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mwengler comments on Consider giving an explanation for your deletion this time around. "Harry Yudkowsky and the Methods of Postrationality: Chapter One: Em Dashes Colons and Ellipses, Littérateurs Go Wild" - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Will_Newsome 08 July 2014 02:53AM

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Comment author: mwengler 11 July 2014 09:34:06PM 2 points [-]

I didn't think it was possible to suggest something that I would think was "too much power for admins", but congratulations, that strikes me as too much power for admins.

Well it wasn't a suggestion, it was a question.

I have had accounts on many systems (and still do) where if I forget my password, sysadmins reset my password. Since sysadmins can reset my password, they could if they wanted to then log on as me, set my password to something I didn't know and then own my account.

Whether or not this is too much power for them is besides the point that this is how it works on systems that I use. In the naivete of my limited experience, I asked if it worked that way here. The closest to an answer to my question I have gotten was on another thread where I thought the answer I got was "yes its possible."

All the other responses I've gotten to my question were to be voted down or congratulated for suggesting something negative as if asking a question was somehow a suggestion.

Comment author: Gurkenglas 12 July 2014 08:58:24PM *  2 points [-]

Afaik, the usual state of affairs is that admins can set a new password, but they can't view the current password, so they couldn't change it back and you would know that your password was changed.

Comment author: mwengler 13 July 2014 12:37:58AM 3 points [-]

so they couldn't change it back and you would know that your password was changed.

Which of course in the case that you are trying to shut down account access for someone and to reverse downvotes for that someone without deleting their account, is absolutely perfect.