Tom Scott

Thomas Scott is an English YouTuber, educator, game show host and web developer. He is best known for producing online videos for his self-titled YouTube channel, which mainly offers educational videos across a range of topics including history, geography, science, technology, and linguistics. His videos have had over a billion total views, and he has surpassed 5 million subscribers.

Tom Scott in 2016

Quotes

The Basics

• Every time we design a system, we have to minimise the potential harm. Look at the code that you write, look at the systems you design, and think: How could this be abused? How could this fall apart? What are the failure states here? If you were a bad actor, if you wanted to use this maliciously, how would you go about it? Think about how you’d attack your own systems, explore those failure states, deliberately screw things up and see how your code copes. Because if you don't, someone else will.

• Every bit of freedom that a designer has for creativity and good is also freedom for abuse. That’s true not just on the web, but in every single aspect of the online world.