6 ms·

Something to note here: "Evidence collected suggests a password scheme where disclosure on one site made it easy to guess passwords for unrelated webpages." Fo

• simias 8y ago
  I suppose it's only as good as the formula itself and at least it protects you from automated attacks. Still, I wouldn't advise anybody from going with formula-based passwords, just use whichever password manager you prefer and use unique strong passwords per-website. Maybe one day the web will get its shit together and let us login everywhere with a certificate that we'll be able to securely store on a HSM and easily revoke and update if necessary but in the meantime it's the best we can do.
  • akerl_ 8y ago
    Most of the day-to-day issues with certificate auth aren't actually problems with "the web", so much as they're broader user workflow or endpoint support issues. Here's a couple: * How does a user log in from a new device? * Especially if they've lost / broken their original device? * What happens if users want to log in from a shared computer (think public library)? * Do all the OSes/browsers that users are using actually support certificate management and auth?
    • philjohn 8y ago
      Hence using an HSM, e.g. something like a Yubikey. Of course, they can be lost or stolen, which is why certificate revocation is necessary, and they would need broad adoption among OS and browser vendors. Plus you still have the issue of proving your identity if it's lost/stolen.
      • akerl_ 8y ago
        Hardware tokens don't really solve any of the problems I listed. You still have to deal w/ devices that don't do cert auth from a Yubikey (iOS being a great example), so as a site operator you don't get to avoid supporting new device / temp device workflows. Hardware tokens can allow individual power users to solve issues around multiple devices, lost devices, etc themselves, but unless you're suggesting porting 100% of users to hardware tokens, it doesn't change the workflows a site must support.
        • jrockway 8y ago
          I believe Yubikeys work from iOS now. I have not tried it, however.
    • leppr 8y ago
      Message signing with CryptoCurrency wallets (especially those that integrate with the browser like web3.js compatible ones e.g. Metamask), might be a good avenue in the future, as these tools may become widespread for other reasons, yet also fix web authentication in the process. Users would find the process of moving their identity on different devices tedious, but if that allows them to synchronize their whole digital lives, it would seem worth the effort.
  • berkes 8y ago
    I'd like to add "truly random" to > use unique strong passwords per-website. ... use unique, truly random passwords per-website. "Strong" is ambigous and hard to explain how to do right. Random means, in practice: "don't come up with one yourself, but let a tool generate one for you".
    • akerl_ 8y ago
      As a user, how do I know if a tool is generating a "truly random" password?
    • ChrisSD 8y ago
      To nitpick slightly, I think "truly random" is the wrong phrase here. Computers can't generate such numbers (only pseudo-random). What they can do is generate unpredictable passwords. Unpredictability is the feature we want in a password, whether that happens through "randomness" or something else doesn't matter. Of course computers are far better at coming up with unpredictable passwords than humans are.
      • zokier 8y ago
        RDRAND is supposed to generate very true random numbers
        • ChrisSD 8y ago
          Well either a RNG generates true random numbers or it doesn't. There's no room for "very" here. From Intel[0] > With respect to the RNG taxonomy discussed above, the DRNG follows the cascade construction RNG model, using a processor resident entropy source to repeatedly seed a hardware-implemented CSPRNG. Unlike software approaches, it includes a high-quality entropy source implementation that can be sampled quickly to repeatedly seed the CSPRNG with high-quality entropy. So it's a cryptographically secure pseudo random number generator that takes entropy from the processor. It's not a True Random Number Generator. And again, if it does work well for cryptography, it's the unpredictability that matters, not the randomness itself. [0] https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-digital-random-number-generator-drng-software-implementation-guide https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-digital-rand...
  • tonyztan 8y ago
    > "let us login everywhere with a certificate that we'll be able to securely store on a HSM and easily revoke and update if necessary" Would U2F be a part of the answer here? It is by far the most user-friendly implementation I've seen, and it's already supported as a 2FA token on many sites.
    • StavrosK 8y ago
      Yes, it would very likely completely prevent the attack. So would TOTP, though. In this day and age, if you don't enable 2FA on all sites that support it, you're just irresponsible (especially if you're in a position as interesting as Gentoo maintainer).
  • xwvvvvwx 8y ago
    Passwordless authentication is one of the most refreshing UX wins for blockchain backed applications.
  • tialaramex 8y ago
    You probably don't want a certificate. I mean, first of all the thing you're protecting in an HSM is a private key, not a certificate, but beyond that... A certificate means now Youporn, your employer, and your bank all share the same way to identify you. As does Facebook, and five thousand shady advertising companies. Something like Web Authn / U2F is better here. With this technology sites don't get any meaningful identity, just confirmation that you still have the same token as before. This also means if you find somebody's token you learn nothing from that, you'll have no idea where to return it and may as well just start using it yourself.
• lemoncucumber 8y ago
  The only thing a formula-based password strategy might protect against is a bulk automated attempt to check whether leaked username/password combos are used on other sites. But if any human actually wants to hack you, a formula-based password approach is almost certainly useless.
  • baby 8y ago
    There was a brain password hash developed by Blum IIRC
  • mygo 8y ago
    if the formula is to salt and then hash a string, that could be one very strong formula. if the formula is to go “hacker$$$$news_” then you’re SOL
• koolba 8y ago
  Formula based schemes are inherently flawed as you still have to remember some kind of nonce to handle forced password rotation.
• 21 8y ago
  It's worse than that, now a malicious admin of any of those sites can maybe figure out your password scheme.
• scoot 8y ago
  I disagree. In this case "evidence collected suggests a password scheme where disclosure on one site made it easy to guess passwords for unrelated webpages" (emphasis mine), however it is trivially easy to create formula-based passwords that are not immediately obviously related to the site for which they were created. Take some combination of: Number of characters in the URL Number of syllables in the URL Number of characters in the first / last syllable Index in the alphabet of the Nth character of the first / last syllable Nth character in the URL Character offset in the URL according number of syllables Nth symbol on the number key row according to number of characters in the URL Alt-key symbol for the URL character in the URL Etc, etc, etc. Interspersed memorable seeds. It would take serious effort to even detect the presence of a formulaic password from a single leaked unhashed / unsalted password, never mind to determine what the formula might be.
  • snowwolf 8y ago
    >> from a single leaked unhashed / unsalted password These days it’s becoming more common to have been compromised from multiple sources. And unfortunately storing passwords securely seems to still be too hard for a lot of companies. The more examples of your pattern an attacker has, the easier to work out your pattern. With the frequency of new breach announcements I feel like you’re going to be fighting a losing battle. For now the best and safest solution is unique truly random passwords per site.
    • Faark 8y ago
      You can still pass your formula based password though a cryptographic hash function and would be fine. Although not very useful for device logins and as mentioned in some other comment probably trick to rotate passwords.