D. Kovács

@EricDuminil many argue that those two things are essentially the same. I have a colleague from Alsace, and he keeps reminding people that "between Alsace and Bretagne lies France" (as in: people from Alsace and Bretagne are not to be considered the same as/confused with "French" people when it comes to attitude, etc.).

@Eric Duminil Clearly you've never met a French person </s> (But seriously: in the last 10-15 years it's got much MUCH more pleasant to be a tourist in France or meet French people on holiday locations as a non-French)

I have a Master's from a university of the second camp. One TA formulated it this way: "If you decide to pursue a carrier in programming after your degree, you'll be something like software architects and not coders. If you want to be a coder, this is the wrong degree for you."

@northerner just search this site for "is email secure" and you will get a lot of questions debating email vs SMS and the different aspects. I think this grasps the problem pretty well: security.stackexchange.com/a/29541/135976

Re: phones with(out) PINs. This, I think, is a pre-/post-smartphone era discrepancy. Before smartphones the only way to authenticate yourself onto your phone was a SIM-PIN-lock, thus EVERYBODY had them (and many set it to 0000, 1111, 2580, etc.), many not only for starting the phone but to unlock the physical numbered keys (oh how I miss those!)

@northerner E-mail is far away from secure. It shares most of the problems of SMS. That that we get away with password reset links without major hacks every month is a miracle in itself.