24 ms·

The quest for a family-friendly password manager

111 points by jhvkjhk 4y ago

jmclnx 4y ago
I can barely read the article, text is lite gray on white with firefox on OpenBSD. Seems interesting but could not get through it using firefox. So off to lynx, there it rendered fine, so reading it now.
evolve2k 4y ago
> To my disappointment (and mild horror), almost all password managers are using PBKDF2, which is known to be completely suboptimal to store passwords, and has been for the last 15 years, but it's apparently the only one without abysmal performance in Javascript. Anyone have a better idea?
- amenghra 4y ago
  Today, you would probably consider Argon2 since it specifically came out of a competition for password hashing functions. Historically, scrypt, bcrypt and pbkdf2 have all three been widely used.
- gavinray 4y ago
  As someone who often implements their own authentication for backend services, I follow the advice to use scrypt or Argon2. Argon2 is a bit of a PITA though because it needs to be re-hashed sometimes.
- rpdillon 4y ago
  Author's need to for compromised password monitoring and cloud-based operation (in a web browser) exclude the obvious choice: KeepassXC. It supports Argon2, Argon2id, as well as AES-KDF. This works with KeepassDX on Android, but has the expected effect of slowing down access to the DB, since the phone has less power than the laptop.
  - britneybitch 4y ago
    KeepassXC can check for compromised passwords using HIBP since v2.6.0. https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/pull/4438 https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/pull/4438
- some_furry 4y ago
  I'm the Soatok Dreamseeker the author cites. I've previously disclosed cryptographic bugs to both LastPass and 1Password. I've written about my experiences: https://furry.engineer/@soatok/109560736140669727 https://furry.engineer/@soatok/109560736140669727 The post I wrote about the intersection of Passwords and Cryptography was spun off as a prerequisite for a longer post I was writing about password management from the perspective of a cryptography engineer. As part of that post, I planned to review Bitwarden (since it's open source and therefore I don't have to expend the additional mental cycles to reverse engineer it like I did LP/1P's offerings). The challenges faced by browser extensions with other password DKFs is that, if you want performance, you don't want to write it in a scripting language. WebAssembly might work, but the ideal outcome is to be able to call `await crypto.subtle.Argon2id(/* args */)` and get your result. The path forward, therefore, is to get Argon2id support into WebKit, Chrome, and Node.js.
  - evolve2k 4y ago
    So a project like this? https://github.com/antelle/argon2-browser https://github.com/antelle/argon2-browser Per their README it seems it’s implemented into “KeeWeb”. KeeWeb is a free cross-platform password manager compatible with KeePass. https://keeweb.info https://keeweb.info https://github.com/keeweb/keeweb https://github.com/keeweb/keeweb Anyone checked out KeeWeb?
    - some_furry 4y ago
      > So a project like this? https://github.com/antelle/argon2-browser https://github.com/antelle/argon2-browser Notice how they don't provide any benchmarks that aren't Native or WASM? https://soatok.blog/2022/12/29/what-we-do-in-the-etc-shadow-cryptography-with-passwords/#algorithms https://soatok.blog/2022/12/29/what-we-do-in-the-etc-shadow-... This doesn't help iOS users in Lockdown mode. It may also break for users who run their OS in FIPS mode.
waffl 4y ago
For me the main barrier has been convincing my family to actually take password management seriously. My entire family has had their emails hacked at least twice due to poor/reused passwords that have been in leaks, constantly forget IDs/passwords, and are constantly overwhelmed with the idea that they need to keep track of all these things. I've set up a 1password family and set up accounts/vaults on everyone's computers/phones/tablets, yet they still find it too troublesome to use rather than simply writing passwords down in plaintext on their notes apps or just on sticky notes attached to their computers etc... If anyone has had success encouraging family to use a password manager I would love to hear any tips, as I've sat my family down every holiday season to reset everyone's forgotten passwords and walk them through everything, practice creating/saving/using passwords and within a day it's all forgotten again. Like backups, I feel like no one takes it seriously until something truly horrible happens.
- jefftk 4y ago
  Have you tried getting them set up with Apple's (if they're on Mac/iOS) or Google's (if they're on Chrome/Android)? Using something built-in is almost always the lowest friction option, and it sounds like it's friction that's keeping them from the sticking with the password managers you've tried them on.
  - squeegee_scream 4y ago
    I dislike the idea of recommending these OS-specific password managers because what if they need to access their passwords on another machine? But I'm guessing for most folks that's not a concern. I also don't trust them _nearly_ as much as I do 1Password, but that's at least some prejudice on my side.
    - mmcconnell1618 4y ago
      Both the Apple and Chrome password managers sync to the cloud so as long as they can sign in to their account on another computer or phone, they can still get access to the saved passwords.
benced 4y ago
This person has been recommending LastPass for years and now cares about the cryptographic specifics of far more trustworthy companies?
- b3morales 4y ago
  People are allowed to realize they've made mistakes and change their minds/priorities as a result.
wesapien 4y ago
My boomer parents have been able to keep up with Bitwarden. We installed on their Windows laptop and smartphones. I've still have to get them on OTP, something like Authy to get them off mobile 2FA when possible.
itake 4y ago
I read his requirements and thought bitwarden met all of them. The author discusses bitwarden and instead of acknowledging it meets their expectations, points out more issues. I don't really see why a "family-friendly" version cares about the underlying tech or filesize of the CLI clients, but maybe grandma or kids these days do get upset when when the run a program that is 8.0 × 10^-5 of their 1tb hd.
- ed25519FUUU 4y ago
  Bitwarden is good but I don’t understand why I need to make an account to use it? I wish more software followed 1Password <= v6 and allowed me to store my vault and access it locally anywhere. It “just worked” on any device that could sync the vault. Now they’re a pay-to-play service without that feature.
  - nilespotter 4y ago
    I have only ever used it with a vaultwarden backend and it's been fantastic
  - milosmns 4y ago
    To forward your secrets to your family (shared vaults) you need a remote vault that both sides connect to. That's their implementation choice... but given that BW is OSS, you could theoretically change that behavior if you know how.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  The underlying tech of your password manager where you store all of your secrets is very pertinent. If it is poorly built, your secrets are no longer secrets.
- saghm 4y ago
  Yeah, that is a weird criticism. Even if the size of the CLI client were an issue (which I agree it it's not), how many people in their family even know what a CLI is and how to use one? I'd imagine that the average number of people in a family who would prefer a CLI to a GUI is less than one.
filleokus 4y ago
