education takes much time. There are very few people who have invested time in teaching the uninformed about TOTP. OTOH, many more have invested time in developing TOTP apps and hacks.