6 ms·

Most people have only their phones, which can also break. But some people only start thinking about that stuff when they look at alternatives like the Yubikey.

Most people have only their phones, which can also break. But some people only start thinking about that stuff when they look at alternatives like the Yubikey. > they can just break when plugged into a laptop that takes a dive So can the laptop at a conference. Or anything else really. I just remove my Yubikey after use and carry it in my wallet when not in use. Sure, I can lose my wallet, but I have multiple back-up options for the Yubikey, I mostly use it for convenience.

nextlevelwizard 4y ago
In normal life losing access to your phone won't lock you out of everything. You still have all your other devices you can use AND you can always just walk into store and buy yourself a replacement and download your phone back from a backup. Same with laptops. If you go to a conference and your laptop breaks. You can just go to nearest store and buy a new one. It will take couple hours, but you'll be up and running again. With security key if you lose it you lose access immediately to your stuff and you probably can not get a new one with in 24 hours even if money wasn't an issue. Also after you get the key there is no way to authenticate yourself to the key in a way that you can just make it a copy of your previous key. Wallet is the best example. If you lose your wallet you need to kill your credit cards and get a new ID. However this does not lock you out of anything. You can go to your bank and take out whatever amount of money you need and order a new card, this will be inconvenient for about week. With your ID it depends on the schedules. However there is clear path to recovery.
- macNchz 4y ago
  > With security key if you lose it you lose access immediately to your stuff and you probably can not get a new one with in 24 hours even if money wasn't an issue. If you lose it while traveling and have a backup at home you can likely have someone overnight the backup to you in pretty close to 24h. You also only lose access to stuff that requires the key every time you access it, all but the most sensitive services will keep you logged in without the key for a period of time. > Wallet is the best example. If you lose your wallet you need to kill your credit cards and get a new ID. However this does not lock you out of anything. You can go to your bank and take out whatever amount of money you need In the US at least you’ll find the bank wants to see your ID to let you withdraw cash, and businesses are becoming less friendly to paying cash. Though, like a security key, many people have a spare id at home in the form of a passport.
- eropple 4y ago
  I can still get into "life stuff" without my Yubikey. There are increases in risk to doing so (TOTP requests have decreased resistance to phishing attacks versus webauthn, for example), which is why I don't do that generally, but the fallbacks are not a serious problem. I would have to lose/break my phone and my laptop (both secured via Apple's stuff, not my Yubikey) and my Yubikey to be materially locked out of things. And, at that point, my password vault is inaccessible to me and I have much bigger problems. The only thing I cannot do without a Yubikey is SSH into systems, and that is, for me, a worthwhile thing to break-glass on.
  - nextlevelwizard 4y ago
    If you only use the key to SSH then fine, but then I am not willing to pay more than 10€ for set of two.
goodoldneon 4y ago
YubiKeys are more fragile than phones. One time a drop of water got on my plugged-in YubiKey and it stopped working for 2 days
- doubled112 4y ago
  I don't understand this perspective. I dropped my phone one time and could never unlock the screen again. It shattered into a dozen pieces. I've dropped my YubiKey many times with no damage. It has no moving parts. No glass. No screen. A tiny OS. Not much to go wrong.
  - fullstop 4y ago
    Absolutely this. My yubikeys have been on keychains for years and all still work. These keys are occasionally dropped, thrown, have gotten wet, fallen into the sand, and the yubikeys are fine.
  - donatj 4y ago
    If it was an Android, you can actually plug a mouse into it. I used this to backup a bunch of stuff after I broke my screen and touch no longer worked.
    - doubled112 4y ago
      You couldn't see it either, but I suppose I could have fumbled around a bit blind. Good call. My wife and I have had really good luck buying matching phones. That time one had stopped charging and was replaced with a super-budget phone, so I just swapped screens, backed up/exported what I needed, and moved on.

nextlevelwizard 4y ago

In normal life losing access to your phone won't lock you out of everything. You still have all your other devices you can use AND you can always just walk into store and buy yourself a replacement and download your phone back from a backup. Same with laptops. If you go to a conference and your laptop breaks. You can just go to nearest store and buy a new one. It will take couple hours, but you'll be up and running again. With security key if you lose it you lose access immediately to your stuff and you probably can not get a new one with in 24 hours even if money wasn't an issue. Also after you get the key there is no way to authenticate yourself to the key in a way that you can just make it a copy of your previous key. Wallet is the best example. If you lose your wallet you need to kill your credit cards and get a new ID. However this does not lock you out of anything. You can go to your bank and take out whatever amount of money you need and order a new card, this will be inconvenient for about week. With your ID it depends on the schedules. However there is clear path to recovery.

macNchz 4y ago
> With security key if you lose it you lose access immediately to your stuff and you probably can not get a new one with in 24 hours even if money wasn't an issue. If you lose it while traveling and have a backup at home you can likely have someone overnight the backup to you in pretty close to 24h. You also only lose access to stuff that requires the key every time you access it, all but the most sensitive services will keep you logged in without the key for a period of time. > Wallet is the best example. If you lose your wallet you need to kill your credit cards and get a new ID. However this does not lock you out of anything. You can go to your bank and take out whatever amount of money you need In the US at least you’ll find the bank wants to see your ID to let you withdraw cash, and businesses are becoming less friendly to paying cash. Though, like a security key, many people have a spare id at home in the form of a passport.
eropple 4y ago
I can still get into "life stuff" without my Yubikey. There are increases in risk to doing so (TOTP requests have decreased resistance to phishing attacks versus webauthn, for example), which is why I don't do that generally, but the fallbacks are not a serious problem. I would have to lose/break my phone and my laptop (both secured via Apple's stuff, not my Yubikey) and my Yubikey to be materially locked out of things. And, at that point, my password vault is inaccessible to me and I have much bigger problems. The only thing I cannot do without a Yubikey is SSH into systems, and that is, for me, a worthwhile thing to break-glass on.
- nextlevelwizard 4y ago
  If you only use the key to SSH then fine, but then I am not willing to pay more than 10€ for set of two.

goodoldneon 4y ago

YubiKeys are more fragile than phones. One time a drop of water got on my plugged-in YubiKey and it stopped working for 2 days

doubled112 4y ago
I don't understand this perspective. I dropped my phone one time and could never unlock the screen again. It shattered into a dozen pieces. I've dropped my YubiKey many times with no damage. It has no moving parts. No glass. No screen. A tiny OS. Not much to go wrong.
- fullstop 4y ago
  Absolutely this. My yubikeys have been on keychains for years and all still work. These keys are occasionally dropped, thrown, have gotten wet, fallen into the sand, and the yubikeys are fine.
- donatj 4y ago
  If it was an Android, you can actually plug a mouse into it. I used this to backup a bunch of stuff after I broke my screen and touch no longer worked.
  - doubled112 4y ago
    You couldn't see it either, but I suppose I could have fumbled around a bit blind. Good call. My wife and I have had really good luck buying matching phones. That time one had stopped charging and was replaced with a super-budget phone, so I just swapped screens, backed up/exported what I needed, and moved on.