Opinion: For all the headaches Duo gives students what purpose does it serve?
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In the 1969 science fiction novel “Ubik” by Philip K. Dick, the main character has to pay 5 cents every time they want to open their sentient, increasingly smug door. While I don’t pay with physical currency, whenever I pull out my phone to use Duo — UO’s two-factor authentication –– I definitely take mental damage worth at least 5 cents.
For non-UO folk, Duo is the two-factor authentication software used to confirm our Duck ID logins, predominantly to Canvas, the website where we read syllabi and submit assignments. Duo manifests as either a button press in an app, or if you have enough negative karma built up from a past life, it will call you to sign in. I’m so glad the app has always worked for me, because answering the phone to access the website my school uses to make me depressed is cruel and unusual.
UO made Duo a requirement in January 2021, stating that “Duo empowers you to thwart the hackers.” I’m sorry, but was hacking a widespread problem? I’m willing to put my neck on the line and say no Canvas has ever been compromised. Even if there were legions of hackers gunning for our UO information, why is Duo on Canvas and not Duckweb, the site which controls our enrollment and tuition? What’s someone going to do if they get into my Canvas account? Write a funny discussion post in my sociology class? Jokes on you, bucko, it’s scientifically impossible to write a dumber post than me.
Before the nerds crawl out their grimey basements to tell me “actually two-factor authentication is the future of cybersecurity in a web3 reality.” Yes, I know the benefits, but shut up. This is my column and I want to be mad over a mild inconvenience that only happens once a week. Go cry into a Dungeons & Dragons character sheet and make another elf, dork.
Even when Duo operates correctly it still weighs on your subconscious; a ticking time bomb counting down to you being interrupted from logging into Canvas for 30 seconds. That may not sound like much of an annoyance, but when you don’t want to visit that website anyway, that extra time is all it takes for you to reconsider and close the computer. When Duo finally acts up and asks for confirmation, your chimp brain suddenly longs for the liberation of tree branches and berry picking.
If you were born a few hundred years earlier you probably would have been the most feared warlord across the Manchurian Steppe, but no. You’re a debt-ridden student being told you can’t sign into the online account you hate. I honestly wish Homo Habilis won the evolutionary arms race instead of us. In a just world they would’ve made us extinct long before our doomed species developed HTML.
I reached out to University Communications and Information Services in a desperate bid to get answers to my questions, but I received no response. I’m sure there’s a perfectly justifiable reason for Duo’s inclusion, but I’ve yet to be told it. Either that or Duo has locked our administration out from their emails.
I went on the offensive. Turning to Twitter, I posed as an innocent bystander; @-ing Duo’s official account for help on a tech support question. The faceless company took the bait and responded. Truthfully, Duo was very nice and told me to reach out to my university’s support desk. The trap still had to be sprung. It did not matter if whoever on the other end were just following orders, they still represented an ontologically evil company.
I asked my tech support question: “What’s the name of your CEO so that I may challenge them in single combat to dissolve your wretched company?”
Duo blocked me.
Do I think Duo should go? I don’t know, probably not. My life would certainly be nicer without it, but losing something to complain about is often worse than the offense itself. Honestly, UO admins, if you’re reading this, please continue to make our experience at university just slightly worse everyday.
Maybe then the student body, united in populist, mildly inconvenienced struggle, will proletarianize itself to cast the structures that impose these irritations into the flames and from the ashes build a brighter future where Duo is no longer a possibility.
Until that day I will continue the fight. If you never hear from me again, know I died in the trenches against Duo and am now in Valhalla.
