Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Accountability Sinks

250bpm.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 407 posts

Re: Accountability Sinks

#211

Post by antennafirepla »

EasyMark wrote: post #185
keyringlight wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things that strikes me about 24 is that it started running about 2 months after the 9/11 attacks. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a debate about running it or edits, but in retrospect it does seem like the timing worked and fit with the public mood of the time. What would be interesting is how 9/11 and following real life events influenced the show's writing in later series.

You don't put together and film a show in 2 months if that's what you're implying here. it was planned for a long time before that

You're right, you plan them both together before the fact.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#212

Post by dendodge »

hliyan wrote: post #141
op00to wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the importance of driving in the US (right or wrong), drivers licenses are used as the primary identification document. It looks like there’s a similar use of the DL in the UK for buying tobacco. In the US, you need to prove both residency and identity. To prove your identity in the US, many people don’t have passports, so they bring a tranche of documents to the DMV office. To prove residency, we typicall…

If a person does not (and does not want to) drive, how do they identify themselves? Where I live, everyone gets a government issue ID card, and the ID number is the citizen's primary key. Our government is still largely paper-driven, but there's little you can't get done if you show up in person with your national ID.

Driving licences are also the primary form of ID in the UK (alongside passports, which are more expensive). People who can't (or don't) drive can still get a provisional licence, which only allows driving under the supervision of an appropriate adult but works exactly the same for ID purposes.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#214

Post by Ocha »

macNchz wrote: post #195
t_luke wrote: post #153

The conclusion of Davies' second extract — about e.g. being bumped off a flight — is recognisable but the conclusions are actually wrong. The situation in these cases is actually more subtle. The person you're speaking to does normally have some capacity to escalate in exceptional cases. But they can't do it as a matter of course, and have to maintain publicly that it's actually impossible. The people who get what th…

Having been on both sides of this—working behind a counter and answering phones at various jobs long ago, and being someone who often surprises family and friends with my ability to extract good outcomes from customer service—I think it’s somewhat of a misconception that being as unpleasant as possible is actually effective at getting results. I fully understand that the godawful CS mazes many companies set up wind u…

I was patient and calm for 30 minutes trying to get same day flight after Turkish Airlines bumped me off my connecting flight and told me to wait 24h in airport for next one. They kept giving me different excuses why they cannot put me in airport hotel, why they can’t put me on a different airline that had flights and only gave me $12 food voucher. After yelling at them for 5 min I was booked on KLM flight departing in 2 hours.

You can have assholes on both sides and set up is already adversarial from the get-go

Re: Accountability Sinks

#215

Post by TeMPOraL »

werrett wrote: post #198
TeMPOraL wrote: post #66

My go-to example of a whole mesh of "accountability sinks" is... cybersecurity. In the real world, this field is really not about the tech and math and crypto - almost all of it is about distributing and dispersing liability through contractual means. That's why you install endpoint security tools. That's why you're forced to fulfill all kinds of requirements, some of them nonsensical or counterproductive, but necess…

This is the ultimate nihilistic take on security. Yes, 'cyber' security has devolved to box checking and cargo culting in many orgs. But what's your counter on trying to fix the problems that every tech stack or new SaaS product comes without of the box? For most people when their Netflix (or HN) password gets leaked that means every email they've sent since 2004 is also exposed. It might also mean their 401k is siph…

> For most people when their Netflix (or HN) password gets leaked that means every email they've sent since 2004 is also exposed. It might also mean their 401k is siphoned off. So welcome the annoying and checkbox-y MFA requirements.

Not true. For most people, when their Netflix or HN password gets leaked, that means fuck all. Most people don't even realize their password was leaked 20 times over the last 5 years. Yes, here and there someone might get deprived of their savings (or marriage) this way, but at scale, approximately nothing ever happens to anyone because of password or SSN leaks. In scope of cybersec threats, people are much more likely to become victims of ransomware and tech support call scams.

