Reading the "Why is it bad for someone else to have your passport number?" is scary, especially since when traveling to countries like Spain and Italy, every Airbnb / Hotel requires you to send a picture of your passport. Japanese stores take your passport stamp picture for their tax-free, which contains the number on the page. Some embassies even take your passport for a few days before returning it with the visa.
Why do we treat passport numbers as passwords instead of a login?
> especially since when traveling to countries like Spain and Italy, every Airbnb / Hotel requires you to send a picture of your passport.
They're required to, it's part of the in-person hotel check-in process to require showing photo id, and registering all guests with the local police department.
If you're a foreigner, and rather use a service where in-person check-in is impractical, they'll naturally ask for a photo to meet their legal obligations.
> Why do we treat passport numbers as passwords instead of a login?
Because some stupid people thought that photos of passports have any security / validity (including banks, brokerage firms). Interestingly none of them would accept photos of cash as payment though.
> Interestingly none of them would accept photos of cash as payment though.
Banks had been hesitant to embrace cryptocurrencies, but they see the value of CBDCs and so are trying to push those. So they will accept something close to that as long as there a large legal market for crypto, which there is from their point of view and role in the market.
I once checked in at a pretty decent hotel in India and realised that they used re-used customers passport scans and invoices to print wifi coupons! I strongly complained but I don’t really know if they’ve changed.
> Based on advice I got from two independent lawyers that was definitely not legal advice: I haven’t done a crime.
I will trust his lawyers are right _for Australia only_ (although I have my doubts, and would love to see their reasoning), but in the UK this feels like a clear breach of the Computer Misuse Act[0], and I can't recommend enough that you don't do this.
Echoing this advice in the USA. Don’t fuck with this, the language in the laws is loose enough to prosecute almost anything security-related, even well-meaning efforts like this.
Despite being from 2020, this vulnerability persists in 2025 with many airlines still exposing sensitive data on boarding passes and luggage tags, making "don't post your boarding pass" still relevant security advice.
Also a security tip, mosaic like he used in the picture is not a safe way to hide sensitive data, especially the one that has movement like in the gif where he is scrolling down, the mosaic changes and gives more data to reconstruct original. The safe way is to fully black out, but be wary of not plain color almost opaque marker tools, it could look like black out but playing with contrast will still reveal the data.
Online systems sometimes use it as an indicator to prove your identity. When combined with other sensitive data it can be useful for an identity thief.
Look up Australia's 100 point proof of identity which is used by Gov and most corporate entities in Australia.
A passport is a primary document (equivalent to a birth certificate) and gives you 60-70 points. It can't be used alone, but in conjunction with another id (forged or stolen) would allow for identify theft.
Presumably you have to present a physical passport, though, for it to count toward those 100 points. The question was what you can do with just the passport number.
You would think so, but no, you don't! Typically it's just the passport number, or if the AML counterparty is feeling really ambitious, the number and the expiry date
This reminds me of some tech journo who lost all his iCloud photos including all his photos and videos of his newborn because some scriptkiddles wanted to pwn him and steal his Twitter handle.
They basically used a series of escalation of seemingly innocuous personal data to eventually take over everything.
IIRC they somehow got his last 4 credit card details from Amazon then used that to get through the Apple account recovery flow from there they then had his entire key chain.
So "what is a passport number really used for" is like that but on steroids.
I also recall someone's daily life turned into a nightmare because someone successfully socially engineered their power company and maybe phone company to generally harass them. So while I also have no intuition for why or how a passport number is sensitive I rationally know better and am very careful about even how I discard old boarding passes etc
EDIT also worth adding that as a foreigner/non native my passport number is also often used in place for a social security number
Understanding that Australia doesn't have a Social Security ID (as the US does), might explain why passports play a similar role with respect to "proof of identity".
In Australia you start with a birth certificate and photo, and that leads to passport and driving licence. The three of those are the holy trinity of ID (though you'd very rarely be asked for your birth certificate).
With passport and driving licence, you can do anything you want, but at least they are photo ID with some anti-forgery features.
The time to steal someone's identity is before they get their first driver's licence and passport!
