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Login to your Google account by scanning a QR code
- ecesena 15y agoNow closed... broken or really an experiment!?
- dannyr 15y agoGot it from a Google+ post. https://plus.google.com/103943309878727777440/posts/DCdBqZX3bvQ https://plus.google.com/103943309878727777440/posts/DCdBqZX3... ==================== remember this url: https://accounts.google.com/sesame https://accounts.google.com/sesame . next time you want to check your gmail on a public computer, don't trust even the incognito window because an installed keylogger can record your keystrokes, which unsurprisingly, include your password. use your phone to scan the qrcode on the sesame web page and hit the resultant url -- the desktop browser will automagically redirect to your logged-in gmail without entering your password. yes, i think you do need an android phone with a properly configure google account for this to work. ====================
- danielhunt 15y agoThat seems particularly open to abuse. Couldn't I just link someone to a copy of the QR code and be automagically logged in as them?
- resnamen 15y agoIt raises an approval screen on the phone. It says By proceeding, you give another computer access to the following accounts: * blah@gmail.com STOP! Only proceed if you arrived at this page by scanning a login barcode at google.co. Otherwise, do not proceed! (start with GMail) (start with iGoogle)
- danielhunt 15y agoAh, I see. Thanks for adding that info
- waiwai933 15y agoThere's a bright highlighted warning that says "STOP! Only proceed if you arrived this page by scanning a login barcode at google.com. Otherwise, do not proceed!" Will users read the warning? I would—and did—it really grabs your attention given the fact its background is yellow and takes up so much of the iPhone screen. I suppose there are probably other safeguards as well, given that this is Google—maybe timed expiration?
- wiradikusuma 15y agoI left the page open and after finished reading comments (a minute or two) in HN, the page gave me this popup dialog: [Alert] Login session has expired. Press Ok to reload.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- sabret00the 15y agoThis + 2 Factor-Authentication = Pretty Damn Secure.
- Achshar 15y agobut those two are different things. They are not complimentry (from what i understand)
- sleepyhead 15y agoI assume it is valid for only a short period like the code generated from the Google Authenticator app.
- baby 15y agoI've always been scared about keyloggers in internet coffees or public computers in university/hotels. I really wonder if there's a way around. Especially since, if you can scan this with your cellphone it supposes you have internet on your cellphone.
- VMG 15y agogoogle also offers two-factor authentication
- markkum 15y agoYou can sign in without username and password to OpenID enabled sites with your smartphone and Mepin; https://www.mepin.com/ https://www.mepin.com/
- lell 15y agoHere's a trick: as you are typing in your l/p, click somewhere on the screen to defocus the textbox and then type some random characters and then click back on the textbox. And also type random characters into the textbox, and then select them with the mouse and overwrite them with correct characters. Do this a bunch. Almost all keyloggers just log all key strokes, then people scan for stuff that looks like "john@example.comLkd98/x,". There's still the chance that your internet cafe has a more sophisticated logger on it. But if you do this you've made a real step to fight keyloggers in internet cafes.
- harshadura 15y agoyeah but as i know there are more dangerous key loggers than these kinda ones :@ anyway I appreciate your good idea!
- akronim 15y agoIf I was writing one I'd just be logging posted form fields with a transparent proxy, almost seems easier than a key logger.
- mvermaat 15y ago
- ot 15y ago> i think you do need an android phone with a properly configure google account for this to work. Works fine on my iPhone with RedLaser to scan the QR. It just redirects to Safari which "remembers" my login info.
- username3 15y agoAlso works fine with Google's iOS app.
- nl 15y agoyes, i think you do need an android phone with a properly configure google account for this to work. That's not the case. Presumably accessing the QRCode generates a single use URL, which you can access in the computer browser. There is no client side logic. (Also, Google generally ships stuff on both iOS and Android) (Also, it goes against Google's interest to restrict Google account features to Android)
- jf 15y agoThis works just fine from my Windows Phone.
- rplnt 15y ago> There is no client side logic. There have to be some though. I.e. you have to be logged in to Google on your phone.
