Hacker News Reader

Comment by 1970-01-01 | Hacker News Reader

1970-01-01·

The "one weird trick" that all government hates? Stop forcing OSes to function with accounts. "User account" is an artifact of UNIX. You don't need an account to start a car, send and email, nor boot an operating system. I know it's hard to grasp, but it's true.

View on HN

> You don't need an account to start a car, …

Don’t say this too loud please, I don’t honestly think we’re too far from this reality, at least from an “Overton Window” point of view.

[flagged]

Some cars already have accounts. If you don't pick one, it assumes the prior one is being reused - so de facto it's already here.

What's the "user account" for an iPhone? Sure you might have to sign into icloud, but that's not mandatory. It's effectively a single user system.

i'm sure there is some sorta root user on that system if you go digging far enough?? or am i just ignorant

The "User account" of the OS are the security contexts. You can say everything should be a single security context, and this is how a lot of people have been operating their MS Windows machines, logging in as admin constantly, but this is a stupid idea and comes with risks. Even when you say the OS can have a second root account, that the user never gets to use, you have two user accounts.

You're conflating profiles with user accounts. "Admin user" didn't exist until Windows NT. You don't need permission to change your clothes!

Growing up, I vividly remember user accounts being important for our families personas on Windows XP. There's definitely a place for them, but there should be an option to not use one.

Unless your specifically calling out accounts that require online registration for the OS. I'm vehemently against that requirement.

Nice username btw.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com