5 ms·

I like the physical nature of it. Cryptography is so abstract. I like idea of master password generating code device being a physical object.

XMPPwocky 6y ago
The idea is neat, but it seems like a horrendous idea to get your disk encryption keys from something you liked because of the aesthetic!
tripletao 6y ago
I guess I see the appeal in that sense. It's a bad practical device, but a good security-themed desk toy. (Though for the latter, I'd prefer a combination Enigma/watch for TOTP?)
cactus2093 6y ago
The physical route is a good idea, but if you're going to do it there's no reason to introduce a weak link in the chain of having an app scan the dice. You can just get a set of 5 dice and do the lookups yourself using a word list like this [0]. [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/new-wordlists-random-passphrases https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/new-wordlists-random-p...
- dicekeys 6y ago
  The author of that post is on the DiceKeys advisory board. At some point, you're going to feed the entropy source into software. Having the app be part of your trusted computing base reduces the chance of a data-entry error that could leave users forever without their data.
  - cactus2093 6y ago
    Feeding the entropy source into software might take many different forms depending what is the password to (e.g. login/full disk encryption key on your computer, password manager master password, password to a specific online service, etc). For most uses you'll have to enter it as text, and have to enter it multiple times, potentially on different devices that you are accessing the service on. For almost any real-world use case, memorizing the password and typing it in on a keyboard is pretty much a necessity. There are many kinds of inputs that don't allow another software like DiceKeys to enter the secret, so I'd still definitely rather stick with the simpler, human-readable option.
- pavel_lishin 6y ago
  You could also just get some random dice, including ones with letters, and generate a password directly from that without going the word-lookup route. I'm probably an outlier, because I already have random dice, but "right leg squshr december 46 monday" seems secure enough to me: https://i.imgur.com/JGh4fik.jpg https://i.imgur.com/JGh4fik.jpg
  - tzs 6y ago
    Assuming someone knows you used those dice, but doesn't know the order you arranged them in, and assuming that the d6's with the letters on them are not identical, I think you've got 55 bits of entropy there [1]. That's equivalent to between an 8 character and 9 character password of ASCII non-whitespace printing characters. Password crack time estimator sites are giving me times ranging from a few months to a few centuries to brute force it. Probably OK but I'd personally want something a bit better for a master password. [1] 12 x 6^6 x 12 x 6^2 x 7 x 11! / 2. The first 5 factors come from the individual dice, the 11! covers order, and the divide by 2 comes from the two numeric d6 being interchangeable so order does not matter for them.
    - pavel_lishin 6y ago
      > Assuming someone knows you used those dice Under that assumption, yup. But naturally, if you were really going to do this, you wouldn't tell anyone which dice you used, or that you even used dice to generate the password. Ideally you'd probably use even more dice. Of course, diceware is meant to use something most people can get their hands on easily; a day-of-week die, etc., isn't something you're going to find in a common game set.

XMPPwocky 6y ago

The idea is neat, but it seems like a horrendous idea to get your disk encryption keys from something you liked because of the aesthetic!

tripletao 6y ago

I guess I see the appeal in that sense. It's a bad practical device, but a good security-themed desk toy. (Though for the latter, I'd prefer a combination Enigma/watch for TOTP?)

cactus2093 6y ago

The physical route is a good idea, but if you're going to do it there's no reason to introduce a weak link in the chain of having an app scan the dice. You can just get a set of 5 dice and do the lookups yourself using a word list like this [0]. [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/new-wordlists-random-passphrases https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/07/new-wordlists-random-p...

dicekeys 6y ago
The author of that post is on the DiceKeys advisory board. At some point, you're going to feed the entropy source into software. Having the app be part of your trusted computing base reduces the chance of a data-entry error that could leave users forever without their data.
- cactus2093 6y ago
  Feeding the entropy source into software might take many different forms depending what is the password to (e.g. login/full disk encryption key on your computer, password manager master password, password to a specific online service, etc). For most uses you'll have to enter it as text, and have to enter it multiple times, potentially on different devices that you are accessing the service on. For almost any real-world use case, memorizing the password and typing it in on a keyboard is pretty much a necessity. There are many kinds of inputs that don't allow another software like DiceKeys to enter the secret, so I'd still definitely rather stick with the simpler, human-readable option.
pavel_lishin 6y ago
You could also just get some random dice, including ones with letters, and generate a password directly from that without going the word-lookup route. I'm probably an outlier, because I already have random dice, but "right leg squshr december 46 monday" seems secure enough to me: https://i.imgur.com/JGh4fik.jpg https://i.imgur.com/JGh4fik.jpg
- tzs 6y ago
  Assuming someone knows you used those dice, but doesn't know the order you arranged them in, and assuming that the d6's with the letters on them are not identical, I think you've got 55 bits of entropy there [1]. That's equivalent to between an 8 character and 9 character password of ASCII non-whitespace printing characters. Password crack time estimator sites are giving me times ranging from a few months to a few centuries to brute force it. Probably OK but I'd personally want something a bit better for a master password. [1] 12 x 6^6 x 12 x 6^2 x 7 x 11! / 2. The first 5 factors come from the individual dice, the 11! covers order, and the divide by 2 comes from the two numeric d6 being interchangeable so order does not matter for them.
  - pavel_lishin 6y ago
    > Assuming someone knows you used those dice Under that assumption, yup. But naturally, if you were really going to do this, you wouldn't tell anyone which dice you used, or that you even used dice to generate the password. Ideally you'd probably use even more dice. Of course, diceware is meant to use something most people can get their hands on easily; a day-of-week die, etc., isn't something you're going to find in a common game set.