- irunbackwards 15y agoNaw, you can technically scan this link w/ another laptop using its webcam.
- wingspan 15y agoWorks fine on my windows phone; remembers my login info from IE.
- kpi 15y agoGreat use case for QR codes.
- ComputerGuru 15y agoDoesn't support multiple accounts yet. Unfortunately, the only way of dealing with multiple Google accounts (for instance, personal and work) remains to use two different browsers or two different browser profiles. On iPhone, the process isn't as smooth. You'll be taken to a web-based login page to enter your account info. However, it seems to be buggy as if you're logged into one account on your desktop and another account on your mobile weird stuff happens.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- tjoff 15y agoOn iPhone, the process isn't as smooth. You'll be taken to a web-based login page to enter your account info. Isn't that how its supposed to work? That's how it works on my Nexus S. Much hassle... Would be better to have an app that does that automatically (since android is pretty much always logged in but the phone browser pretty much never is).
- veemjeem 15y agoSeems like dasherization is always google's last priority...
- resnamen 15y agoWow! This is sweet, but I wish Google had an even shorter URL for it.
- sp332 15y agoTry loging in to http://goo.gl/ http://goo.gl/ and paste the accounts.google.com/sesame link. You'll get your own shortened link.
- ghostDancer 15y agoSomething similar: http://bidikey.com/en/bidikey-videos http://bidikey.com/en/bidikey-videos
- ot 15y agoWait, if my phone can access the Internet, why would I use an untrusted computer to access GMail? I can't see a compelling use case for this. It would be more useful to have my phone generate a one-time password without requiring to be connected.
- pak 15y agoThere are other Google Apps that don't work as great on a mobile device. Try Docs on an iPhone, for example. Also, imagine you need to print out a 30 MB PDF that somebody just emailed to you. Not enamored with QR codes as a solution, though; I still maintain that the vast majority of Americans have no idea what they are and find them, in general, to be a gimmicky pain in the rear. I agree that what you described would actually be more useful, but also probably harder to do (offline = native app).
- saurik 15y agoSome people prefer keyboards?
- nl 15y agoCost provides some compelling use-cases. If you are overseas, roaming costs are crazy. I'd consider paying them to download a single .png (QRCode) and then use an untrusted computer.
- mseebach 15y agoThe QR code is displayed on the unsecure connected computer. Your phone network is used to perform the login, so it very little data. A logical next step would be an app that can streamline the auth a bit (have your username prefilled from the Android account) and send the auth to Google via SMS (often easier and cheaper than getting started with dataroaming).
- estel 15y agoGoogle do already provide a set of one-time passwords for those using two-factor auth. I've already added them to a document on my phone for precisely that purpose.
- thought_alarm 15y agoAfter poking around a bit, it looks like the original URL is http://goto.google.com/login http://goto.google.com/login which redirects to the somewhat more obscure http://accounts.google.com/sesame http://accounts.google.com/sesame My question is, what is http://goto.google.com http://goto.google.com anyway? It looks like a Google employee portal.
- deepuj 15y agoSweet! Seeing a genuine use of QR code for the first time.
- Leynos 15y agoMy favourite usecase for QR codes are the links to a web site showing realtime bus arrival times you see at bus stops that don't yet have a realtime arrivals sign up. You can type the web address in manually too, of course, but the QR code is much more convenient.
- edlea 15y agoIf you're on an untrusted computer, the network is by definition also untrusted. What happens if the computer has a hacker's self-signed certificate for https://accounts.google.com https://accounts.google.com installed and the hacker sets up a man-in-the-middle style attack? The hacker's browser asks Google for a QR code and it gets sent to your browser. When you scan the code and authorise from your phone, the hacker's browser would be logged into your Google account.
- mike-cardwell 15y agoThis is supposed to secure you on an untrusted computer. It doesn't. There are loads of attacks still. The moment you log in, the attacker has access to your account because they control the browser you're using. What it protects against is basic key logging attacks (software and hardware). These are the most likely attack you can expect to see, so protecting against them has real life value. The safest thing you can do is never use an untrusted machine to access important accounts.