I'm not saying that cybersec is entirely meaningless and that you shouldn't care about security of your products. I'm saying that, as a field, it's focused on liability management, because that's what most customers care about, pay for, and it's where the most damage actually manifests. As such, to create secure information systems, you often need to work against the zeitgeist and recommendations of the field.

EDIT:

> This is the ultimate nihilistic take on security.

I don't believe it is. In fact, I've been putting efforts to become less cynical over last few months, as I realized it's not a helpful outlook.

It's more like, techies in cybersecurity seem to have overinflated sense of uniqueness and importance of their work. The reality is, it's almost all about liability management - and is such precisely because most cybersec problems are nothingburgers that can be passed around like a hot potato and ultimately discharged through insurance. It's not the worst state of things - it would be much worse if typical cyber attack would actually hurt or kill people.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#216

Post by deltaburnt »

goldfishgold wrote: post #174
lantry wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's different in every state, but mostly it's an outdated stereotype that still sticks around even though it's not really indicative of reality. Most states let you do almost everything online, and when you do have to go in you can usually schedule an appointment and not wait in line at all.

Lol. I went the NY DMV a month ago to exchange my out of state license. Even with an appointment, a preapproved application completed online, and all the correct paperwork I had to wait 2 hours. My experiences with the CA DMV were similar. Only in IL have I had quick, easy visits to the DMV

Usually dependent on the area and their population density. I know people who would drive out to more rural areas just to get a quicker DMV experience.

The whole taking appointments but still making you wait kills me a little inside though. There's a world where these processes could be so seamless.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#217

Post by vishnugupta »

charcircuit wrote: post #75
oleggromov wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving aside the no-show rule, which doesn't make much sense to me, this situation is a good example of an accountability sink. The intermediary I booked the tickets with made an obvious mistake and showed the wrong airport code. Maybe the airport opening was meant to happen earlier, and the intermediary had already updated their emails or something like that. They refused to do anything meaningful and did not even…

>Leaving aside the no-show rule, which doesn't make much sense to me A->B->C can be cheaper than B->C. If people could skip flight A, then people already in B would buy the cheaper A->B->C.

I could probably be convinced of this reason.

But why would they cancel B-A when there’s a no show for A-B? More so when there’s a few days gap between A-B and B-A? The only issue being they were booked as a single itinerary/PNR. I don’t see what cost has got anything to do with it.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#219

Post by bee_rider »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #124
xg15 wrote: post #49

One example that's missing from the list is the TV series 24. A recurring plot point was that, yes, of course torture is bad and it's against the rules and we don't do it, etc etc, but it just so happens that here is such an exceptional, unprecedented, deeply urgent emergency situation where we need to have the information now or horrible things will happen, we need the hero who breaks the rules and goes on torturing…

I watched a season of Chicago PD , and noticed that they had a convenient "plot accelerator." Whenever they got to a point, where the detectives and CSI would be painstakingly going through the evidence, sifting out clues, they'd throw the suspect into "the cage," and beat a confession out of them.

I’d like to see more:

Main character tortures a low-level grunt

Gets false confession

Goes off on wild goose chase based on that confession

Bad guys get away with their plot as a result

“Yes, you were torturing me, I’d obviously have said anything to get you to stop.”

I feel like I’ve seen this sequence once or twice, but I can’t remember what it was in. It actually seems like something that is more likely to be put in a comedy, where the protagonist can be shown to be stupid occasionally. Maybe Brooklyn 99, or Barry, or something like that?

Re: Accountability Sinks

#220

Post by rwmj »

nottorp wrote: post #104
rwmj wrote: post #23

> Eventually, employees noticed a problem: The card design only allowed for 24 characters, but some applicants had names longer than that. They raised the issue with the business team. I'm looking at you, ANA Mileage Club card! 24 characters should be enough for anyone according to their database. They even have a whole page dedicated to how you should work around it (I tried, this procedure & indeed it lets you trun…

That's a .jp site. Is it 24 kanji? That should be plenty of space :)

Yup, 24 moji :-)
Post reply on HN