In a choice between security and convenience, convenience will win every time.
- some rando on the internet
When trying to pitch some users on not leaving their passwords on a sticky note on their monitors, I was going to use the example of "you wouldn't tape your house keys to your front door". But before the words could leave my mouth I remembered a past house-call customer who did exactly that.
The moral of the story is when planning for security, you either need to make the cost of shortcutting enormous and immediate (think firing w/perp-walk out the door) or more convenient than shortcutting. The first is obviously unpopular with most, and the second is a huge PITA for devs who will also choose convenience by offloading to MFA-in-a-box and shouting "let them eat TOTP apps and choose traffic lights!".
Damn, this started as a funny story about security and ended in mild depression... 😭
tnperron / Taylor P.
npub1kw…zusa4
2025-09-16 13:25:15 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1kw893e70hve5ymc8kxr75d8m9wcuaaasqzn37xvea6l4f39q04fs7zusa4Seen on
wss://relay.damus.ioPublished at
2025-09-16 13:25:15 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "In a choice between security and convenience, convenience will win every time.\n- some rando on the internet\n\nWhen trying to pitch some users on not leaving their passwords on a sticky note on their monitors, I was going to use the example of \"you wouldn't tape your house keys to your front door\". But before the words could leave my mouth I remembered a past house-call customer who did exactly that.\n\nThe moral of the story is when planning for security, you either need to make the cost of shortcutting enormous and immediate (think firing w/perp-walk out the door) or more convenient than shortcutting. The first is obviously unpopular with most, and the second is a huge PITA for devs who will also choose convenience by offloading to MFA-in-a-box and shouting \"let them eat TOTP apps and choose traffic lights!\".\n\nDamn, this started as a funny story about security and ended in mild depression... 😭",
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