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One-time Secret: Share passwords etc with URIs that work only once
- spydum 15y agoI really like the simplicity of this (even down to the concise html.. next to no bloat), what is behind it? Also, pretty cool, if you refresh the private page, it'll tell you whether or not someone has picked up the shared secret. Nice.
- delano 15y agoThanks, glad you like it. We kept it as simple as possible to get it out the door and start getting feedback. It's built with Ruby and Redis behind thin and nginx.
- cleverjake 15y agoI really like the idea, a privacy policy would be really nice though.
- mc32 15y agoAgree. I know it says that you can't do anything with the data, since necessary information isn't available. But... even if its random, it is known that it is a password. So, it's feasible to build a table of known passwords, at least.
- wccrawford 15y agoHow would that work? The URL only works once, so even if they crawled every possibility, the intended recipient would never get it, and would alert the sender.
- mc32 15y agoI'm just theorizing. But let's say the site gets compromised for a few days/weeks and they don't find out.
- Periodic 15y agoA privacy policy is a must! If the whole point of the site is to share secrets, with a second party, we need to know just what the third-party is planning to do with them.
- dazbradbury 15y agoLove it. I came into a use case for something like this a while ago, and ended up using a combination of goo.gl (to know when the person had clicked), and text converted to an image (to stop simple copy and paste). Maybe you could also incorporate the second part. It's obviously not a guarantee the information won't be copied, but if you know you're sending it to someone non-technical, it can be made extremely difficult. Congrats on the product though.
- delano 15y agoThat's an interesting idea. We could offer that as an option: "Convert this text to an image".
- Periodic 15y agoA neat idea would be if you encoded the information on your server with a secret key, then put that key in the URL in addition to the unique identifier. This way you never store the information on your server. The secret key should never be put in your logs until the information is accessed and destroyed. If this policy is followed it would alleviate some fears of giving all my secrets to a third-party site.
- mbreese 15y agoIn order for this to work, the key would have to be generated client-side and the secret encrypted client side. And you're still trusting that the site doesn't send the key when you submit the form. While I think that this is a good idea, I hink that this would unfortunately result in URLs that would be much too long to be user-friendly - especially if we are talking about sending information to non-technical people.
- JoachimSchipper 15y agoAn AES key is 128 bits, or 22 BASE64 characters. That's reasonable, and you can switch to BASE96 or Unicode. This doesn't help if the server is malicious, but it does help if the server is honest but is later hacked/subpoenad/whatever. Generating a key entirely in RAM/encrypted swap is reasonable, and securely erasing RAM is easy (securely erasing individual files is nontrivial to say the least.)
- mbreese 15y agoI'm thinking that their unique ID (31 char) plus the key (AES 22) is a little long for a URL: http://example.com/1234567890123456789012345678901/1234567890123456789012 http://example.com/1234567890123456789012345678901/123456789... I do like the idea though of keeping the secrets safe with a client-side (or non-stored) key. So long as it's known that it isn't about keeping the server honest, since you have to implicitly trust that they won't be storing the key.
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- lukeholder 15y agoIs there an api? I would love to make a textexpander snippit for this.
- icebraining 15y agoWhat language does it use? Seems pretty easy to create a library for this if it has an HTTP API and HTML parser (or even regex).
- delano 15y agoWe don't have an API yet, but we will soon.
- lukeholder 15y agoyes thats what i was asking?
- icebraining 15y agoNo, I'm saying that you could use the site as it is in an automated form. You just need to POST the data to a certain URL and then parse the page to extract the contents. No need for them to have an API.
- jazzychad 15y agoVery neat concept. I like thinking about these new classes of sites/utilities - like one I made called http://shoutkey.com/ http://shoutkey.com/ - which deal with useful temporary data instead of storing loads of data forever and ever. I'm interested to know what data store you are using (just curious)?
- cpenner461 15y agoI'm often wanting something like this, and have often thought "I should build this" - congrats/thanks for actually building it!
- Xk 15y agoPlease don't use this for passwords. Security is very hard to get right. Do they do a secure delete of the contents of the webpages? Who knows. Do they have strong physical protection around the server? Who knows. Do they run up to date software so the machine can't get taken over? Who knows. Can you even trust them not to log all your passwords? Who knows. This is an interesting service for some things, but I would never use it for sending passwords (or anything equally sensitive) back and forth. Even if you let me "encrypt" the information before uploading it with a password, if this encryption is done in javascript sent by the server then as soon as the server is taken over you can't trust the encryption.
- delano 15y agoNothing is entirely secure. We're two guys with no ulterior motives that take all reasonable precautions to keep the data safe. For most people that's not only enough, it's much better than having their passwords stored in their email archives and chat logs.