I don't know what primitives or parameters Apple's iCloud Keychain is using. But I do know that it has made all of the non-techies in my family using a password manager. They just use the suggested password generated by Apple when signing up on random sites as well. (But only works on Apple's devices and browsers obviously)
- ed25519FUUU 4y ago
  iCloud Keychain has done more to raise the tide for passwords than any other password manager in existence. I love that it “just works” for the vast amount of people who use iOS/Mac.
- 0xCMP 4y ago
  No it also works on Windows (it will install an extension for Chrome and Edge if asked). You just need to install their iCloud software for Windows https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud-windows/set-up-icloud-passwords-icw2babf5e03/icloud https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud-windows/set-up-icloud... I am personally not using it, but it does exist and seems to work from the times I've tried it.
- emptysongglass 4y ago
  Does it allow export if a user ever decides to jump to some other OS platform or password manager? Or does it provide another vector of lock-in?
  - vlovich123 4y ago
    It allows export and there’s also a windows app.
floren 4y ago
I've been using KeePassXC on desktop and KeePassDX on Android, synchronized via Syncthing, and it's good, but the thing that makes me squeamish about all password managers is that you're just one software update away from malicious code which uploads all your passwords next time you unlock.
- Vexs 4y ago
  The hackaday community's mooltipass kind of solves this- puts passwords on an external device with a smartcard. The OS never accesses the whole breadth of it, just what's exposed by the hardware. I think that's the right approach, but I'm not sure I like the hardware. Something I was thinking about was using a pi zero in a small box, that just does something like emulate a keyboard for password-pushing. Give it a small screen and small keyboard for UI.
- nicolaslem 4y ago
  I have also been using the KeePassXC/Syncthing combo and it works very well, except for iOS which does not have a decent Syncthing client. This means I have to rely on SMB + VPN to get access to my up-to-date keepass database which is more trouble than I'd like.
- jakobdabo 4y ago
  I think this can be easily solved using process/app isolation, i.e. KeePassXC doesn't need network connectivity.
ajorgensen 4y ago
Bitwarden has worked really well for me and my wife to share passwords to common services (daycare, shared email, etc) and it has been well worth the money. I've used 1Password and LastPass in the past but Bitwarden has been the best experience I've had thusfar.
- user3939382 4y ago
  Would you mind elaborating a little on what you liked about Bitwarden over 1Password?
  - ajorgensen 4y ago
    Full disclosure I haven't used 1Password in a while and I have limited experience sharing vaults. That being said Bitwarden just worked™. It was easy to set up a shared space. The iOS app is good, the plugins are good, all around solid. The open source nature is nice, I can run my own vault if I wanted to. So the tldr is that it hit the right balance between portability, ease of use, and price to be the right choice.
dhruval 4y ago
Spent years convincing my dad to switch over to LastPass family. After the recent hack, I tried to get him to switch to keepass xc but that is proving to be too steep a hill to climb. What is the best alternative to LastPass families? I don’t mind paying for a subscription etc .
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  1Password has a family plan that works well.
- jacooper 4y ago
  Bitwarden
esskay 4y ago
TL;DR there isnt one. They're all built and designed by developers. From an 'average joe' perspective, not a single one of them is easy to use.
- ed25519FUUU 4y ago
  I think the tl;dr here is that there’s actually a lot of excellent choices out there, but almost all of them leave something to be desired in underlying cryptographic strength.
- milosmns 4y ago
  BitWarden was a breeze for my parents, there's no difference between the OS autofill and BW... on both iOS and Android, and Chrome for my dad. :shrug:
- sigzero 4y ago
  I have used Bitwarden and 1Password and 1Password is just about seamless while Bitwarden is a little clunky. 1Password is the one I would use for a "family". None of them are really "family ready" as there is always going to be a slight learning curve.
loginatnine 4y ago
FWIW, I've bumped the KDF iterations count to 600000 in Bitwarden and I haven't seen any noticeable difference logging in from my M1 Pro and my iPhone 13 pro.
jawns 4y ago
If you're looking at this problem not as a technical person, but just as someone looking for the most practical solution to the problem ... Chrome's built-in password management is the obvious mass-market solution. It suggests (relatively) strong passwords, it discourages password re-use, it surfaces when you use passwords that have been found in a data breach, and it allows you to access these passwords across devices. I have no idea about the cryptographic strength of Chromes's offerings, but the fact that it is the leading browser worldwide means that it's going to be dead-simple for most people to adopt, even those who are decidedly non-technical. (Personally, I use Bitwarden and 1Password, but I'm a software engineer. I would not expect my elderly family members to do the same, especially because both involve installing and maintaining browser extensions that can be finicky when Chrome updates.)
- lalaland1125 4y ago
  Chrome is also one of the most secure options. Google has a well deserved reputation for incredibly strong security.
  - danuker 4y ago
    Then again, Google has an overwhelming window into everyone's private lives. Perhaps giving them passwords is adding fuel to the fire.
  - metadat 4y ago
    This is false in some scenarios. Dumping browser credential vaults as well as extracting from active memory have both become de facto standard post-exploitation behaviors. References are many: https://kylemistele.medium.com/stealing-saved-browser-passwords-your-new-favorite-post-exploitation-technique-c5e72c86159a https://kylemistele.medium.com/stealing-saved-browser-passwo... https://isc.sans.edu/diary/Use+Your+Browser+Internal+Password+Vault...+or+Not%3F/28658 https://isc.sans.edu/diary/Use+Your+Browser+Internal+Passwor... https://www.cyberark.com/resources/threat-research-blog/extracting-clear-text-credentials-directly-from-chromium-s-memory https://www.cyberark.com/resources/threat-research-blog/extr... https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/redline-malware-shows-why-passwords-shouldnt-be-saved-in-browsers/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/redline-malwa...
sebk 4y ago
I'm not sure that the crypto used is the weakest link, but even then, I would very much like to see a user-configurable memory-hard KDF, authenticated AES, and FIDO2 hmac-secret support. All of which should be relatively tablestakes for a product like this. The option of self-syncing or self-hosting seems important as well, so users can decide to trade off having a team of engineers keeping the server secure and up to date with being a less interesting target to compromise. In terms of client-side compromise, I'm significantly more worried about OS/browser compromises, malicious app updates, or for those cases where there's no OS-mediated autofill API, clipboard sniffing. In the end, I think password managers will always have issued and will have to settle for "good enough", or better than memorizing passwords. They're too big of a target for attacks and their surface area is too big, too. Password managers do more than storing login credentials, but for that key use case, adoption of Passwordless WebAuthn can't come soon enough.
tkuraku 4y ago
