Email addresses are not good 'permanent' identifiers for accounts

Re:Email addresses are not good 'permanent' identifiers for ... by jrockway on Sunday December 31, 2023 @02:29PM (#38826771)

I don't think they solved the impersonation problem. You can still look exactly like someone else, and you can only figure out that person X isn't who you think they are upon investigation. Most people don't investigate anything except the display name and profile picture, so are still vulnerable to impersonation.

As far as I can tell, this hasn't been a big problem in practice. Calls can forge caller ID. Emails can forge the From field. It's irritating but isn't exactly halting society.

I am really not sure why Discord made the change. Wanted to prune inactive users? Wanted to sell Nitro Super Mega Premium to jump ahead in line to get your username of choice? Just bored?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Email addresses are not good 'permanent' identifiers for ... by sgjohnson on Sunday December 31, 2023 @02:59PM (#38827024)

> You can still look exactly like someone else

But you can’t have a username that looks exactly the same anymore.

I’m in some 140 discord servers. The amount of spam from people impersonating someone popular has reduced drastically since this change.

I wouldn’t call “one click” an investigation.

[ Parent | on HN ]