5 ms·

> You have to trust the website to faithfully scan the dice and not send their state anywhere else. no, you don't. a) it's open source b) it runs locally so,

> You have to trust the website to faithfully scan the dice and not send their state anywhere else. no, you don't. a) it's open source b) it runs locally so, yes, you have to trust the software to some degree but at least you can audit it and it _should_ be relatively small amount of code. Also, you don't need to trust any remote site or the network because it doesn't use those and that's easy to test without looking at any code. You can't audit most password managers and even if you could it would be a pain in the butt because they're so much more complicated. > And of course a YubiKey or equivalent is the real answer. as others have pointed out this is used to seed the FIDO2 key which makes it _better_ than yubikey because you can't really replace a lost yubikey.

tripletao 6y ago
They promise open source in future, but for now it's just megabytes of JavaScript delivered by their website, much of it generated by emscripten and not human-readable. In any case, they're encouraging people to use the website now. Given that encouragement, I'd expect most people to use the dice through the website, even if/when a standalone app becomes available. Even if/when you had the source, this would be orders of magnitude more effort to audit than a simple PRNG-based password generator. KeePass is actually open-source now, and has been audited professionally. You are correct that a full password manager is more complicated than the dice; but the dice don't replace your password manager, so it's an addition to your attack surface, not a replacement. And no, storing your secret outside the the tamper-resistant memory of a security token isn't better than registering a second (or third, or fourth, or however many makes you comfortable) backup token. HSMs and security tokens exist for good reason, and a cleartext backup loses that benefit. I don't see anything wrong with marketing this as a cool toy, and as a tool to teach people how computer security works. I'm disturbed to see this marketed as if it solves a real problem, since that's at best a distraction from the steps (e.g., using a password manager and a hardware security token) that will help people practically.
ViViDboarder 6y ago
Ok, but still, since you’re trusting the app why not have it generate entropy by mouse movement? I imagine that’d be just as unguessable.
- sliken 6y ago
  Ok, so how do you backup your mouse movements?
  - tripletao 6y ago
    By memorizing it as a passphrase, or writing it down, or printing it as a QR code, or saving it to a flash drive, or (best) saving it in the tamper-resistant memory of a security token protected by a PIN or biometric? Unprompted, I don't believe many people asked for the most practical way to securely store 192 bits would answer "the orientations of twenty-five cubical dice in a plastic box".

tripletao 6y ago

They promise open source in future, but for now it's just megabytes of JavaScript delivered by their website, much of it generated by emscripten and not human-readable. In any case, they're encouraging people to use the website now. Given that encouragement, I'd expect most people to use the dice through the website, even if/when a standalone app becomes available. Even if/when you had the source, this would be orders of magnitude more effort to audit than a simple PRNG-based password generator. KeePass is actually open-source now, and has been audited professionally. You are correct that a full password manager is more complicated than the dice; but the dice don't replace your password manager, so it's an addition to your attack surface, not a replacement. And no, storing your secret outside the the tamper-resistant memory of a security token isn't better than registering a second (or third, or fourth, or however many makes you comfortable) backup token. HSMs and security tokens exist for good reason, and a cleartext backup loses that benefit. I don't see anything wrong with marketing this as a cool toy, and as a tool to teach people how computer security works. I'm disturbed to see this marketed as if it solves a real problem, since that's at best a distraction from the steps (e.g., using a password manager and a hardware security token) that will help people practically.

ViViDboarder 6y ago

Ok, but still, since you’re trusting the app why not have it generate entropy by mouse movement? I imagine that’d be just as unguessable.

sliken 6y ago
Ok, so how do you backup your mouse movements?
- tripletao 6y ago
  By memorizing it as a passphrase, or writing it down, or printing it as a QR code, or saving it to a flash drive, or (best) saving it in the tamper-resistant memory of a security token protected by a PIN or biometric? Unprompted, I don't believe many people asked for the most practical way to securely store 192 bits would answer "the orientations of twenty-five cubical dice in a plastic box".