61–70 of 289 posts
Nobody knows how to do a failure analysis. I used to work in r&d, now that I’m building websites and mobile apps the culture doesn’t care. Pointing out obvious design limitations will, more often that not, make me the asshole. Not even trying to delay ship or get future rework scheduled, just having it documented is too much. Out of sight out of mind.
It's that there's an economic incentive to not care. So they don't.
Nobody knows how to do a failure analysis. I used to work in r&d, now that I’m building websites and mobile apps the culture doesn’t care. Pointing out obvious design limitations will, more often that not, make me the asshole. Not even trying to delay ship or get future rework scheduled, just having it documented is too much. Out of sight out of mind.
If you roll your own thing, even if it's objectively better, you're painting a target on your back. Now when your new thing fails it's your fault.
There's also something to be said for how modern financial capitalism has squeezed redundancy out of everything. Supply chains are just-in-time, businesses rely on a million vendors for everything, if a single link in the chain fails it usually has a huge blast radius because of broad consolidation in these upstream suppliers. Basically there are a lot of small businesses that depend on like 5 large companies (think Sysco, telecoms, etc) and if those large companies fail every small company fails in the same way, so there's no incentive to derisk (because your competitors will all also be failing in the same way).
Go through the whole list and figure out which of these services really requires your phone, and which you have set up on your phone because that seemed the easiest path. Tell your workplace you're about to switch from carrying a phone to a landline: what is their fallback option? (It's about 50/50 whether they have one, but they definitely should.)
Good 2 factor auth systems will provide the option to be called on the number on your account.
This is a big problem for me as a traveller. If I travel long distance and I lose my phone, I lose access to both my personal and business bank. I once dropped my phone in a lake (I'm clumsy) and was locked out of most things for a few weeks. I prefer TOTP for most things. Keepass supports them across platforms, but Aegis has a better experience on mobiles.
Go through the whole list and figure out which of these services really requires your phone, and which you have set up on your phone because that seemed the easiest path. Tell your workplace you're about to switch from carrying a phone to a landline: what is their fallback option? (It's about 50/50 whether they have one, but they definitely should.)
> Tell your workplace you're about to switch from carrying a phone to a landline
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And scamming yourself to another persons phone number to entirely take over their digital life is also cheap, easy and effective.
And that is a problem for a sufficiently small population that it is not yet a political priority. Crazy, since the federal government already does passports, and the infrastructure is basically in place with USPS offices.
Super conservative types are worried about mark of the beast, etc. Super progressive types are worried about folks on the margins of society being able to get ID.
Please also note that any changes will impact some people. How often do you lose your smartphone? If every month then it is sad. You need to find a bank that still uses cheques etc.
No point in whinging. If something works for 90 % people then get used to it.
For example, I did not like joining facebook for my children's school nor whatsapp groups but did it as most of them did it.
This has been my point for the last 5 or 10 years. That's why I have a "home phone" with banking apps, 2FA and important stuff installed. It has no SIM card and never leaves home. For everything else I have my "street phone".
Then change the bank you deal with. At least in EU, this 2FA was due to PSD. Please also note that any changes will impact some people. How often do you lose your smartphone? If every month then it is sad. You need to find a bank that still uses cheques etc. No point in whinging. If something works for 90 % people then get used to it. For example, I did not like joining facebook for my children's school nor whatsapp…
I don't have the same view, in my mind you have created a single point of failure for _yourself_. I use Authy for MFA, which comes with a desktop app. Phones dead / missing? No problem, I can get OTP's from my laptop. What about text messages? Google voice. Which of course has a desktop interface. I've been doing this for years. It's nice not to have to rely on a watch, or phone entirely - although they do make my li…
Whatever technical solutions can be made don't really matter unless normal people can and do use them correctly. In any case, simply setting up another non-phone computer to do the job of the smartphone doesn't change the fundamental issue, it can still break, or get stolen, or some account can get closed for spurious reasons.