I think for the average person the built in password manager in Firefox/chrome/ safari are probably the lowest barrier to entry.
- saghm 4y ago
  I'll second this opinion. A lot of people will already have their passwords saved in their browser but not even realize that this is an example of what people mean when they hear "password manager". I'm not sure about iOS (as I haven't owned an iPhone before), but at least on Android, there's a setting to let the Chrome password manager auto-fill across the entire system rather than just in the browser. The path of least resistance for most people is probably just to turn settings like that on (and optionally, if their existing passwords are not secure e.g. due to reuse across sites, go through their list of saved passwords, log into each site, and change their password to one generated from the browser password manager).
- jacooper 4y ago
  The issues is with app autofill. Browsers don't do autofill on android, at least AFAIK. Firefox does but its crap on android anyway.
  - izacus 4y ago
    Chrome does do autofill on Android.
    - jacooper 4y ago
      I don't use chrome so I don't know. But chromium and brave don't show up in the autofill service settings page.
    - inadequatespace 4y ago
      It doesn't on iOS. Safari does _sometimes_, when it feels like it… but even if it were consistent, who (even in the family) wants to use Safari on desktop? Back to square one
jeroenhd 4y ago
The lamentations about Bitwarden's heavy clients really ring true. On my phone, simply opening the password manager to unlock the vault can be enough to make the application I was trying to log into go OOM. Integration with my keyboard of choice (SwiftKey) is also questionable and then Firefox adds another layer of weird behaviour that makes autofills too difficult for me to recommend it to my family. When I first read about the command line Bitwarden client I just laughed at its absurdity. I'm tempted to write my own Bitwarden compatibility library and maybe a command line or GUI that doesn't require an outdated copy of Chrome to run, but doing security software right takes time and research I don't want to commit right now. I also remember going from my self hosted Bitwarden instance to Vaultwarden and seeing he memory requirement drop several gigabytes. I like Bitwarden's browser integrations for the most part but the nice GUI comes at a big performance cost. Perhaps my 900 secrets are too much for a password manager to handle but I don't think whatever computation the program does on the encrypted secrets warrants this much overhead.
arielweisberg 4y ago
I would settle for a password manager that can do basic password management. Secure, UI that loads quickly without bugs, autofill that works. Tried switching to 1Password and it duplicates every single password I imported from LastPass. Confirmed no duplicates exist in the CSV being imported. Support is like talking to a chat bot. Don't seem to understand the issue I am reporting is the duplication and keep proposing solutions to alternate problems other then the one I have.
- lalaland1125 4y ago
  > I would settle for a password manager that can do basic password management. Just use Google/FireFox's build in options. Google's is more secure, but I understand a lot of people like FireFox for other reasons.
  - noahtallen 4y ago
    Login to non-websites is very useful on mobile. (And even desktop now with 1password!) I think only ”proper” password apps do that in a truly cross-platform way.
- paulclinger 4y ago
  For 1Password, check if you have the same password registered under "Passwords" and under "Logins", as this would trigger this warning. I'm not sure how the import process works, but maybe those imported passwords/logins are added to both sections. If all your passwords are converted to logins, you can probably delete those password records, which should eliminate the warning.
- bbkane 4y ago
  I use KeePassXC and KeePass2Android with Dropbox to sync passwords. Works very well for me: https://www.bbkane.com/blog/password-management/ https://www.bbkane.com/blog/password-management/
quaintdev 4y ago
I prefer self hosting things so KeePassXC was actually perfect for me. You have KeePass client on each of your devices and Syncthing keeps all devices in sync. No third party involved! If you are looking to self host I compared few applications in my blog post below https://rohanrd.xyz/posts/self-hosting-password-manager/ https://rohanrd.xyz/posts/self-hosting-password-manager/
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  Self-hosting seems somewhat at odds with the family-friendly requirement.
- JZL003 4y ago
  I think the dropbox sync is pretty good. I self host and I know the keepass db is encrypted but I don't want to worry that my self-hosting is always immediately up to date. And I trust dropbox well enough, I think I also don't love keepass getting access to my entire dropbox. But the easy solution is just to make another dropbox account with just the keepass file, and share it with my main dropbox, it'll sync the edits but force insulate the keepass permissions to a single file I do the same with org-mode sync, might as well
- ykonstant 4y ago
  Regarding this, I think I am doing something stupid: I am syncing my keepassxc database with syncthing, and I am also using a keyfile. The keyfile, I copy manually from my computer to my other devices. But when it comes to my phone/tablet, I copy the key to some random location in the android filesystem, say DCIM. Is that... like... ok? Or is it something any app has access to and people now have my key potentially?
  - _Algernon_ 4y ago
    Android is a lot more sandboxed than desktop OSes, where you already have this situation: All software that runs can access your keyfile (hypothetically). I wouldn't be to worried. They still need access to you kdbx file, your password, and know that your keyfile is a keyfile. Seems like a low risk unless your threat model includes nation state which performs a targeted attack against you.
huhtenberg 4y ago
Is there a guidance for the number of PBKDF rounds depending on the length of the password? In particular I'm curious to what degree can the round count be reduced if I use a long pass phrase (say, 200+ characters long) instead of a password?
anshumankmr 4y ago
>Dash is the only one using Argon2d, the winner of the Password Hashing Competition held in 2015. >Unfortunately, their choice of parameters is on the low side: >We use Argon2d, by default, with the following parameters: iterations = 3, memory = 32Mo, parallelization = 2 We also support PBKDF2-SHA2 with 200,000 iterations. Then, the data is (en|de)crypted using AES CBC-HMAC mode. >AES CBC-HMAC isn't a thing, what they're doing is AES-256-CBC then HMAC-SHA256 (and not CBC-MAC), which is perfectly acceptable, albeit using the same key for AES and HMAC feels shaky: an authenticated mode should be used like AES-GCM, or another key derivation to produce two subkeys, instead of using the same key for two different purposes. >The intern who wrote their whitepaper had a confused understanding of how https works: OCSP doesn't replace trust stores, key exchanges are more complex than "the client encrypts a random number with the server’s public key and sends it to the server, the server decrypts this number, and both sides use this number to generate a symmetric key, used to encrypt and decrypt data.", … >Worryingly, their "benchmark of attempts to decrypt AES files" is done on a "4 cores Xeon 1.87GHz", which doesn't make sense: cracking a password doesn't mean going through the whole keyspace of alphanumeric characters of a fixed length, and nobody uses CPU to crack passwords, let alone a 4 cores one. I would expect a firm in the business of protecting passwords to be up to date with the current state of the art of password cracking. >They have a bug bounty with payouts up to USD 5,000 and no public reports. The gpg key that should be used to contact them is an RSA one of 1024 bits (worryingly small in 2023), and belongs to someone called "anish". This is super concerning to me as a Dashlane consumer, so what are my options?It took me months to get my parents to figure out how to use it, and if I need to shift, it's gonna be even more difficult.