The Australian Tax File Number is presumably more similar to the Social Security ID? Millions of Australians don't have a passport. You don't need one for much - it's perhaps the easiest way of verifying citizenship if you already have one but not the only way.
You would only have a TFN if you are working and potentially paying tax. So generally anyone under 16 would not have one.
Closest might be a Medicare Card which gives you access to free/discounted public health that can be used as part of identification. Usually children are on their parents card.
Drivers licence is also a primary identifier, and students can use their school student id.
Yes, every phone number gets linked to an ID. You can grab a sim from the supermarket but when you plug it in you've got to activate it which requires ID.
I'm so sorry. Australia is such a draconian nanny state, hell-bent on surveillance and authoritarian control.
It always reminds me a lot of here in the US: Incredible land, a vast ecology, great history and subcultures, and some truly amazing people unfortunately drowned out by a staggeringly large population of loud morons who seem hellbent on voting in the worst possible people to run the whole thing, people who often couldn't care less about the things that make their country truly great, while leaning heavily on populism and deception as a means to retain power.
I wouldn't be surprised if the US eventually requires ID for phone numbers, either, the way things have been going.
Like, "buy a burner phone and go offgrid, where nobody knows your name" isn't something I've ever wanted. That's a cowboy dream. Its not really an australian dream. Its certainly not something I've ever wanted. I want to live my life with a competent government and competent police force that - for the most part - I can trust to do the right thing. So long as its not abused, I'm ok with a court order being able to coerce my email provider into giving the police access to my emails. As I understand it, almost all of these requests happen because of crimes. I want the police to solve crimes. Judges here aren't elected. They're mostly retired lawyers trying to do the right thing. I want to trust them. And - I think - for the most part we can.
I lived in Melbourne during the pandemic. Our whole state got shut down hard for months. I can't tell you how weird it was seeing news of protests in NY on our behalf. Like, thats so sweet of you. And so stupid. And so unwelcome. Locals overwhelmingly supported what our state premier, Dan Andrews was trying (and failing) to do. In the next state election, most of the other parties barely bothered campaigning because Dan was so popular.
I get that lots of americans think of australia sort of like a weird extra state. But we're not. We have our own country, our own values, our own culture and our own, super boring constitution. You can see who we are plain as day in this blog post - where eventually Tony Abbott (think Bill Clinton or Obama) calls up the blog post writer on the phone and asks him for tech advice, and admits he doesn't understand anything about computers. Thats the australian way.
Americans having hot opinions about australian politics is like russians having hot opinions about american politics. Even when I agree with you on the details (and I sort of do), its a bit weird and creepy.
It's not weird or creepy to follow the politics of another country, especially when it has deep political implications in your own country.
For example, my country routes internet traffic to Australia solely to take advantage of its pro-surveillance laws while undermining my rights as a US citizen to resist unauthorized search and seizure. Australia is a global player in the intelligence community and that should not be ignored.
Furthermore, the great barrier reef is of global importance, but Australia's government often works against the UN's preservation efforts and doesn't take preservation or climate change seriously. That is something that should alarm someone from any country. So let's dispense with the pejoratives, and dispense with the bias over protests I had no part in and shouldn't be associated with just because I'm American. This is a big country, with lots of opinions.
Largely what josephg said, with of a strong dash of the US holds a great deal of responsibility for the current state of the climate by virtue of being the country that globally led the world in CO2 emmissions from the early days, the country that outsourced it's emmissions to China, the country that leads in per capita consumption, a country that has led the world in climate change denial, and the country of origin of many of the companies that influence the Australian government and extract oil and gas about the Australian coast.
The UK, the US, AU, and others have long cross outsourced spying on citizens for the hand washing aspects, US private companies are responsible for a hefty load of that and happily sell their privacy invasion summaries to US and other intelligence services.
> For example, my country routes internet traffic to Australia solely to take advantage of its pro-surveillance laws while undermining my rights as a US citizen
Then sort out the laws in your country.
