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Single Point of Failure: The (Fictional) Day Google Forgot To Check Passwords

Tom Scott · talk · Watch on YouTube

Security & hackingDocumentaries & storytelling

What it is

Tom Scott performs a fictional story at GeekyConf about the day Google accidentally stops checking passwords, letting anyone into any account. It works as a parable about how a single point of failure in login can unravel everything built on it.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN commenters cite it as the canonical thought experiment whenever authentication failures, account compromises or Google outages come up.

  • 2 people recommended it
  • 2 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2018, last 2023

What HN commenters said

  1. “I can recommend Tom Scott”

    Fictional scenario of Google forgetting to check passwords.

    zaxomi, 2018-10 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: YouTube down?”

  2. “is another, different topic, but still worth watching.”

    Related Tom Scott fictional video.

    richardwhiuk, 2023-05 · Recommendation · in “Welcome to Life: the singularity, ruined by lawyers by Tom Scott”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: single point of failure, passwords, google, fiction, security

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