- forty 4y ago
  Hi, just seeing this now. I work at Dashlane. What part is concerning for you? I have not double checked the claims on the marketing content, but on the technical ones: - Re: Argon2 parameters, what they don't say is that even with those parameters, this is still way better than most of the competition which uses PBKDF2 (it's equal to 1M6 pbkdf2-sha2 rounds - see https://infosec.exchange/@sc00bz/109611328606658997 https://infosec.exchange/@sc00bz/109611328606658997). - Re CBC vs GCM: We do encrypt then Mac as we should. Also we don't use the same key directly for AES and MAC, we stretch the key to have a longer key - or we even directly use a long 64 bytes key in some cases - that we split for both purposes. - You can get our GPG key here https://www.dashlane.com/security/researchers https://www.dashlane.com/security/researchers. It's owned by security@dashlane.com and is using ED25519. In don't know which key they checked, but I don't think it's ours :) I hope this helps!
NoThisIsMe 4y ago
> There is also a command-line interface, weighting 80MB, also in TypeScript, also in Electron. Amazing. Can anyone verify the CLI depends on Electron? I took a quick look at the source and from what I can tell it does *not*, but I've never worked with Electron so I don't really know what to look for.
s09dfhks 4y ago
I'm seconding bitwarden. I got my tech-illiterate partner set up with it no problem. We have a shared vault for things like utility website logins / shared credit cards etc. etc.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
I recently had to coach a co-worker to do something more sane than store her passwords in a plain text file on her private Google Drive (seriously!). This is what real people do when you confront them with a lot of complex security. The reason I discovered this was that I had to talk her through setting up 2FA for our company's Google account because she lost her phone. And then I discovered that she was copy pasting passwords from this stupid text file. Which btw. really sucks on mobile. She's now a Bitwarden user. Mind properly blown. Next she'll be using it to use generated passwords. Amazing. Bonus points if she starts using 2FA for her private accounts. From what I've seen she doesn't and she uses a small set of easily guessable passwords all over the place. But at least they now come from a password manager. But it's not really a scalable solution because I don't have the time or patience to coach all of our people. And yes, we do have a security policy that spells all of this out. I wrote it. It helps but people default to doing the wrong things. Ultimately, that's why we need to get rid of passwords. There's a group of users for whom all this security stuff is just way too difficult. We need to make it simpler for them to stay secure, not harder. Forcing them to remember lots of different passwords backfired and necessitated password managers. Password less logins are now a thing with several companies. It takes a bit of ingenuity to make that work but it usually boils down to multi device/factor authentication with some ultimate fallback.
- javajosh 4y ago
  >I recently had to coach a co-worker to do something more sane than store her passwords in a plain text file on her private Google Drive Oh, so you showed her how to encrypt and decrypt plain text files with readily available tools? Because honestly that's the only thing wrong with her solution.
  - lazide 4y ago
    I'd really not recommend doing that - Google Drive has mangled so many files when edited in place over the years, I'm barely comfortable using it for anything except write-once-read-many things like PDF copies of things.
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
7402 4y ago
I'm happy with Enpass (https://www.enpass.io https://www.enpass.io) from the usability standpoint. The OP didn't mention it as a candidate. Not able to judge the cryptographic effectiveness, but this is what their website says: "encrypted with 256-bit AES with 100,000 rounds of PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA512 using the open-source encryption engine SQLCipher." They don't supply cloud storage - you pick your own , e.g., iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, WebDAV. I use a local WebDAV server, myself.
oogabooga13 4y ago
MacOS/iOS (user) after completing the recent update cycle on all devices "passwords" now supports 2FA using touch -ID. I've been using Bitwarden for years but integrated 2FA support from Apple has moved me over. I really despised having to switch between apps (I don't use sms 2fa when I can).
jacooper 4y ago
BRB, increasing Bitwarden vault iterations.
papito 4y ago
If you have Dropbox, a password manager is part of the value. I migrated from Dashlane and it’s been fine.
hcks 4y ago
Yeah let’s pretend that browsers built-in password managers don’t exist and can’t be used because they are mere “side hustles” (and password management is a very serious business that requires dedicated companies and not at all something a team at Google or Microsoft can solve)
- jrm4 4y ago
  Don't you get it? You're supposed to trust a third party company that does this as their only job even though you're increasing the threat model by 50% with no guarantees whatsoever, duh
SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
Can someone explain to me why the number of PBKDF rounds actually matters? When they are saying 100,000 rounds, they mean 100,000 rounds WITH the key right? If you wanted to brute force this password, and there are no vulnerabilities in the hashing algo, then you need to try aaaa with 100,000 runs, and aaab with another 100,000 runs right? So if you use a long random key, it wouldn't matter if it was 1 cycle or 1 billion effectively, right? Or am I missing something? I'm assuming there is a hash table exploit for PBKDF2 and that the number of rounds really does matter?
chrismorgan 4y ago
> Argon2id, but without specifying the parameters, not why they chose this particular variant over another variant like Argon2d. On this specific point: the use of Argon2id over Argon2d doesn’t need justification. Per https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9106.html#section-4 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9106.html#section-4, the first and second recommended options are Argon2id, and Argon2id is the recommended type basically unless you have a very good reason to choose a different type. (And as a fairly informed layman in cryptography, it’s very obvious to me that Argon2id is the correct choice for this sort of password safe.)
tennisflyi 4y ago
Am I using 1Password wrong? Any time I need a password I click on it in the toolbar on macOS, type in my master password, and the just search for the needed password. I'm sure there are other ways that are seamless, but I don't see the strife/friction that most people seem to have to get others to overcome when trying get them to us a password manger.
- Terretta 4y ago
  That works. Additionally, if you list the domain name in the site field, it will auto-match and appear in the password field, provided you have the appropriate browser extension. If more than one entry for that site, it will list them all. Site has to be listed in the entry though.

