Post #1424

​​🔐 The key to good security? Every form of security is a balance between convenience and effectiveness. It would be really convenient to have all your online passwords set as ‘123456,’ but it wouldn’t be very secure. Likewise if the airport let you just walk straight onto a plane without checking your bags. At the other end of the scale when it comes to online security are physical keys. Google says it has eliminated the problem of people phishing its employees by forcing them all to use hardware security keys to log in. That’s a huge endorsement for the idea of nudging people away from convenience, and treating their online information as something worth keeping safe. Hardware security keys from companies like Yubico eliminate the need for passwords on many online services. As long as the key is plugged into your computer, you’ll be automatically logged in. Some models work with mobile devices too. Personally I’ve shied away from using a hardware key for my own security because of the chance I’ll be caught without it just at the time I really need to log in. But then, I always have my house keys and my wallet with me, so why would this be any different? As Wired found, locking down your Google account this way can cause some other minor inconveniences. But if you can trust yourself to look after a hardware key and always have it with you, I’d very much recommend looking into it. Read more in today's Big Revolution: prs.pctvix.co/2LEnOtn Martin Bryant, 🚀@PerspectiveIX