3 ms·

The author talks about using SHA-256 as a password hashing algorithm. This doesn’t inspire confidence in the rest of the piece. tptacek in 2016 on peppers: htt

The author talks about using SHA-256 as a password hashing algorithm. This doesn’t inspire confidence in the rest of the piece. tptacek in 2016 on peppers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12550375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12550375 The current best practice of simply hashing passwords with bcrypt is fine, and anything past that which doesn't doesn't involve (probably per-password) use of an HSM adds only marginal value. I wouldn't want anyone to read this and get the impression that "secret peppers" and multiple hashing rounds and HMAC were important components of a password storage system. They are not: they're things that message board nerds come up with. If you want to be a step better than just storing passwords with bcrypt, your next step is to create an authentication service that runs on separate hardware with an "is this password valid" and "enroll this password" API and nothing else. The stuff people do instead of this is basically cosmetic.

himalayanyeeti 8y ago
You might be interested in why I feel this way. I actually have a pretty strong anti-bcrypt bent. Not to just point back to my blog again, but I've written two anti-bcrypt posts which may be viewed here: https://blog.benpri.me/blog/2019/01/13/why-you-shouldnt-be-using-bcrypt-and-scrypt/ https://blog.benpri.me/blog/2019/01/13/why-you-shouldnt-be-u... and here: https://blog.benpri.me/blog/2019/03/02/reactive-hashing/ https://blog.benpri.me/blog/2019/03/02/reactive-hashing/
- vince14 8y ago
  Your first post is very dishonest and misleading. In conclusion you are comparing long vs short passwords but attach the hash algorithms to them to fit your narrative. Both points in conclusion are wrong and as noted in the comments: you would run a dictionary attack on your chosen longer password. Which is a bit ironic because this "lulls you into a false sense of security".
- Tade0 8y ago
  I read the first article. Passphrases give us the ability to easily remember high entropy password values. Passphrases are not high entropy once you take into account that they're words in a specific language.
  - isostatic 8y ago
    Depends how you pick them. If you genuinely do grep "^[a-z]*$" /usr/share/dict/words|shuf -n 4 Then on my computer you're looking at 15638751293495759880 combinations, or about 2^64. Pick them from your own day to day vocab and you're more likely in the 2^32 range.
- mgkimsal 8y ago
  color me stupid but I didn't understand "You should not be using Bcrypt. You should be using passphrases." These seem orthogonal to each other. How would you store the 'passphrases'? in plaintext? or hashed? if hashed, what hashing algorithm? Why not bcrypted passphrases?
mdekkers 8y ago
This doesn’t inspire confidence in the rest of the piece. The title doesn't inspire confidence in the rest of the piece. Why is it that increasingly, people feel compelled to put such a negative spin on content. Another "if you don't do <something I feel strongly about>, you are <something negative>" piece. If what you are writing needs some clickbaity title, I'm not interested. I have not heard of peppering before, and if the author would have titled something along the lines of "peppering significantly improves the security of your stored passwords" I would have been all over it. Now the author has already called me "irresponsible", and he doesn't even know me. Well, fuck that guy, I'll find somewhere else to read about what specific seasoning I should be applying to stored passwords. What an ass. EDIT He just changed the title.
- panarky 8y ago
  OP changed the title on HN but his blog still has the original title. This is not how HN works. https://imgur.com/a/0W6uQDA https://imgur.com/a/0W6uQDA

himalayanyeeti 8y ago

You might be interested in why I feel this way. I actually have a pretty strong anti-bcrypt bent. Not to just point back to my blog again, but I've written two anti-bcrypt posts which may be viewed here: https://blog.benpri.me/blog/2019/01/13/why-you-shouldnt-be-using-bcrypt-and-scrypt/ https://blog.benpri.me/blog/2019/01/13/why-you-shouldnt-be-u... and here: https://blog.benpri.me/blog/2019/03/02/reactive-hashing/ https://blog.benpri.me/blog/2019/03/02/reactive-hashing/

vince14 8y ago
Your first post is very dishonest and misleading. In conclusion you are comparing long vs short passwords but attach the hash algorithms to them to fit your narrative. Both points in conclusion are wrong and as noted in the comments: you would run a dictionary attack on your chosen longer password. Which is a bit ironic because this "lulls you into a false sense of security".
Tade0 8y ago
I read the first article. Passphrases give us the ability to easily remember high entropy password values. Passphrases are not high entropy once you take into account that they're words in a specific language.
- isostatic 8y ago
  Depends how you pick them. If you genuinely do grep "^[a-z]*$" /usr/share/dict/words|shuf -n 4 Then on my computer you're looking at 15638751293495759880 combinations, or about 2^64. Pick them from your own day to day vocab and you're more likely in the 2^32 range.
mgkimsal 8y ago
color me stupid but I didn't understand "You should not be using Bcrypt. You should be using passphrases." These seem orthogonal to each other. How would you store the 'passphrases'? in plaintext? or hashed? if hashed, what hashing algorithm? Why not bcrypted passphrases?

mdekkers 8y ago

This doesn’t inspire confidence in the rest of the piece. The title doesn't inspire confidence in the rest of the piece. Why is it that increasingly, people feel compelled to put such a negative spin on content. Another "if you don't do <something I feel strongly about>, you are <something negative>" piece. If what you are writing needs some clickbaity title, I'm not interested. I have not heard of peppering before, and if the author would have titled something along the lines of "peppering significantly improves the security of your stored passwords" I would have been all over it. Now the author has already called me "irresponsible", and he doesn't even know me. Well, fuck that guy, I'll find somewhere else to read about what specific seasoning I should be applying to stored passwords. What an ass. EDIT He just changed the title.

panarky 8y ago
OP changed the title on HN but his blog still has the original title. This is not how HN works. https://imgur.com/a/0W6uQDA https://imgur.com/a/0W6uQDA