111 points by jhvkjhk 4y ago

I can barely read the article, text is lite gray on white with firefox on OpenBSD. Seems interesting but could not get through it using firefox. So off to lynx, there it rendered fine, so reading it now.

evolve2k 4y ago

> To my disappointment (and mild horror), almost all password managers are using PBKDF2, which is known to be completely suboptimal to store passwords, and has been for the last 15 years, but it's apparently the only one without abysmal performance in Javascript. Anyone have a better idea?

amenghra 4y ago
Today, you would probably consider Argon2 since it specifically came out of a competition for password hashing functions. Historically, scrypt, bcrypt and pbkdf2 have all three been widely used.
gavinray 4y ago
As someone who often implements their own authentication for backend services, I follow the advice to use scrypt or Argon2. Argon2 is a bit of a PITA though because it needs to be re-hashed sometimes.
rpdillon 4y ago
Author's need to for compromised password monitoring and cloud-based operation (in a web browser) exclude the obvious choice: KeepassXC. It supports Argon2, Argon2id, as well as AES-KDF. This works with KeepassDX on Android, but has the expected effect of slowing down access to the DB, since the phone has less power than the laptop.
- britneybitch 4y ago
  KeepassXC can check for compromised passwords using HIBP since v2.6.0. https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/pull/4438 https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/pull/4438
some_furry 4y ago
I'm the Soatok Dreamseeker the author cites. I've previously disclosed cryptographic bugs to both LastPass and 1Password. I've written about my experiences: https://furry.engineer/@soatok/109560736140669727 https://furry.engineer/@soatok/109560736140669727 The post I wrote about the intersection of Passwords and Cryptography was spun off as a prerequisite for a longer post I was writing about password management from the perspective of a cryptography engineer. As part of that post, I planned to review Bitwarden (since it's open source and therefore I don't have to expend the additional mental cycles to reverse engineer it like I did LP/1P's offerings). The challenges faced by browser extensions with other password DKFs is that, if you want performance, you don't want to write it in a scripting language. WebAssembly might work, but the ideal outcome is to be able to call `await crypto.subtle.Argon2id(/* args */)` and get your result. The path forward, therefore, is to get Argon2id support into WebKit, Chrome, and Node.js.
- evolve2k 4y ago
  So a project like this? https://github.com/antelle/argon2-browser https://github.com/antelle/argon2-browser Per their README it seems it’s implemented into “KeeWeb”. KeeWeb is a free cross-platform password manager compatible with KeePass. https://keeweb.info https://keeweb.info https://github.com/keeweb/keeweb https://github.com/keeweb/keeweb Anyone checked out KeeWeb?
  - some_furry 4y ago
    > So a project like this? https://github.com/antelle/argon2-browser https://github.com/antelle/argon2-browser Notice how they don't provide any benchmarks that aren't Native or WASM? https://soatok.blog/2022/12/29/what-we-do-in-the-etc-shadow-cryptography-with-passwords/#algorithms https://soatok.blog/2022/12/29/what-we-do-in-the-etc-shadow-... This doesn't help iOS users in Lockdown mode. It may also break for users who run their OS in FIPS mode.

waffl 4y ago

For me the main barrier has been convincing my family to actually take password management seriously. My entire family has had their emails hacked at least twice due to poor/reused passwords that have been in leaks, constantly forget IDs/passwords, and are constantly overwhelmed with the idea that they need to keep track of all these things. I've set up a 1password family and set up accounts/vaults on everyone's computers/phones/tablets, yet they still find it too troublesome to use rather than simply writing passwords down in plaintext on their notes apps or just on sticky notes attached to their computers etc... If anyone has had success encouraging family to use a password manager I would love to hear any tips, as I've sat my family down every holiday season to reset everyone's forgotten passwords and walk them through everything, practice creating/saving/using passwords and within a day it's all forgotten again. Like backups, I feel like no one takes it seriously until something truly horrible happens.

jefftk 4y ago
Have you tried getting them set up with Apple's (if they're on Mac/iOS) or Google's (if they're on Chrome/Android)? Using something built-in is almost always the lowest friction option, and it sounds like it's friction that's keeping them from the sticking with the password managers you've tried them on.
- squeegee_scream 4y ago
  I dislike the idea of recommending these OS-specific password managers because what if they need to access their passwords on another machine? But I'm guessing for most folks that's not a concern. I also don't trust them _nearly_ as much as I do 1Password, but that's at least some prejudice on my side.
  - mmcconnell1618 4y ago
    Both the Apple and Chrome password managers sync to the cloud so as long as they can sign in to their account on another computer or phone, they can still get access to the saved passwords.

benced 4y ago

This person has been recommending LastPass for years and now cares about the cryptographic specifics of far more trustworthy companies?

b3morales 4y ago
People are allowed to realize they've made mistakes and change their minds/priorities as a result.

wesapien 4y ago

My boomer parents have been able to keep up with Bitwarden. We installed on their Windows laptop and smartphones. I've still have to get them on OTP, something like Authy to get them off mobile 2FA when possible.

itake 4y ago

I read his requirements and thought bitwarden met all of them. The author discusses bitwarden and instead of acknowledging it meets their expectations, points out more issues. I don't really see why a "family-friendly" version cares about the underlying tech or filesize of the CLI clients, but maybe grandma or kids these days do get upset when when the run a program that is 8.0 × 10^-5 of their 1tb hd.

ed25519FUUU 4y ago
Bitwarden is good but I don’t understand why I need to make an account to use it? I wish more software followed 1Password <= v6 and allowed me to store my vault and access it locally anywhere. It “just worked” on any device that could sync the vault. Now they’re a pay-to-play service without that feature.
- nilespotter 4y ago
  I have only ever used it with a vaultwarden backend and it's been fantastic
- milosmns 4y ago
  To forward your secrets to your family (shared vaults) you need a remote vault that both sides connect to. That's their implementation choice... but given that BW is OSS, you could theoretically change that behavior if you know how.
vorpalhex 4y ago
The underlying tech of your password manager where you store all of your secrets is very pertinent. If it is poorly built, your secrets are no longer secrets.
saghm 4y ago
Yeah, that is a weird criticism. Even if the size of the CLI client were an issue (which I agree it it's not), how many people in their family even know what a CLI is and how to use one? I'd imagine that the average number of people in a family who would prefer a CLI to a GUI is less than one.