As an Australian citizen, I can't "fix" US politics. I can't and I wouldn't want to try - because its not any of my business. If the US government really wants to infringe on your american civil liberties, there's nothing I - or any other Australian - can do to stop them. (Well other than meddling in your elections or invading - and I don't think anybody wants that). Its up to you and your countrymen. Nobody else can vote.
As for the environment and the great barrier reef - politically I totally agree with you. Its an unfolding, unforced tragedy. But you've also gotta understand, if your president says he wants to largely ignore the rest of the world and do whats best today for americans, it weakens your moral standing when you lecture others about doing the same. You can't have it both ways.
> As an Australian citizen, I can't "fix" US politics. I can't and I wouldn't want to try
That's great, but I didn't ask you to, and I am pretty confused where you got this notion that I was.
> if your president says he wants to largely ignore the rest of the world and do whats best today for americans, it weakens your moral standing when you lecture others about doing the same.
It absolutely does not weaken my moral standing. I did not vote for the traitors currently making a farce of my country. That has absolutely zero to do with what I've mentioned here.
I'm really not sure the purpose of your comments or what value you're attempting to add to this thread.
Fair point. I'm projecting a bit much, because I'm kinda pissed off about how much americans assume everything everywhere is about america and should be judged by american values. I agree that its not weird or creepy to follow whats going on in other countries. But you hit a nerve when you said this upthread: "Australia is such a draconian nanny state, hell-bent on surveillance and authoritarian control" because we require ID to get a phone number.
It would be cheap to shoot back with criticisms of the US. But that would be pointless. So, I think its a more interesting conversation to talk about where the wall should be here. How do we talk here, between our countries?
> It absolutely does not weaken my moral standing. I did not vote for the traitors currently making a farce of my country.
I don't agree. I don't think your voting habits in particular give you enough distance to absolve you entirely for anything your leader does internationally.
I see it as an API boundary question. Imagine if your company ships a buggy product. From inside the organisation, it's legitimate to say "The bug is not my fault!". But from the outside, nobody cares. The whole organisation is collectively responsible for their successes and failures. The reputation of the whole organisation is elevated when they put out good products. And that brand reputation suffers when they put out bad products. I don't care which engineer in particular implemented a bug on my iphone. I care that my iphone is buggy. And the inverse - my airpods are amazing, and that makes me want to buy more apple products.
Its the same with countries. You and I both live in representative democracies. We're represented by whoever wins our elections. Even if you didn't vote for Trump, collectively your country voted for Trump. Like him or not, as a nation, you've collectively decided to make him your leader & representative. He represents you on the world stage. In some sense, thats what a nation is: its a collection of people who tie their fate together. Who rally around a collective vision for the future.
Its the same for me. I would like it very much if our country stopped ruining our coral reefs. I didn't vote for those policies (and I personally pushed back against a lot of Australia's surveillance laws). But internationally I still have to wear some shame for what my country is doing.
Criminals will find a way to work around this. In Russia the SIM card must be linked to the passport, but criminals still manage to make calls and not get caught. I also often buy accounts on black market in order to not provide my data.
I’ve genuinely never once met an Australian who wouldn’t laugh in your face if you were to read that statement to them and ask if they would prefer to live in the US.
I know several and we seem to agree that both countries are run by authoritarian jackasses, it isn't a pissing contest. I didn't say anything about the US being a better place to live, that's an argument you've brought yourself.
I once bought a very cheap Optus phone just to use for work 2FA (might have been PingID). Never registered it but it could still authenticate via the Optus cell network using a lower level transport protocol. Meant I could use 2FA with no wifi connection and the phone in airplane mode to conserve battery.
I think it was all written for the thing it was trying to be. Which is a casual humorous take on the journey this person went through with a little tech education sprinkled in. Any more formal or sophisticated and it would've lost some of the casual humor and been less an interesting journey. But did so in a way much less aggravating than what qualifies for a food recipe these days.
Telling us you didn't read the article is exactly the kind of unsubstantive comment we don't want on HN. The comments thread is for people who did read the article and have something to say about the content.
This kind of comment breaks the guidelines particularly these ones:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously...
Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer....
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 post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.
Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
Please take a moment to remind yourself of the guidelines and make an effort to observe them in future.
Earth revolves around the Sun? Let's see. In a twin-star system which one is going around the other? Let's make one of them have higher mass. Did the heavier one completely stop going around, or does it still wobble a bit? That wobble mean the heavier one is still going around their common center of mass. Also, since there is no static fixed point in the space, the interpretation of movement of Sun and Earth could be very subjective to the reference frame selected. There is nothing wrong if someone wants to consider Earth as that fixed point for some arbitrary local reference frame. Infact, a lot of calculations that matter to human life on Earth require that.
The story is a lot more enjoyable in conference talk form than written form imo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lijyQ_HAysA
Reading the "Why is it bad for someone else to have your passport number?" is scary, especially since when traveling to countries like Spain and Italy, every Airbnb / Hotel requires you to send a picture of your passport. Japanese stores take your passport stamp picture for their tax-free, which contains the number on the page. Some embassies even take your passport for a few days before returning it with the visa.
Why do we treat passport numbers as passwords instead of a login?
> especially since when traveling to countries like Spain and Italy, every Airbnb / Hotel requires you to send a picture of your passport.
They're required to, it's part of the in-person hotel check-in process to require showing photo id, and registering all guests with the local police department.
If you're a foreigner, and rather use a service where in-person check-in is impractical, they'll naturally ask for a photo to meet their legal obligations.
> Why do we treat passport numbers as passwords instead of a login?
Because some stupid people thought that photos of passports have any security / validity (including banks, brokerage firms). Interestingly none of them would accept photos of cash as payment though.
> Interestingly none of them would accept photos of cash as payment though.
Banks had been hesitant to embrace cryptocurrencies, but they see the value of CBDCs and so are trying to push those. So they will accept something close to that as long as there a large legal market for crypto, which there is from their point of view and role in the market.
I once checked in at a pretty decent hotel in India and realised that they used re-used customers passport scans and invoices to print wifi coupons! I strongly complained but I don’t really know if they’ve changed.
[dead]
I believe this is the same story covered by Dark Diaries. Very interesting story. https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/84/
> Based on advice I got from two independent lawyers that was definitely not legal advice: I haven’t done a crime.
I will trust his lawyers are right _for Australia only_ (although I have my doubts, and would love to see their reasoning), but in the UK this feels like a clear breach of the Computer Misuse Act[0], and I can't recommend enough that you don't do this.
0: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/section/1
Same in Germany. Just accessing data you are not supposed to access is a crime, regardless of whether you used the data in any illegal ways.
Echoing this advice in the USA. Don’t fuck with this, the language in the laws is loose enough to prosecute almost anything security-related, even well-meaning efforts like this.
Despite being from 2020, this vulnerability persists in 2025 with many airlines still exposing sensitive data on boarding passes and luggage tags, making "don't post your boarding pass" still relevant security advice.
>Despite being from 2020, this vulnerability persists in 2025 with many airlines still exposing
What is the "vulnerability" by the "airlines" here?
Previously:
Finding a former Australian prime minister’s passport number on Instagram (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34966909 - Feb 2023 (41 comments)
When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott's passport number - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24488224 - Sept 2020 (340 comments)
Also a security tip, mosaic like he used in the picture is not a safe way to hide sensitive data, especially the one that has movement like in the gif where he is scrolling down, the mosaic changes and gives more data to reconstruct original. The safe way is to fully black out, but be wary of not plain color almost opaque marker tools, it could look like black out but playing with contrast will still reveal the data.
Also a security tip, don't publicly post inane and pointless things to the internet, no matter how humbly you want to brag about being on an airplane.
How sensitive is a passport number actually? At first glance it seems like it should be, but is it actually? I honestly don't know.
Online systems sometimes use it as an indicator to prove your identity. When combined with other sensitive data it can be useful for an identity thief.
Edit: The blog post also mentions this:
https://mango.pdf.zone/finding-former-australian-prime-minis...
Can you provide just one example of said systems?
Sure:
- https://www.myid.gov.au/verifying-your-id-in-myid#myid-Austr...
