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>or a malfunction of your Yubikey Can't stress this enough. I had a yubikey nano that I literally never pulled from my laptop, that sat on my desk for basical
by tw04 3y ago
>or a malfunction of your Yubikey
Can't stress this enough. I had a yubikey nano that I literally never pulled from my laptop, that sat on my desk for basically the entirety of COVID. It just up and died after about 14 months. Fortunately, I had only set it up for testing purposes because I was worried about this exact scenario, and while I had a backup in my safe, had I been on my normal travel schedule that wouldn't have helped much.
The fact that it died after 0 abuse was a MAJOR turnoff for me ever proceeding down the path further. I'm sure my failure was a one-off but it left an extremely bad taste in my mouth.
I get a failure of a key that's on a keychain or being beaten up on the regular, but failure from literally just sitting in a usb-c port for less than two years is... not a great look.
I guess this might be an expected failure mode too, because their warranty is only 1 year for manufacturing defects.
- aborsy 3y agoYubikeys are well constructed. I don’t think they die frequently before several years.
- nixpulvis 3y agoOn the flipside, I’ve had a Yubikey 4C for around 4 or 5 years on my keychain in my pocket, and it’s holding up OK. Backup is a serious question though. I once started down this rabbit hole trying to type up a guide for using my yubikey and I found myself giving up when I realized there was no perfect solution.
- downrightmike 3y agoThink about it this way: forcing electrons through a circuit is abuse. Since they bumble around like flowing honey looking for the easiest way out.
- graton 3y agoI have Yubikey nano in my laptop, desktop, and Linux PC. All of them are still going strong. I have four Yubikeys on my keychain, two of which I bought in 2014, and they also are still working without issues. None of my keys have ever failed.