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A comment on Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by dave_sid on Sunday July 05, 2020 @08:08PM (#23743371)
This has a big flaw. If the future visitors copy all passwords to a usb stick and take it with them then anyone in the present time that gets a copy can pretend to be from the future. Worse still, everyone would believe the phoney future visitors without question.
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by jliptzin on Sunday July 05, 2020 @08:31PM (#23743528)
It would be good enough to know that there is at least one person somewhere who is actually from the future.
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by dave_sid on Monday July 06, 2020 @05:30AM (#23746107)
Yes but on that case the earlier suggestion of just asking them for a stock market prediction would be good enough without implementing the password system.
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by sameerds on Monday July 06, 2020 @11:00AM (#23748628)
But then you have to wait for the stock market prediction to come true. Instead, since you already know your temporal password for the year, the proof would be immediately available.
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by dredmorbius on Monday July 06, 2020 @12:22PM (#23749460)
Tomorrow's close should be good enough. Preferably for a mix of stocks or indices.
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by dave_sid on Monday July 06, 2020 @12:46PM (#23749724)
Yes tomorrow is okay
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by phatbyte on Monday July 06, 2020 @03:23AM (#23745514)
I'm pretty sure no-one from the future will have a way to plug his/hers mini-USB-XC or whatever the usb name will be at the time in the future (USB standards are just a mess).
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by Normal_gaussian on Monday July 06, 2020 @04:36AM (#23745848)
I would expect a future that still has a copy of these passwords to be highly likely to have copies of the relevant standards.
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by rxsel on Monday July 06, 2020 @04:42AM (#23745877)
I think you just found yourself a business opportunity :)
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by dave_sid on Monday July 06, 2020 @05:28AM (#23746100)
True. They would need to burn to a CD :-D
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by Jill_the_Pill on Sunday July 05, 2020 @08:42PM (#23743594)
Do you think they'd still be using USB drives and bothering to keep track of antique passwords in the future?
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by self_awareness on Monday July 06, 2020 @12:43AM (#23744763)
If it can happen, it will happen, all you need is a sample (in this case: number of people who know about the time traveler) large enough.
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by monsieurbanana on Sunday July 05, 2020 @09:14PM (#23743748)
There's a few reasons for that, including avoiding anachronisms for aesthetic purposes.
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by Normal_gaussian on Monday July 06, 2020 @04:38AM (#23745857)
Time machines could be invented in the near future. In fact I am wholly unable to say one hasn't been invented already.
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by dave_sid on Monday July 06, 2020 @05:33AM (#23746122)
You may need to get an old usb stick from eBay. The good news is that they probably would be selling for quite cheap.
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by vikramkr on Monday July 06, 2020 @11:39AM (#23749050)
Unless they're priceless antiques of an age long gone and sell for millions of inflation and future currency exchange rate adjusted dollars
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by dave_sid on Monday July 06, 2020 @12:48PM (#23749739)
That’s a very good point.
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Re:Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve? by dredmorbius on Monday July 06, 2020 @12:21PM (#23749449)
Time travel and democratic governance are mutually incompatible.

Also lotteries.

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