filleokus 4y ago

I don't know what primitives or parameters Apple's iCloud Keychain is using. But I do know that it has made all of the non-techies in my family using a password manager. They just use the suggested password generated by Apple when signing up on random sites as well. (But only works on Apple's devices and browsers obviously)

ed25519FUUU 4y ago
iCloud Keychain has done more to raise the tide for passwords than any other password manager in existence. I love that it “just works” for the vast amount of people who use iOS/Mac.
0xCMP 4y ago
No it also works on Windows (it will install an extension for Chrome and Edge if asked). You just need to install their iCloud software for Windows https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud-windows/set-up-icloud-passwords-icw2babf5e03/icloud https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud-windows/set-up-icloud... I am personally not using it, but it does exist and seems to work from the times I've tried it.
emptysongglass 4y ago
Does it allow export if a user ever decides to jump to some other OS platform or password manager? Or does it provide another vector of lock-in?
- vlovich123 4y ago
  It allows export and there’s also a windows app.

floren 4y ago

I've been using KeePassXC on desktop and KeePassDX on Android, synchronized via Syncthing, and it's good, but the thing that makes me squeamish about all password managers is that you're just one software update away from malicious code which uploads all your passwords next time you unlock.

Vexs 4y ago
The hackaday community's mooltipass kind of solves this- puts passwords on an external device with a smartcard. The OS never accesses the whole breadth of it, just what's exposed by the hardware. I think that's the right approach, but I'm not sure I like the hardware. Something I was thinking about was using a pi zero in a small box, that just does something like emulate a keyboard for password-pushing. Give it a small screen and small keyboard for UI.
nicolaslem 4y ago
I have also been using the KeePassXC/Syncthing combo and it works very well, except for iOS which does not have a decent Syncthing client. This means I have to rely on SMB + VPN to get access to my up-to-date keepass database which is more trouble than I'd like.
jakobdabo 4y ago
I think this can be easily solved using process/app isolation, i.e. KeePassXC doesn't need network connectivity.

ajorgensen 4y ago

Bitwarden has worked really well for me and my wife to share passwords to common services (daycare, shared email, etc) and it has been well worth the money. I've used 1Password and LastPass in the past but Bitwarden has been the best experience I've had thusfar.

user3939382 4y ago
Would you mind elaborating a little on what you liked about Bitwarden over 1Password?
- ajorgensen 4y ago
  Full disclosure I haven't used 1Password in a while and I have limited experience sharing vaults. That being said Bitwarden just worked™. It was easy to set up a shared space. The iOS app is good, the plugins are good, all around solid. The open source nature is nice, I can run my own vault if I wanted to. So the tldr is that it hit the right balance between portability, ease of use, and price to be the right choice.

dhruval 4y ago

Spent years convincing my dad to switch over to LastPass family. After the recent hack, I tried to get him to switch to keepass xc but that is proving to be too steep a hill to climb. What is the best alternative to LastPass families? I don’t mind paying for a subscription etc .

vorpalhex 4y ago
1Password has a family plan that works well.
jacooper 4y ago
Bitwarden

esskay 4y ago

TL;DR there isnt one. They're all built and designed by developers. From an 'average joe' perspective, not a single one of them is easy to use.

ed25519FUUU 4y ago
I think the tl;dr here is that there’s actually a lot of excellent choices out there, but almost all of them leave something to be desired in underlying cryptographic strength.
milosmns 4y ago
BitWarden was a breeze for my parents, there's no difference between the OS autofill and BW... on both iOS and Android, and Chrome for my dad. :shrug:
sigzero 4y ago
I have used Bitwarden and 1Password and 1Password is just about seamless while Bitwarden is a little clunky. 1Password is the one I would use for a "family". None of them are really "family ready" as there is always going to be a slight learning curve.

loginatnine 4y ago

FWIW, I've bumped the KDF iterations count to 600000 in Bitwarden and I haven't seen any noticeable difference logging in from my M1 Pro and my iPhone 13 pro.

jawns 4y ago

If you're looking at this problem not as a technical person, but just as someone looking for the most practical solution to the problem ... Chrome's built-in password management is the obvious mass-market solution. It suggests (relatively) strong passwords, it discourages password re-use, it surfaces when you use passwords that have been found in a data breach, and it allows you to access these passwords across devices. I have no idea about the cryptographic strength of Chromes's offerings, but the fact that it is the leading browser worldwide means that it's going to be dead-simple for most people to adopt, even those who are decidedly non-technical. (Personally, I use Bitwarden and 1Password, but I'm a software engineer. I would not expect my elderly family members to do the same, especially because both involve installing and maintaining browser extensions that can be finicky when Chrome updates.)

lalaland1125 4y ago
Chrome is also one of the most secure options. Google has a well deserved reputation for incredibly strong security.
- danuker 4y ago
  Then again, Google has an overwhelming window into everyone's private lives. Perhaps giving them passwords is adding fuel to the fire.
- metadat 4y ago
  This is false in some scenarios. Dumping browser credential vaults as well as extracting from active memory have both become de facto standard post-exploitation behaviors. References are many: https://kylemistele.medium.com/stealing-saved-browser-passwords-your-new-favorite-post-exploitation-technique-c5e72c86159a https://kylemistele.medium.com/stealing-saved-browser-passwo... https://isc.sans.edu/diary/Use+Your+Browser+Internal+Password+Vault...+or+Not%3F/28658 https://isc.sans.edu/diary/Use+Your+Browser+Internal+Passwor... https://www.cyberark.com/resources/threat-research-blog/extracting-clear-text-credentials-directly-from-chromium-s-memory https://www.cyberark.com/resources/threat-research-blog/extr... https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/redline-malware-shows-why-passwords-shouldnt-be-saved-in-browsers/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/redline-malwa...

sebk 4y ago

I'm not sure that the crypto used is the weakest link, but even then, I would very much like to see a user-configurable memory-hard KDF, authenticated AES, and FIDO2 hmac-secret support. All of which should be relatively tablestakes for a product like this. The option of self-syncing or self-hosting seems important as well, so users can decide to trade off having a team of engineers keeping the server secure and up to date with being a less interesting target to compromise. In terms of client-side compromise, I'm significantly more worried about OS/browser compromises, malicious app updates, or for those cases where there's no OS-mediated autofill API, clipboard sniffing. In the end, I think password managers will always have issued and will have to settle for "good enough", or better than memorizing passwords. They're too big of a target for attacks and their surface area is too big, too. Password managers do more than storing login credentials, but for that key use case, adoption of Passwordless WebAuthn can't come soon enough.