- trebor 15y agoIf the link is sent unencrypted a potential email relay or packet-sniffer could scan for the links related to your website and open it before the recipient. It would be easy to automate at any level. They wouldn't have context, sure, but they'd have whatever it is you wanted to send and your recipient wouldn't. I don't think this is likely to happen. Is your delete permanent, if not secure?
- brendoncrawford 15y agoAll of their http traffic redirects to https.
- trebor 15y agoI didn't mean in reference to their site, but how the end-user transmits the link to a recipient.
- peterwwillis 15y agoInteresting case of abuse: Send anonymous death threats as secrets. Would be hard to prove the message ever existed without server logs. Also, botnet c&c messages. WikiLeaks leaks! Damn, this is a useful tool. Also, unfortunate for anyone trying to share the secret over the internet: if a repressive regime is sniffing traffic and looking for these URIs and grabs the contents first they can still discover the messages of dissidents before they get passed on.
- smoody 15y agowould love one additional field that enables a user to specify the number of minutes, hours, or days until the url auto-expires (perhaps that's two fields).
- delano 15y agoNice idea. Seems like a no-brainer for one of the "More Options".
- desireco42 15y agoI wouldn't use this for passwords, but overall I like the idea, I was thinking along the same lines. I will use this for sure. Thanks for making it.
- delano 15y agoYou're welcome. The reason we use it for passwords is because there's no way to know the application or the user account associated to it.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- shmeeps 15y agoI think is is really neat.
- pdx 15y agoMy secret was "monitored by Stella". Yikes! Perhaps lose the Stella promotion for this application.
- delano 15y agoWell, it is actually monitored by Stella. What is the issue?
- pdx 15y agoReally? You don't understand that the disclaimer "monitored by $human_name" on a page that contains a secret is off-putting on first reading? Of course I know what Stella is...now. I clicked on it pretty damn fast as soon as I saw it, because I wanted to know who Stella was and why she was privy to my secret. Do you really not understand why causing the users that moment of doubt is non-optimal?
- delano 15y agoAh, you raise a good point. We monitor and track only the homepage. We don't mention this explicitly and it would be a good idea to remove from other pages to avoid confusion. Fixed.
- ploxination 15y agoI like the feature that an error occurs whenever using special characters such as åäö
- Skywing 15y agoI also do something like this for http://jsonifier.com http://jsonifier.com. I had users requesting that JSON pastes could be deleted after they were requested once. So, I know people find these kinds of features useful. I didn't think about building an entire tool around that one feature. Nice thinking!
- delano 15y agoThanks. jsonifier.com looks cool btw.
- czam 15y agofantastic. any application that has a password should also provide a method to generate a few one-time log-in urls that one could use from untrusted computers/environments. These uris could be issued with different privileges: e.g. for email, providing just access to the data younger than maybe two weeks.
- donpark 15y agoHow does this differ from sending pass-phrase encrypted ZIP file via email or IM beyond auto-delete feature?
- delano 15y agoMy grandfather wouldn't know what to do with an encrypted ZIP file. A lot of my friends wouldn't either.
- donpark 15y agoYes, difference in ease of use is certainly there and not ignorable. But wouldn't the need to send URL and pass-phrase via two different channels would be rather difficult to communicate to 'grandfathers'? Not an impossible task but, as someone who built consumer security products in the past, it's not ignorable either.
- vasco 15y agoInstead of sending a pass-phrase encrypted ZIP file via email or IM beyond auto-delete feature, you go to this website, input the information and share the URL with the person of choice.
- nigma 15y agoFor me sending sensitive information using a 3rd party service, no matter what the privacy policy is, is not an option. On the other hand the amount of positive comments simply shows how bad user experience do the current solutions like GPG/PGP have and how easy it is for people to choose convenience over security, even on this forum.
- delano 15y agoHere's our privacy policy: we don't care to know your secrets. That's tongue and cheek obviously b/c you do raise a good point. Do you have any examples we could base one on?
- re_todd 15y agoMaybe it could work if you split the password up. Email someone the first half of the password, then tell them to append the second half from the link.
- Sami_Lehtinen 15y agoWell, it does look pretty much like one of my hobby projects I did about two years ago. https://off-the-record.appspot.com/ https://off-the-record.appspot.com/ or http://otr.dy.fi/ http://otr.dy.fi/ There is also FAQ: https://off-the-record.appspot.com/faq https://off-the-record.appspot.com/faq Any feedback is welcome. There is also secure pickup option on front page. Using it server logs won't show up even retrieved keys. Those could be potentially abused to fetch data from Google's backups.
