2 ms·

Gotta say that the card sticking out of the screen of the SunRay 270 looks properly goofy. It does feel like a bunch of universities in particular could have t

by rtpg 1y ago

Gotta say that the card sticking out of the screen of the SunRay 270 looks properly goofy. It does feel like a bunch of universities in particular could have taken advantage of something like this. Something akin to the laptop "close the lid and just open it back later whenever", but on all the desktops on campus. Sounds amazing in theory! Probably a nightmare in practice to deal with though. There's so many advantages to having people turn off their machines.

jeffbee 1y ago
I don't know if any universities did that but it was reality in some health care and government installations. You just slapped your card into any terminal and all your apps sprang up on the screen right where they had been.
DaSHacka 1y ago
That would be perfect, doubly so if the university switched to FIPS201-like student IDs for their door access too. Just imagine, one ID that would work for both doors and computer access, no need for clunky username/password+2FA juggling. Just tap your card (and optionally, if a institution chooses, enter a pin for a second factor), and you're off to the races. This could easily be implemented through mobile phones too, since most have NFC nowadays, if cost of credentials that can do asymmetric operations is a concern. Of course, this would never happen, as both Academia and Access Control are extremely slow-moving fields stuck with decades of legacy solutions. The vast, vast majority of institutions still use what amounts to static unchanging ""passwords"" sent across the wire (usually unencrypted!) to authenticate users. This is something I've been thinking of for a long time, and had no idea Sun had beat me to the punch long before I was even born! What a shame, they were really ahead of their time.
Procrastes 1y ago
That's definitely how we worked at the Sun offices. And since we hoteled, I never knew where I would be sitting. I loved it really. It felt very minimalist and slick.

by rtpg 1y ago

jeffbee 1y ago

I don't know if any universities did that but it was reality in some health care and government installations. You just slapped your card into any terminal and all your apps sprang up on the screen right where they had been.

DaSHacka 1y ago

That would be perfect, doubly so if the university switched to FIPS201-like student IDs for their door access too. Just imagine, one ID that would work for both doors and computer access, no need for clunky username/password+2FA juggling. Just tap your card (and optionally, if a institution chooses, enter a pin for a second factor), and you're off to the races. This could easily be implemented through mobile phones too, since most have NFC nowadays, if cost of credentials that can do asymmetric operations is a concern. Of course, this would never happen, as both Academia and Access Control are extremely slow-moving fields stuck with decades of legacy solutions. The vast, vast majority of institutions still use what amounts to static unchanging ""passwords"" sent across the wire (usually unencrypted!) to authenticate users. This is something I've been thinking of for a long time, and had no idea Sun had beat me to the punch long before I was even born! What a shame, they were really ahead of their time.

Procrastes 1y ago

That's definitely how we worked at the Sun offices. And since we hoteled, I never knew where I would be sitting. I loved it really. It felt very minimalist and slick.