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>- we lose contact with people because they get locked out of their email I've been locked out of my email because Google insists that "we don't recognize your

>- we lose contact with people because they get locked out of their email I've been locked out of my email because Google insists that "we don't recognize your device", and locked out of my other accounts because my phone was stolen, not because I didn't remember my password. People forgetting passwords isn't a problem that's solved with other schemes. It's a problem that's exacerbated by them. >- we pay more in bank account fees to subsidise fraud compensation Bank account fees, seriously? I can't remember the last time I've paid any. In any case, worrying about saving the banks a few bucks is dead last on my list of worries. >- we have our personal information stolen because others chose weak passwords If our info can be stolen because someone else chose a weak password, the weak password isn't the problem. It's the system that was badly designed in the first place. >Given how much we suffer from other peoples' poor choices,.. We don't. >By analogy, we all benefit from fences by cliffs The analogy doesn't hold because you have to first show that alternatives to passwords are better for the users, even those in the category you mention.

seabass-labrax 3y ago
> People forgetting passwords isn't a problem that's solved with other schemes. Sorry, I should have clarified: that was in reference to users being unable to successfully use the parent's hypothetical 'terribly complex 5FA device-based passphrase scheme'. Passwords don't get any blame here. > Bank account fees, seriously? I can't remember the last time I've paid any. OK, fractionally lower interest growth then, or less frequent premium bond wins. In any case, the bank is going to find a way of passing the cost of business to you, so you have an indirect incentive for their business to be cheaper to them. > If our info can be stolen because someone else chose a weak password, the weak password isn't the problem. It's the system that was badly designed in the first place. That is correct for some kinds of personal information, like how storing documents on a 'cloud' without client-side encryption is a badly designed system for privacy. However, there are genuinely some occasions where a third-party needs to have access to (not just verification of) your information, but also has a responsibility to keep their copy secure. A hospital might need to see your medical records to do its job, for instance. > The analogy doesn't hold because you have to first show that alternatives to passwords are better for the users, even those in the category you mention. I completely agree with you. All I'm saying is that a lot of people will try to replace passwords (because we all have an incentive to improve the situation), even if their replacement fails at being better for users!
- romwell 3y ago
  Ah, thank you for the clarifications! I agree with all of the above.
jsunderland323 3y ago
Re: bank account fees. I think OC was just making the point that one institutions’ lack of security practices gets passed to the entire system as a way to offset fraud costs, we all universally eat this stupid cost. An example of this is chargeback fraud on marketplaces. The way the fraud works is someone buys a bunch of credit card numbers off of the dark web due to some websites’ bad security practices and a data breach. The fraudster then ATOs a merchant account on some marketplace platform or makes a fake account, e.g. Doordash, Airbnb, Shopify, etc. The ATO is usually possible because some subset of the merchants of the platform use the same passwords on another website that has been compromised, again, some data set is sold on the deep web. The fraudster then either has to change the payout method of the marketplace merchant account, which they can usually do by ATOing an acquiring bank that they can access the funds in some way, again due to another external institution with tenuous security practices. Finally the fraudster charges all the stolen credit cards and in most cases leaves the platform taking the liability. This results in the platform pushing up take rates against their merchant accounts, which almost always gets passed back to the consumers of the service (us) by increasing the prices of the service. The problem with passwords is that we expose ourselves to everyone else’s negligence. You might handle passwords with all the best security practices to be known but you expose yourself and your users to every other system’s incompetence. It wasn’t until I saw this play out, that I understood passwords aren’t just a disservice to the negligent compromised user but really to the whole ecosystem of the internet that partakes in password authentication. Yes, there is always a trade off in security and friction. This has always been true. But if we know passwords are faulty and essentially useless, why continue with such a bad practice? To reduce friction to a maximal extent? By that logic we might as well throw out the concept of security altogether. Why not just make it so a user only has to enter their email/username and nothing else? Let me know how that goes for you. I think webauthn is likely the sustainable, long term solution but we’ve got a ways to go before some of the inane thinking around password preservation dies out.

seabass-labrax 3y ago

> People forgetting passwords isn't a problem that's solved with other schemes. Sorry, I should have clarified: that was in reference to users being unable to successfully use the parent's hypothetical 'terribly complex 5FA device-based passphrase scheme'. Passwords don't get any blame here. > Bank account fees, seriously? I can't remember the last time I've paid any. OK, fractionally lower interest growth then, or less frequent premium bond wins. In any case, the bank is going to find a way of passing the cost of business to you, so you have an indirect incentive for their business to be cheaper to them. > If our info can be stolen because someone else chose a weak password, the weak password isn't the problem. It's the system that was badly designed in the first place. That is correct for some kinds of personal information, like how storing documents on a 'cloud' without client-side encryption is a badly designed system for privacy. However, there are genuinely some occasions where a third-party needs to have access to (not just verification of) your information, but also has a responsibility to keep their copy secure. A hospital might need to see your medical records to do its job, for instance. > The analogy doesn't hold because you have to first show that alternatives to passwords are better for the users, even those in the category you mention. I completely agree with you. All I'm saying is that a lot of people will try to replace passwords (because we all have an incentive to improve the situation), even if their replacement fails at being better for users!

romwell 3y ago
Ah, thank you for the clarifications! I agree with all of the above.

jsunderland323 3y ago

Re: bank account fees. I think OC was just making the point that one institutions’ lack of security practices gets passed to the entire system as a way to offset fraud costs, we all universally eat this stupid cost. An example of this is chargeback fraud on marketplaces. The way the fraud works is someone buys a bunch of credit card numbers off of the dark web due to some websites’ bad security practices and a data breach. The fraudster then ATOs a merchant account on some marketplace platform or makes a fake account, e.g. Doordash, Airbnb, Shopify, etc. The ATO is usually possible because some subset of the merchants of the platform use the same passwords on another website that has been compromised, again, some data set is sold on the deep web. The fraudster then either has to change the payout method of the marketplace merchant account, which they can usually do by ATOing an acquiring bank that they can access the funds in some way, again due to another external institution with tenuous security practices. Finally the fraudster charges all the stolen credit cards and in most cases leaves the platform taking the liability. This results in the platform pushing up take rates against their merchant accounts, which almost always gets passed back to the consumers of the service (us) by increasing the prices of the service. The problem with passwords is that we expose ourselves to everyone else’s negligence. You might handle passwords with all the best security practices to be known but you expose yourself and your users to every other system’s incompetence. It wasn’t until I saw this play out, that I understood passwords aren’t just a disservice to the negligent compromised user but really to the whole ecosystem of the internet that partakes in password authentication. Yes, there is always a trade off in security and friction. This has always been true. But if we know passwords are faulty and essentially useless, why continue with such a bad practice? To reduce friction to a maximal extent? By that logic we might as well throw out the concept of security altogether. Why not just make it so a user only has to enter their email/username and nothing else? Let me know how that goes for you. I think webauthn is likely the sustainable, long term solution but we’ve got a ways to go before some of the inane thinking around password preservation dies out.