tkuraku 4y ago

I think for the average person the built in password manager in Firefox/chrome/ safari are probably the lowest barrier to entry.

saghm 4y ago
I'll second this opinion. A lot of people will already have their passwords saved in their browser but not even realize that this is an example of what people mean when they hear "password manager". I'm not sure about iOS (as I haven't owned an iPhone before), but at least on Android, there's a setting to let the Chrome password manager auto-fill across the entire system rather than just in the browser. The path of least resistance for most people is probably just to turn settings like that on (and optionally, if their existing passwords are not secure e.g. due to reuse across sites, go through their list of saved passwords, log into each site, and change their password to one generated from the browser password manager).
jacooper 4y ago
The issues is with app autofill. Browsers don't do autofill on android, at least AFAIK. Firefox does but its crap on android anyway.
- izacus 4y ago
  Chrome does do autofill on Android.
  - jacooper 4y ago
    I don't use chrome so I don't know. But chromium and brave don't show up in the autofill service settings page.
  - inadequatespace 4y ago
    It doesn't on iOS. Safari does _sometimes_, when it feels like it… but even if it were consistent, who (even in the family) wants to use Safari on desktop? Back to square one

jeroenhd 4y ago

The lamentations about Bitwarden's heavy clients really ring true. On my phone, simply opening the password manager to unlock the vault can be enough to make the application I was trying to log into go OOM. Integration with my keyboard of choice (SwiftKey) is also questionable and then Firefox adds another layer of weird behaviour that makes autofills too difficult for me to recommend it to my family. When I first read about the command line Bitwarden client I just laughed at its absurdity. I'm tempted to write my own Bitwarden compatibility library and maybe a command line or GUI that doesn't require an outdated copy of Chrome to run, but doing security software right takes time and research I don't want to commit right now. I also remember going from my self hosted Bitwarden instance to Vaultwarden and seeing he memory requirement drop several gigabytes. I like Bitwarden's browser integrations for the most part but the nice GUI comes at a big performance cost. Perhaps my 900 secrets are too much for a password manager to handle but I don't think whatever computation the program does on the encrypted secrets warrants this much overhead.

arielweisberg 4y ago

I would settle for a password manager that can do basic password management. Secure, UI that loads quickly without bugs, autofill that works. Tried switching to 1Password and it duplicates every single password I imported from LastPass. Confirmed no duplicates exist in the CSV being imported. Support is like talking to a chat bot. Don't seem to understand the issue I am reporting is the duplication and keep proposing solutions to alternate problems other then the one I have.

lalaland1125 4y ago
> I would settle for a password manager that can do basic password management. Just use Google/FireFox's build in options. Google's is more secure, but I understand a lot of people like FireFox for other reasons.
- noahtallen 4y ago
  Login to non-websites is very useful on mobile. (And even desktop now with 1password!) I think only ”proper” password apps do that in a truly cross-platform way.
paulclinger 4y ago
For 1Password, check if you have the same password registered under "Passwords" and under "Logins", as this would trigger this warning. I'm not sure how the import process works, but maybe those imported passwords/logins are added to both sections. If all your passwords are converted to logins, you can probably delete those password records, which should eliminate the warning.
bbkane 4y ago
I use KeePassXC and KeePass2Android with Dropbox to sync passwords. Works very well for me: https://www.bbkane.com/blog/password-management/ https://www.bbkane.com/blog/password-management/

quaintdev 4y ago

I prefer self hosting things so KeePassXC was actually perfect for me. You have KeePass client on each of your devices and Syncthing keeps all devices in sync. No third party involved! If you are looking to self host I compared few applications in my blog post below https://rohanrd.xyz/posts/self-hosting-password-manager/ https://rohanrd.xyz/posts/self-hosting-password-manager/

kayodelycaon 4y ago
Self-hosting seems somewhat at odds with the family-friendly requirement.
JZL003 4y ago
I think the dropbox sync is pretty good. I self host and I know the keepass db is encrypted but I don't want to worry that my self-hosting is always immediately up to date. And I trust dropbox well enough, I think I also don't love keepass getting access to my entire dropbox. But the easy solution is just to make another dropbox account with just the keepass file, and share it with my main dropbox, it'll sync the edits but force insulate the keepass permissions to a single file I do the same with org-mode sync, might as well
ykonstant 4y ago
Regarding this, I think I am doing something stupid: I am syncing my keepassxc database with syncthing, and I am also using a keyfile. The keyfile, I copy manually from my computer to my other devices. But when it comes to my phone/tablet, I copy the key to some random location in the android filesystem, say DCIM. Is that... like... ok? Or is it something any app has access to and people now have my key potentially?
- _Algernon_ 4y ago
  Android is a lot more sandboxed than desktop OSes, where you already have this situation: All software that runs can access your keyfile (hypothetically). I wouldn't be to worried. They still need access to you kdbx file, your password, and know that your keyfile is a keyfile. Seems like a low risk unless your threat model includes nation state which performs a targeted attack against you.

huhtenberg 4y ago

Is there a guidance for the number of PBKDF rounds depending on the length of the password? In particular I'm curious to what degree can the round count be reduced if I use a long pass phrase (say, 200+ characters long) instead of a password?

anshumankmr 4y ago

>Dash is the only one using Argon2d, the winner of the Password Hashing Competition held in 2015. >Unfortunately, their choice of parameters is on the low side: >We use Argon2d, by default, with the following parameters: iterations = 3, memory = 32Mo, parallelization = 2 We also support PBKDF2-SHA2 with 200,000 iterations. Then, the data is (en|de)crypted using AES CBC-HMAC mode. >AES CBC-HMAC isn't a thing, what they're doing is AES-256-CBC then HMAC-SHA256 (and not CBC-MAC), which is perfectly acceptable, albeit using the same key for AES and HMAC feels shaky: an authenticated mode should be used like AES-GCM, or another key derivation to produce two subkeys, instead of using the same key for two different purposes. >The intern who wrote their whitepaper had a confused understanding of how https works: OCSP doesn't replace trust stores, key exchanges are more complex than "the client encrypts a random number with the server’s public key and sends it to the server, the server decrypts this number, and both sides use this number to generate a symmetric key, used to encrypt and decrypt data.", … >Worryingly, their "benchmark of attempts to decrypt AES files" is done on a "4 cores Xeon 1.87GHz", which doesn't make sense: cracking a password doesn't mean going through the whole keyspace of alphanumeric characters of a fixed length, and nobody uses CPU to crack passwords, let alone a 4 cores one. I would expect a firm in the business of protecting passwords to be up to date with the current state of the art of password cracking. >They have a bug bounty with payouts up to USD 5,000 and no public reports. The gpg key that should be used to contact them is an RSA one of 1024 bits (worryingly small in 2023), and belongs to someone called "anish". This is super concerning to me as a Dashlane consumer, so what are my options?It took me months to get my parents to figure out how to use it, and if I need to shift, it's gonna be even more difficult.