- https://www.afp.gov.au/sites/default/files/PDF/NPC-100PointC...
- https://www.equifax.com.au/personal/identity-verification-10...
The blog post has more use case examples:
https://mango.pdf.zone/finding-former-australian-prime-minis...
Look up Australia's 100 point proof of identity which is used by Gov and most corporate entities in Australia.
A passport is a primary document (equivalent to a birth certificate) and gives you 60-70 points. It can't be used alone, but in conjunction with another id (forged or stolen) would allow for identify theft.
Presumably you have to present a physical passport, though, for it to count toward those 100 points. The question was what you can do with just the passport number.
You would think so, but no, you don't! Typically it's just the passport number, or if the AML counterparty is feeling really ambitious, the number and the expiry date
US I-94: https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/search/history-search
Knowing the passport number + name + birthday gives you access to someone's US travel history.
Well that is terrifying.
This reminds me of some tech journo who lost all his iCloud photos including all his photos and videos of his newborn because some scriptkiddles wanted to pwn him and steal his Twitter handle.
They basically used a series of escalation of seemingly innocuous personal data to eventually take over everything.
IIRC they somehow got his last 4 credit card details from Amazon then used that to get through the Apple account recovery flow from there they then had his entire key chain.
So "what is a passport number really used for" is like that but on steroids.
I also recall someone's daily life turned into a nightmare because someone successfully socially engineered their power company and maybe phone company to generally harass them. So while I also have no intuition for why or how a passport number is sensitive I rationally know better and am very careful about even how I discard old boarding passes etc
EDIT also worth adding that as a foreigner/non native my passport number is also often used in place for a social security number
Posted that story here to discuss (didn't find it in Algolia's HN search): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44430133
Understanding that Australia doesn't have a Social Security ID (as the US does), might explain why passports play a similar role with respect to "proof of identity".
In Australia you start with a birth certificate and photo, and that leads to passport and driving licence. The three of those are the holy trinity of ID (though you'd very rarely be asked for your birth certificate).
With passport and driving licence, you can do anything you want, but at least they are photo ID with some anti-forgery features.
The time to steal someone's identity is before they get their first driver's licence and passport!
The Australian Tax File Number is presumably more similar to the Social Security ID? Millions of Australians don't have a passport. You don't need one for much - it's perhaps the easiest way of verifying citizenship if you already have one but not the only way.
You would only have a TFN if you are working and potentially paying tax. So generally anyone under 16 would not have one.
Closest might be a Medicare Card which gives you access to free/discounted public health that can be used as part of identification. Usually children are on their parents card.
Drivers licence is also a primary identifier, and students can use their school student id.
There is an example in the article
Pretty sure you can use one to sign up for a phone number in Aus
Wait hold on, you have to apply for phone numbers in Australia? You can't just grab a burner from Walmart?
I don't want to bake your noodle, but we also don't have any Walmarts here. Not even one.
Where do you buy your guns, ammo and American flags?
They arrive via kangaroo pouches. Kangaroos love carrying around little american flags.
Yes, every phone number gets linked to an ID. You can grab a sim from the supermarket but when you plug it in you've got to activate it which requires ID.
I'm so sorry. Australia is such a draconian nanny state, hell-bent on surveillance and authoritarian control.
It always reminds me a lot of here in the US: Incredible land, a vast ecology, great history and subcultures, and some truly amazing people unfortunately drowned out by a staggeringly large population of loud morons who seem hellbent on voting in the worst possible people to run the whole thing, people who often couldn't care less about the things that make their country truly great, while leaning heavily on populism and deception as a means to retain power.
I wouldn't be surprised if the US eventually requires ID for phone numbers, either, the way things have been going.
Aussie here. It seems fine though?
Like, "buy a burner phone and go offgrid, where nobody knows your name" isn't something I've ever wanted. That's a cowboy dream. Its not really an australian dream. Its certainly not something I've ever wanted. I want to live my life with a competent government and competent police force that - for the most part - I can trust to do the right thing. So long as its not abused, I'm ok with a court order being able to coerce my email provider into giving the police access to my emails. As I understand it, almost all of these requests happen because of crimes. I want the police to solve crimes. Judges here aren't elected. They're mostly retired lawyers trying to do the right thing. I want to trust them. And - I think - for the most part we can.
