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by mindslight 2514 days ago
Yeah, IIRC the "proper" way to upgrade an ungrounded circuit to have a 3-prong outlet (without running new cabling) is to use a GFCI and label it "NO EQUIPMENT GROUND". This is considered safe, but is still ultimately a hack.

It assumes that any dangerous shocking current will be taking a path that isn't just coming back on its own white wire, presumably from taking an unspecified path to ground. This seems a reasonable assumption for safety (and the NFPA surely has looked at the data), but it doesn't really inform the above isolated-bathtub situation.