- __float 15y agoThe color scheme is a bit...extreme. To be honest the interface isn't nearly as straightforward, and in a small utility tool like this, that's what matters most.
- mapgrep 15y agoUser receives password URL on an iPad, opens it, loads the destination login page, switches back to password tab, but it's gone forever because the iPad closed it to harvest memory. User gets URL via webmail on Chrome, Chrome pre-fetches the URL. User closes Chrome because Starbucks is closing. When she finally visits the URL for the "first time" it's nuked. Etc. etc. Unexpected behavior is unexpected.
- delano 15y agoYou raise some great usecases. We have an option to require a password to view the secret but that doesn't directly solve the cases you bring up. We're considering changing the basic UX to require a click to display the secret (the click will send a POST to retreive the contents). That will include a much more visible disclaimer that it's only available one time.
- mapgrep 15y agoUsing a POST seems like a solid workaround. It might even be possible to include a POST form from your default email notification.
- joeyespo 15y agoData shouldn't change on a GET for these very reasons. Therefore, the secret shouldn't be obtained from a GET, but rather a POST. A button or jQuery.post on the 'shared' page, for example, that fetches and causes the deletion. I like this idea though.
- true_religion 15y agoChrome prefetches DNS, not URLs.
- drzaiusapelord 15y agoChrome is testing pre-fetching in beta builds and its expected to become part of the mainline product soon. I'm sure there are other issues. GETs are kind of unreliable. Better to do this stuff via POST.
- fduran 15y agoI built something similar a few months ago: http://whisperpassword.com/ http://whisperpassword.com/ , it includes client-side encryption and email notification (including IP address and geolocation) of when the secret was disclosed.
- abava 15y agoSecure notes: one time readable text messages http://sn.linkstore.ru http://sn.linkstore.ru
- JabavuAdams 15y agoIt will be very difficult to impossible for a .ru domain to gain traction with North American visitors for this purpose.
- RexRollman 15y agoDoes anyone know how much data can be passed with this tool? Also, what data is logged?
- joejohnson 15y agoThey _should_ save everything that is sent with this service. They'll have a pretty good dataset to determine common passwords, etc. Then, they could use the data to help users pick better passwords. It's not an invasion of privacy if it's done anonymously, in aggregate, right!?
- artursapek 15y agoAgreed. Selling anonymous data (in this case to security companies, etc) is a great way for this kind of free service to pay the bills.
- mkopinsky 15y agoThey could even go freemium by giving an option to be excluded from aggregate data reporting.
- delano 15y agoYou guys raise an interesting case we hadn't thought about yet. Devil's advocate: how would that be better than the algorithmic approaches (weak, medium, strong indicators implemented in javascript etc).
- mkopinsky 15y agoI can't speak for the others, but let me make clear that I am being entirely facetious. Selling data of user-provided passwords in this kind of context (an app ostensibly used to provide security) is among the worst kinds of evil. Requiring, or even allowing, users to escape from this kind of evil by paying a ransom is unconscionable.
- joejohnson 15y agoOh my god, this whole thread is ridiculous. I need to say that I intended my original comment as a joke. I don't think it is ethical to misuse users' data, even if it's anonymous.
- devongall 15y agoWhen I test this, the page is getting cached - and thus my one time secret is viewable multiple times. Interesting little quirk...
- delano 15y agoCached by the browser?
- mattlong 15y agoThe guys behind behind Zencoder released the same thing more than a year ago: https://www.thismessagewillselfdestruct.com https://www.thismessagewillselfdestruct.com
- delano 15y agoCool. I hadn't seen that. I like the way they handle the password.
- georgefox 15y agoI can't open this website at all in Internet Explorer. Not that I'd want to, of course, but why is that?
- harisenbon 15y agoInteresting. I had made a similar service a few years ago (sendmypassword.net) but it never got much traction outside of my company. Do you send confirmation mails, etc after the password is seen so that the sender knows the password got there?
- delano 15y agoNo we don't keep any identifying information so we have no way to contact people. We only display a message on the private URI page to the effect of, "Message was received 30 minutes ago".
- spun 15y agoVery cool idea!
- pablohoffman 15y agoI found strange that no one mentioned Privnote (https://privnote.com https://privnote.com), a much older/popular service that does this but more securely since it generates URLs with keys in the fragment to encrypt the messages on client side (so that the plain message never hits the server).
- one_time_secret 15y agohttp://onetime.2ch.to/ http://onetime.2ch.to/ The idea is imitated.
- patylu001 15y agoNice app, I would like to suggest adding a copy to clipboard feature for the created link, sometimes you can miss a letter or something and the message will get lost....