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I think the other (IMO completely valid) concern is that you don't know what the Yubikey does, really. The protocols are open source, sure, but how sure are yo

I think the other (IMO completely valid) concern is that you don't know what the Yubikey does, really. The protocols are open source, sure, but how sure are you there aren't back-doors in them? The firmware tends to be closed source, I found https://onlykey.io/ https://onlykey.io/ but I can't speak to how truly open they are, having never used them (do they have e.g. specialized hardware/software requirements for building one?) In the end, it strikes me as a security over-complication - 1. have key, 2. keep secret, 3. match key/password to situation (don't re-use keys). These dongles do 1. and 2. but miss the mark wildly on 3. You can say all you like about "backups" but in the end I actually want some things to be less secure than others - if I have to throw out a device every time I forget a password, life becomes some combination of expensive, wasteful, un-tennable, unsafe. I should never need a password to get into my fridge, e.g., and after the key is in the ignition the car should just "work", no messing with SSO while changing lanes.

ikiris 4y ago
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how this security model works. You don't have to throw away anything, it just means you reinit that specific key. Have multiple of them for redundancy, trust them all at your central auth point and this isn't an issue.
- smaudet 4y ago
  I disagree > Have multiple of them for redundancy. Yes so when I have 40 such tokens then I must worry about which ones to bring when for which devices, it's a usability nightmare. I contend you should rarely if ever use one, they are (often) more trouble than they are worth. Or, you are reusing them everywhere, and so you violate the principle of re-use. Yeah, you can daisy chain things and the like, but now you are just making your life needlessly complicated and error prone.
  - ikiris 4y ago
    Again you are fundamentally misunderstanding how this works. The key proves who you are. You don’t need 40 different ones. Just at least one.
    - smaudet 4y ago
      I am really not, you are not understanding my core point - you should NOT have a single identifying key.
      - ikiris 4y ago
        direct quote from my previous reply "Have multiple of them for redundancy, trust them all at your central auth point and this isn't an issue."
    - mbreese 4y ago
      But that’s a problem in and of itself… you don’t want to have 40 different keys that all prove that the bearer is “you”. Instead of having one thing to a worry about losing, you now have to worry about 40? And any of them would authenticate as “you”?
      - ikiris 4y ago
        So don't have 40 different keys that prove they're you that you didn't password protect and keep track of? This straw man is close to sentience at this point.
muppetman 4y ago
You don't put the password to your FRIDGE in a Yubikey tears I mean I don't even understand the "throw out a device if you forget a password" bit. That's not how secure elements (Apple, Yubikey) work. They're just a "write private key once, never read again" device. I would agree though, based on your comment, please don't waste your money on a Yubi or other similar "secure element" platform.
- smaudet 4y ago
  To clarify, throw out as in, device (armed with a key/lock mechanism) becomes unusable (because said key is corrupted lost, lost amid mountain of other keys). I am using password/key here somewhat interchangeably despite common (mis)understanding of what both words imply i.e. phrase versus some random(ish) bits, because the only distinction between the two is the algorithms used to compare (if you want to get pedantic pub/sub and splitting schemes are a bit more different, nevertheless they share the common theme of "secret used to protect something"). So no your YUBI has no password (that I know of) but it is effectively a password (by scanning it and reproducing it at a molecular level you could in fact reproduce it, it's as much a password with protection by obscurity in this sense as writing down a pass phrase backwards is, albeit one is much more difficult to reproduce than another).

ikiris 4y ago

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how this security model works. You don't have to throw away anything, it just means you reinit that specific key. Have multiple of them for redundancy, trust them all at your central auth point and this isn't an issue.

smaudet 4y ago
I disagree > Have multiple of them for redundancy. Yes so when I have 40 such tokens then I must worry about which ones to bring when for which devices, it's a usability nightmare. I contend you should rarely if ever use one, they are (often) more trouble than they are worth. Or, you are reusing them everywhere, and so you violate the principle of re-use. Yeah, you can daisy chain things and the like, but now you are just making your life needlessly complicated and error prone.
- ikiris 4y ago
  Again you are fundamentally misunderstanding how this works. The key proves who you are. You don’t need 40 different ones. Just at least one.
  - smaudet 4y ago
    I am really not, you are not understanding my core point - you should NOT have a single identifying key.
    - ikiris 4y ago
      direct quote from my previous reply "Have multiple of them for redundancy, trust them all at your central auth point and this isn't an issue."
  - mbreese 4y ago
    But that’s a problem in and of itself… you don’t want to have 40 different keys that all prove that the bearer is “you”. Instead of having one thing to a worry about losing, you now have to worry about 40? And any of them would authenticate as “you”?
    - ikiris 4y ago
      So don't have 40 different keys that prove they're you that you didn't password protect and keep track of? This straw man is close to sentience at this point.

muppetman 4y ago

You don't put the password to your FRIDGE in a Yubikey tears I mean I don't even understand the "throw out a device if you forget a password" bit. That's not how secure elements (Apple, Yubikey) work. They're just a "write private key once, never read again" device. I would agree though, based on your comment, please don't waste your money on a Yubi or other similar "secure element" platform.

smaudet 4y ago
To clarify, throw out as in, device (armed with a key/lock mechanism) becomes unusable (because said key is corrupted lost, lost amid mountain of other keys). I am using password/key here somewhat interchangeably despite common (mis)understanding of what both words imply i.e. phrase versus some random(ish) bits, because the only distinction between the two is the algorithms used to compare (if you want to get pedantic pub/sub and splitting schemes are a bit more different, nevertheless they share the common theme of "secret used to protect something"). So no your YUBI has no password (that I know of) but it is effectively a password (by scanning it and reproducing it at a molecular level you could in fact reproduce it, it's as much a password with protection by obscurity in this sense as writing down a pass phrase backwards is, albeit one is much more difficult to reproduce than another).