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First of all, what if you lose access to your email address? Now you can't access your service anymore? Second, why use email? It's not secure. Depending on yo

First of all, what if you lose access to your email address? Now you can't access your service anymore? Second, why use email? It's not secure. Depending on your threat model, it might not be a good idea. What about a (phone) app associated to your email address that generates a short passphrase (think magic-wormhole style) every few minutes which will allow you to login to any associated service? (Caveat: one login per passphrase). Of course, now you need to make that app secure and compatible with login services..

anderspitman 7y ago
Yes this whole thing is absolutely predicated on the concept of "if you lose access to your email you already have much bigger problems". But for me at least that's true. The phone app would be more secure, but that's much higher onboarding friction than an email address, which everyone already has.
- itcrowd 7y ago
  Well.. Your proposal adds more problems: Normal situation: 1) Email address not accessible (big problem) 2) Not much ... Proposed situation: 1) Email address not accessible (big problem) 2) Literally all other services also not accessible
  - anderspitman 7y ago
    For lost email I'm inclined to agree with you. There would need to be some mitigation there (encourage or enforce users to have a backup email, etc). But for stolen email credentials, one of the first things an attacker is going to do is start going through your email archives to see what services you use, resetting all your passwords to important services.
    - itcrowd 7y ago
      > for stolen email credentials [...] an attacker is going to [...] [reset] all your passwords to important services I agree. You are saving them the effort of taking this step.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
> First of all, what if you lose access to your email address? Now you can't access your service anymore? Isn't this basically already true for all of the services that require two-step authentication? I'm not saying this is a good state of things, per se, but at this point I've basically accepted that I can never change my email or phone number.
- itcrowd 7y ago
  2FA could be via email, but is often with SMS / app on phone. There is a backup mechanism here with printed one-time-use numbers. This is not friction-less nor optimal in my view, but there is some backup. The proposed login mechanism has no backup. Email address hacked, expired (new job, graduated from uni) or forgot password? You're out of luck.
  - anderspitman 7y ago
    No explicit backup, but I think you're also assuming Google-level lack of customer service. If someone contacted me telling me they lost control of their email, there's a lot of steps I could take to help them out short of telling them tough luck and them never being able to access their account again.
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      This actually strikes me as a quite dangerous mindset! A lot of "hacked" accounts happen when someone tricks customer support. How, exactly, would you verify the customer's legitimacy?
      - gshdg 7y ago
        By asking them their mother’s maiden name, of course!
    - itcrowd 7y ago
      True. And I don't want to be overly pedantic with the implementation details. I like your proposal to remove passwords and prevent phising in general and I'm trying to give some honest feedback on what I think is wrong with this auth system. The title of this post is "Tell me why this auth system is a bad idea", after all, not "Tell me the good parts of this auth system" ;) I guess a question I would have for you is: name a few companies to which you would like to pitch this auth system. (e.g. your first few customers if you turned this into a startup or something)

anderspitman 7y ago

Yes this whole thing is absolutely predicated on the concept of "if you lose access to your email you already have much bigger problems". But for me at least that's true. The phone app would be more secure, but that's much higher onboarding friction than an email address, which everyone already has.

itcrowd 7y ago
Well.. Your proposal adds more problems: Normal situation: 1) Email address not accessible (big problem) 2) Not much ... Proposed situation: 1) Email address not accessible (big problem) 2) Literally all other services also not accessible
- anderspitman 7y ago
  For lost email I'm inclined to agree with you. There would need to be some mitigation there (encourage or enforce users to have a backup email, etc). But for stolen email credentials, one of the first things an attacker is going to do is start going through your email archives to see what services you use, resetting all your passwords to important services.
  - itcrowd 7y ago
    > for stolen email credentials [...] an attacker is going to [...] [reset] all your passwords to important services I agree. You are saving them the effort of taking this step.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

> First of all, what if you lose access to your email address? Now you can't access your service anymore? Isn't this basically already true for all of the services that require two-step authentication? I'm not saying this is a good state of things, per se, but at this point I've basically accepted that I can never change my email or phone number.

itcrowd 7y ago
2FA could be via email, but is often with SMS / app on phone. There is a backup mechanism here with printed one-time-use numbers. This is not friction-less nor optimal in my view, but there is some backup. The proposed login mechanism has no backup. Email address hacked, expired (new job, graduated from uni) or forgot password? You're out of luck.
- anderspitman 7y ago
  No explicit backup, but I think you're also assuming Google-level lack of customer service. If someone contacted me telling me they lost control of their email, there's a lot of steps I could take to help them out short of telling them tough luck and them never being able to access their account again.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    This actually strikes me as a quite dangerous mindset! A lot of "hacked" accounts happen when someone tricks customer support. How, exactly, would you verify the customer's legitimacy?
    - gshdg 7y ago
      By asking them their mother’s maiden name, of course!
  - itcrowd 7y ago
    True. And I don't want to be overly pedantic with the implementation details. I like your proposal to remove passwords and prevent phising in general and I'm trying to give some honest feedback on what I think is wrong with this auth system. The title of this post is "Tell me why this auth system is a bad idea", after all, not "Tell me the good parts of this auth system" ;) I guess a question I would have for you is: name a few companies to which you would like to pitch this auth system. (e.g. your first few customers if you turned this into a startup or something)