- baddox 15y agoIt protects against exactly one more type of vulnerability than the normal login method, so it's still better.
- Aissen 15y agoStop ! If you're on an untrusted machine, this is untrusted, too. It should be pretty easy to install alternative certificates, MITM this page, and serve you a bad QR code that will give access to your account to a someone else. They might not be able to change your password (if you have 2-factor auth), but they could read/forward all your mail, delete documents, etc. This isn't enough to work on untrusted computers on untrusted networks (but it's still damn useful for fast-login).
- sc00ter 15y ago> MITM this page, and serve you a bad QR code You're then reading the QR code on what is assumed to be a trusted device on a trusted network (your mobile phone). The QR code would have to link to a bogus website mascarding as google in order to intercept your username & password. It requires a degree of vigilance on the part of the user at this point to ensure that the login page is genuinely google, but anyone using this auth mechanism must be reasonable security conscious to start with. By your assertion, the only solution is to not use untrusted computers / networks at all. In the event that you have to this is one way to do so more securely.
- thedufer 15y agoThis is not what he's talking about. Someone could open the sesame page on another computer, and use MITM to serve that code to you. Then, you're giving someone else access instead of yourself when you log in on your phone. If you're this distrustful, don't use the computer. This entry only seems to prevent keylogging attacks.
- Aissen 15y agoThanks for explaining what I meant in simpler terms.
- rpledge 15y agoThis is very similar to what I've been working on at qrauth.com Glad to see my concept isn't too off the wall
- megamark16 15y agoLooks cool, but your about page is broken. Please fix so I can find out more About your project :)
- rpledge 15y agoOops, I guess I missed a file when I pushed. I'll try and fix it later today. Basically I'll provide an iPhone app that will read the code, check the signature and authenticate the device/user account. The idea is that a single iPhone app can be used to log into many different web sites (or be used as a second factor authentication). It's still "pre-alpha" for sure.
- irunbackwards 15y agoYou might find some inspiration from duosecurity, who uses QR codes during their setup process. (Don't know if they're using them for auth, yet.)
- rpledge 15y agoOops, I guess I missed a file when I pushed. I'll try and fix it later today. Basically I'll provide an iPhone app that will read the code, check the signature and authenticate the device/user account. The idea is that a single iPhone app can be used to log into many different web sites (or be used as a second factor authentication). It's still "pre-alpha" for sure.
- runjake 15y agoI don't have much to add, other that this QR code is a timed one-time pad, so it expires rather quickly. Visit the site and leave it open for a few minutes, and you'll get an expiration popup. So, people aren't going to be rummaging through the cache or snapping a screenshot at the cafe and going home and logging in as you.
- sylvanaar 15y agoRemember to log out manually when you are done. Just closing the browser isn't enough.
- roadnottaken 15y agoit's kind of neat to re-load the QR-code quickly -- you can see that some parts are refreshed constantly, while other parts only refresh every few seconds. Presumably this has to do with the expiration behavior...
- krallja 15y agoThe actual contents of the QR code is the following URL: https://accounts.google.com/sesame/uc?s=vlrPimUVe5-LGarBtJxU3k1hwik https://accounts.google.com/sesame/uc?s=vlrPimUVe5-LGarBtJxU... The `s` parameter is changed with every refresh, but the majority of the URL remains constant.
- hamvocke 15y agoSeems like it has been shut down. The site currently only provides a message that this has been an experiment: While we have concluded this particular experiment, we constantly experiment with new and more secure authentication mechanisms. Stay tuned for something even better!
- _djo_ 15y agoThe service has been shut down for now. If you try to access the URL, this text is all that's there: Hi there - thanks for your interest in our phone-based login experiment. While we have concluded this particular experiment, we constantly experiment with new and more secure authentication mechanisms. Stay tuned for something even better! Dirk Balfanz, Google Security Team.