I lived in Melbourne during the pandemic. Our whole state got shut down hard for months. I can't tell you how weird it was seeing news of protests in NY on our behalf. Like, thats so sweet of you. And so stupid. And so unwelcome. Locals overwhelmingly supported what our state premier, Dan Andrews was trying (and failing) to do. In the next state election, most of the other parties barely bothered campaigning because Dan was so popular.
I get that lots of americans think of australia sort of like a weird extra state. But we're not. We have our own country, our own values, our own culture and our own, super boring constitution. You can see who we are plain as day in this blog post - where eventually Tony Abbott (think Bill Clinton or Obama) calls up the blog post writer on the phone and asks him for tech advice, and admits he doesn't understand anything about computers. Thats the australian way.
Americans having hot opinions about australian politics is like russians having hot opinions about american politics. Even when I agree with you on the details (and I sort of do), its a bit weird and creepy.
It's not weird or creepy to follow the politics of another country, especially when it has deep political implications in your own country.
For example, my country routes internet traffic to Australia solely to take advantage of its pro-surveillance laws while undermining my rights as a US citizen to resist unauthorized search and seizure. Australia is a global player in the intelligence community and that should not be ignored.
Furthermore, the great barrier reef is of global importance, but Australia's government often works against the UN's preservation efforts and doesn't take preservation or climate change seriously. That is something that should alarm someone from any country. So let's dispense with the pejoratives, and dispense with the bias over protests I had no part in and shouldn't be associated with just because I'm American. This is a big country, with lots of opinions.
Largely what josephg said, with of a strong dash of the US holds a great deal of responsibility for the current state of the climate by virtue of being the country that globally led the world in CO2 emmissions from the early days, the country that outsourced it's emmissions to China, the country that leads in per capita consumption, a country that has led the world in climate change denial, and the country of origin of many of the companies that influence the Australian government and extract oil and gas about the Australian coast.
The UK, the US, AU, and others have long cross outsourced spying on citizens for the hand washing aspects, US private companies are responsible for a hefty load of that and happily sell their privacy invasion summaries to US and other intelligence services.
> For example, my country routes internet traffic to Australia solely to take advantage of its pro-surveillance laws while undermining my rights as a US citizen
Then sort out the laws in your country.
As an Australian citizen, I can't "fix" US politics. I can't and I wouldn't want to try - because its not any of my business. If the US government really wants to infringe on your american civil liberties, there's nothing I - or any other Australian - can do to stop them. (Well other than meddling in your elections or invading - and I don't think anybody wants that). Its up to you and your countrymen. Nobody else can vote.
As for the environment and the great barrier reef - politically I totally agree with you. Its an unfolding, unforced tragedy. But you've also gotta understand, if your president says he wants to largely ignore the rest of the world and do whats best today for americans, it weakens your moral standing when you lecture others about doing the same. You can't have it both ways.
> As an Australian citizen, I can't "fix" US politics. I can't and I wouldn't want to try
That's great, but I didn't ask you to, and I am pretty confused where you got this notion that I was.
> if your president says he wants to largely ignore the rest of the world and do whats best today for americans, it weakens your moral standing when you lecture others about doing the same.
It absolutely does not weaken my moral standing. I did not vote for the traitors currently making a farce of my country. That has absolutely zero to do with what I've mentioned here.
I'm really not sure the purpose of your comments or what value you're attempting to add to this thread.
Fair point. I'm projecting a bit much, because I'm kinda pissed off about how much americans assume everything everywhere is about america and should be judged by american values. I agree that its not weird or creepy to follow whats going on in other countries. But you hit a nerve when you said this upthread: "Australia is such a draconian nanny state, hell-bent on surveillance and authoritarian control" because we require ID to get a phone number.
It would be cheap to shoot back with criticisms of the US. But that would be pointless. So, I think its a more interesting conversation to talk about where the wall should be here. How do we talk here, between our countries?