forty 4y ago
Hi, just seeing this now. I work at Dashlane. What part is concerning for you? I have not double checked the claims on the marketing content, but on the technical ones: - Re: Argon2 parameters, what they don't say is that even with those parameters, this is still way better than most of the competition which uses PBKDF2 (it's equal to 1M6 pbkdf2-sha2 rounds - see https://infosec.exchange/@sc00bz/109611328606658997 https://infosec.exchange/@sc00bz/109611328606658997). - Re CBC vs GCM: We do encrypt then Mac as we should. Also we don't use the same key directly for AES and MAC, we stretch the key to have a longer key - or we even directly use a long 64 bytes key in some cases - that we split for both purposes. - You can get our GPG key here https://www.dashlane.com/security/researchers https://www.dashlane.com/security/researchers. It's owned by security@dashlane.com and is using ED25519. In don't know which key they checked, but I don't think it's ours :) I hope this helps!

NoThisIsMe 4y ago

> There is also a command-line interface, weighting 80MB, also in TypeScript, also in Electron. Amazing. Can anyone verify the CLI depends on Electron? I took a quick look at the source and from what I can tell it does *not*, but I've never worked with Electron so I don't really know what to look for.

s09dfhks 4y ago

I'm seconding bitwarden. I got my tech-illiterate partner set up with it no problem. We have a shared vault for things like utility website logins / shared credit cards etc. etc.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

I recently had to coach a co-worker to do something more sane than store her passwords in a plain text file on her private Google Drive (seriously!). This is what real people do when you confront them with a lot of complex security. The reason I discovered this was that I had to talk her through setting up 2FA for our company's Google account because she lost her phone. And then I discovered that she was copy pasting passwords from this stupid text file. Which btw. really sucks on mobile. She's now a Bitwarden user. Mind properly blown. Next she'll be using it to use generated passwords. Amazing. Bonus points if she starts using 2FA for her private accounts. From what I've seen she doesn't and she uses a small set of easily guessable passwords all over the place. But at least they now come from a password manager. But it's not really a scalable solution because I don't have the time or patience to coach all of our people. And yes, we do have a security policy that spells all of this out. I wrote it. It helps but people default to doing the wrong things. Ultimately, that's why we need to get rid of passwords. There's a group of users for whom all this security stuff is just way too difficult. We need to make it simpler for them to stay secure, not harder. Forcing them to remember lots of different passwords backfired and necessitated password managers. Password less logins are now a thing with several companies. It takes a bit of ingenuity to make that work but it usually boils down to multi device/factor authentication with some ultimate fallback.

javajosh 4y ago
>I recently had to coach a co-worker to do something more sane than store her passwords in a plain text file on her private Google Drive Oh, so you showed her how to encrypt and decrypt plain text files with readily available tools? Because honestly that's the only thing wrong with her solution.
- lazide 4y ago
  I'd really not recommend doing that - Google Drive has mangled so many files when edited in place over the years, I'm barely comfortable using it for anything except write-once-read-many things like PDF copies of things.
pcthrowaway 4y ago

7402 4y ago

I'm happy with Enpass (https://www.enpass.io https://www.enpass.io) from the usability standpoint. The OP didn't mention it as a candidate. Not able to judge the cryptographic effectiveness, but this is what their website says: "encrypted with 256-bit AES with 100,000 rounds of PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA512 using the open-source encryption engine SQLCipher." They don't supply cloud storage - you pick your own , e.g., iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, WebDAV. I use a local WebDAV server, myself.

oogabooga13 4y ago

MacOS/iOS (user) after completing the recent update cycle on all devices "passwords" now supports 2FA using touch -ID. I've been using Bitwarden for years but integrated 2FA support from Apple has moved me over. I really despised having to switch between apps (I don't use sms 2fa when I can).

jacooper 4y ago

BRB, increasing Bitwarden vault iterations.

papito 4y ago

If you have Dropbox, a password manager is part of the value. I migrated from Dashlane and it’s been fine.

hcks 4y ago

Yeah let’s pretend that browsers built-in password managers don’t exist and can’t be used because they are mere “side hustles” (and password management is a very serious business that requires dedicated companies and not at all something a team at Google or Microsoft can solve)

jrm4 4y ago
Don't you get it? You're supposed to trust a third party company that does this as their only job even though you're increasing the threat model by 50% with no guarantees whatsoever, duh

SV_BubbleTime 4y ago

Can someone explain to me why the number of PBKDF rounds actually matters? When they are saying 100,000 rounds, they mean 100,000 rounds WITH the key right? If you wanted to brute force this password, and there are no vulnerabilities in the hashing algo, then you need to try aaaa with 100,000 runs, and aaab with another 100,000 runs right? So if you use a long random key, it wouldn't matter if it was 1 cycle or 1 billion effectively, right? Or am I missing something? I'm assuming there is a hash table exploit for PBKDF2 and that the number of rounds really does matter?

chrismorgan 4y ago

> Argon2id, but without specifying the parameters, not why they chose this particular variant over another variant like Argon2d. On this specific point: the use of Argon2id over Argon2d doesn’t need justification. Per https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9106.html#section-4 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9106.html#section-4, the first and second recommended options are Argon2id, and Argon2id is the recommended type basically unless you have a very good reason to choose a different type. (And as a fairly informed layman in cryptography, it’s very obvious to me that Argon2id is the correct choice for this sort of password safe.)

tennisflyi 4y ago

Am I using 1Password wrong? Any time I need a password I click on it in the toolbar on macOS, type in my master password, and the just search for the needed password. I'm sure there are other ways that are seamless, but I don't see the strife/friction that most people seem to have to get others to overcome when trying get them to us a password manger.

Terretta 4y ago
That works. Additionally, if you list the domain name in the site field, it will auto-match and appear in the password field, provided you have the appropriate browser extension. If more than one entry for that site, it will list them all. Site has to be listed in the entry though.