5 ms·
I agree, but how should that person generate a token? A hardware device? What if they lose that device? Try and think of it from the perspective of someone who
by ihattendorf 8y ago
I agree, but how should that person generate a token? A hardware device? What if they lose that device? Try and think of it from the perspective of someone who only uses their computer for facebook/banking/candy crush.
- wolfgang42 8y agoNo computer needed: when you freeze your credit, the agency mails you a sheet of one-time-use codes. When you apply for credit, you give the bank or whoever one of the codes, and then cross it off of your sheet. If you lose the paper, you have to go through a manual process to get a new one, the same as you would if you lost the PIN they give you now.
- ihattendorf 8y agoRight, but a lot of the times the information required for the manual process is also compromised. This just lowers the security level down to whatever the manual process is.
- wolfgang42 8y agoI think it raises the security to that of the manual process. Unless you're saying that right now the system of freezing and unfreezing is more secure than one-time codes would be?
- ihattendorf 8y agoYou're right. I was thinking of it from the point of lowering it from a hypothetical hardware device to the manual process instead of raising it from the current system.
- wolfgang42 8y agoAh, got it. But a hardware device would still need a manual fallback :)
- geezerjay 8y ago> If you lose the paper, you have to go through a manual process to get a new one, the same as you would if you lost the PIN they give you now. If an attacker has your identity then he might have access to that unlocking process. Thus, how does this strategy changes anything?
- wolfgang42 8y ago> he might have access to that unlocking process. Emphasis added. It stops the attackers that don't have this information, thus raising the bar. I'm not trying to invent a perfect system, just a better one that's practical to implement.
- teeray 8y agoYeah, this is what I was thinking. People are generally pretty good at keeping secret scraps of paper relatively secure. While a motivated attacker can still break into your house and the safe, they stand a better shot at running afoul of authorities while doing so. The advantages of such a system would give us auditability and revocation, since each access would be tied to a token. Visiting $ISSUER to get a new sheet of codes for fraud would always revoke the previously issued ones. Consequently, from that point, each fraudulently used token could be tracked. It would also reduce the value of a stolen sheet of one-time codes to an attacker, since they wouldn't know whether using one would trigger an immediate visit from the authorities.
- jasonjayr 8y agoYou're not wrong, but there really needs some public outreach & education to raise public confidence and utilization of these really simple, yet cryptographically important devices.
- hakfoo 8y agoThe problem is that we've optimized for convenience and friendliness. I've seen freaking F2P MMORPGs offering better login security procedures than major financial products. Getting a loan is a significant decision. It's okay to have some circumstance and hassle around it, especially if it can actually provide some security benefits. Personally, I'd love to see "each credit application must be submitted with a photo and a fingerprint" or even "you must go into some physical office to get verified." Yes, it would be a hassle to get that 90-days-same-as-cash washing machine promo, but if someone claimed identity theft, you've got a thick stack of records designed to make prosecuting the crime easy.