> It absolutely does not weaken my moral standing. I did not vote for the traitors currently making a farce of my country.
I don't agree. I don't think your voting habits in particular give you enough distance to absolve you entirely for anything your leader does internationally.
I see it as an API boundary question. Imagine if your company ships a buggy product. From inside the organisation, it's legitimate to say "The bug is not my fault!". But from the outside, nobody cares. The whole organisation is collectively responsible for their successes and failures. The reputation of the whole organisation is elevated when they put out good products. And that brand reputation suffers when they put out bad products. I don't care which engineer in particular implemented a bug on my iphone. I care that my iphone is buggy. And the inverse - my airpods are amazing, and that makes me want to buy more apple products.
Its the same with countries. You and I both live in representative democracies. We're represented by whoever wins our elections. Even if you didn't vote for Trump, collectively your country voted for Trump. Like him or not, as a nation, you've collectively decided to make him your leader & representative. He represents you on the world stage. In some sense, thats what a nation is: its a collection of people who tie their fate together. Who rally around a collective vision for the future.
Its the same for me. I would like it very much if our country stopped ruining our coral reefs. I didn't vote for those policies (and I personally pushed back against a lot of Australia's surveillance laws). But internationally I still have to wear some shame for what my country is doing.
Criminals will find a way to work around this. In Russia the SIM card must be linked to the passport, but criminals still manage to make calls and not get caught. I also often buy accounts on black market in order to not provide my data.
Smart, well prepared criminals will find a way around this. But most criminals aren't both smart and well prepared.
I’ve genuinely never once met an Australian who wouldn’t laugh in your face if you were to read that statement to them and ask if they would prefer to live in the US.
I know several and we seem to agree that both countries are run by authoritarian jackasses, it isn't a pissing contest. I didn't say anything about the US being a better place to live, that's an argument you've brought yourself.
Fun fact.
I once bought a very cheap Optus phone just to use for work 2FA (might have been PingID). Never registered it but it could still authenticate via the Optus cell network using a lower level transport protocol. Meant I could use 2FA with no wifi connection and the phone in airplane mode to conserve battery.
I love this blog post. Its a classic.
Its a challenge to make things easy to use - whilst keeping them secure enough. The fact that all I need is a PNR to cancel your flight is insane
Love the humor. I am a fan of Alex's writing style!
It's a shame he apparently no longer blogs. His posts are gold.
They/them based on their socials (and iirc, I think that's what they went by at Crikeycon) https://x.com/mangopdf
> Born January 1, 1970
Lol. That's _so_ in character
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That was one of the funniest/interesting blog posts I've read in a long while
What a great story teller! Well done Alex.
Love it
Really interesting, but the writing was so bad I had to bail out halfway through.
I think it was all written for the thing it was trying to be. Which is a casual humorous take on the journey this person went through with a little tech education sprinkled in. Any more formal or sophisticated and it would've lost some of the casual humor and been less an interesting journey. But did so in a way much less aggravating than what qualifies for a food recipe these days.
> I had to bail out halfway through
Telling us you didn't read the article is exactly the kind of unsubstantive comment we don't want on HN. The comments thread is for people who did read the article and have something to say about the content.
This kind of comment breaks the guidelines particularly these ones:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously...
Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer....
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 post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.
Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
Please take a moment to remind yourself of the guidelines and make an effort to observe them in future.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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Who asked?
tomhow is a HN moderator.
I enjoy the meandering style but it did become a little long because of the meandering, glad I skipped ahead instead of just closing tho
Earth revolves around the Sun? Let's see. In a twin-star system which one is going around the other? Let's make one of them have higher mass. Did the heavier one completely stop going around, or does it still wobble a bit? That wobble mean the heavier one is still going around their common center of mass. Also, since there is no static fixed point in the space, the interpretation of movement of Sun and Earth could be very subjective to the reference frame selected. There is nothing wrong if someone wants to consider Earth as that fixed point for some arbitrary local reference frame. Infact, a lot of calculations that matter to human life on Earth require that.