14 ms·
> Hey, This Sounds Like a Pain! Yes, because it is a pain. Try going on a vacation, you know the one where you don't use cell roaming. SMS is out, so then one
by phwd 14y ago
> Hey, This Sounds Like a Pain!
Yes, because it is a pain. Try going on a vacation, you know the one where you don't use cell roaming. SMS is out, so then one must find a Wifi hotspot to use one of the smartphone time based tokens (edit: seems the token don't need a network connection, could have fooled me). And those time based tokens go out of wack if your phone didn't sync the timezone properly to match Google's setup, so every token ends up not working.
Use the print out backup verification codes on a piece of paper? No, because they are single use. So you end up using up all your backup codes depending on the length of your vacation. I've used 2 step for a long while, I liked it, but I really could not get used to whipping out my phone every time I needed to check something related to Google.
I've had other hiccups such as mobile provider down, phone died etc. Maybe my best option was to keep all the backup codes on hard plastic with checkmarks next to used backup codes and secure them the same way I do my banking cards, maybe, I'll just try this one day.
If one is going to jump through all these spy-style codes might as well just change your password on a regular basis, forcing all previous sessions to invalidate.
- aprescott 14y agoWhen you reach a point where you have, say, half of your backup verification codes remaining and for some reason your timezone is that far out of sync that Google Authenticator no longer works (and for some reason you can't just sync your clock), then simply generated new backup verification codes and print those out. It seems like a pretty weird assumption that your clock will go out of sync and you won't be able to even manually sync. If you can get online to reach a Google login page, why can't you get within 30 seconds of the correct time for Google Authenticator to work?
- rickyc091 14y agoAssuming you were able to use half the backup codes, since you have internet access you can always generate a new batch. I've been using 2 pass since it came out and it's honestly not that bad for the sense of security. Some banks are already using this system.
- beej71 14y agoCan we trust the screen the new codes are being displayed on? :-)
- alanbyrne 14y agoI recently traveled for 6 months without a data connection on my phone and used the Google Authenticator app without any problems at all. I changed the timezone setting many times too.