===== Dubious Computing Conventions -- that hurt us. =====
  * **Speaker**: Aaron Peterson  
  * **Room**: CC 235  
  * **Time**: Sun 9:30 am – 10:00 am  

  * **Format**: Lecture (30 Min + Q&A)  
  * **Difficulty**: Introductory  
  * **Track**: Security / Privacy  
  * **Presenter Location**: In-person  
  * **Experience**: several-th time speaking  

==== Description: ====  
Our computer systems will fail — often without even trying. As developers and designers, we *can* and *should* protect users from unexpected errors, data loss, and the many pitfalls baked into decades of computing conventions.

This talk categorizes harmful or fragile conventions into five groups: **Physical**, **Legacy**, **New‑for‑Newness**, **Cultural**, and **Security**. Aaron explores why some corner cases are so difficult that we collectively ignore them, even though addressing them would require only thoughtful defaults and better user‑interaction patterns.

Examples include:

  * Filesystem case sensitivity  
  * Character encoding chaos  
  * Mis-clicks and