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Google acquires Israeli security startup SlickLogin
- chockablock 13y agoThis TechCrunch article from last year goes into more details on the implementation, including a Q&A with the founders: http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/09/slicklogin-wants-to-kill-the-password-by-singing-a-silent-song-to-your-smartphone/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/09/slicklogin-wants-to-kill-th... And here's a ShowHN thread (unfortunately light on interaction with the submitter): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6359450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6359450
- yanivf 13y agoTheir tech would be a great addition to Google's Smart-Auth mechanism.
- alecsmart1 13y agoI'm assuming this won't work on desktop computer if one does not have a mic.
- Tarang 13y agoNot necessarily, the desktop computer needs a speaker & the mobile device needs a mic (which is a better arrangement since the smartphone mics are extraordinarily good). This could then be a means to establish a network connection to it by other means.
- mrtksn 13y agoActually, it's the other way around. On the demo video the presenter says "the audio signal is transmitted from the computer to the phone". here at 2:15 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5I6qV2b5iw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5I6qV2b5iw I am more curious about if the phone has to be always listening and what happens if there is noise in the environment. Also what if the attacker manages to bring a recording device close enough? Is the distance important because of the amplitude or because of the delay due to the speed of sound?
- chockablock 13y agoThen there's an error in the linked article, which reads: "... [it works] by playing an ultrasonic frequency from the mobile device. The system on the computer or any other device analyses the frequency for identification..."
- councilscheme 13y agowhat good would recording be if the audio has a timestamp in it?
- mrtksn 13y agowhat if the attacker transmits the audio in real time?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- p4bl0 13y agoTheir website is not usable with my 1024 pixels wide browser window.
- dublinben 13y agoIf you disable their CSS, it works much better.
- edanm 13y agoThey're good friends of mine, and are an absolutely awesome team! Congratulations!
- higherpurpose 13y agoIf this is already possible, then having NSA register your keystrokes on the PC keyboard through your phone like we saw that research a few months is probably not too far fetched.
- abcd_f 13y agoSo this requires an always-on "hot mic" app. Does anyone see any issues with that?
- objclxt 13y agoSome Android phones (the Moto X, off the top of my head) already have an always-on microphone - for better or for worse.
- dublinben 13y agoOnly if you enable and set up that feature. My Moto X doesn't.
- councilscheme 13y agonot in the online case. sorry, to clarify: the app does not need to always be recording in the online case.
- infocollector 13y agoDoes anyone know how much was the acquisition for?
- fourspace 13y agoCongrats. The irony is that the last thing I think of when I'm using Google's long-convoluted account management system is "slick login".
- timothya 13y agoThen it should really make sense why they are purchasing a company that does login better. Side question: What is long and convoluted about Google's account management? It's one account with a single login which works across all Google products. Seems pretty straightforward to me. It only gets a bit more complicated if you try to disable parts of your account, but that's not the normal use case.
- regal 13y agoWhen you're trying to use Google Apps for business, for one, and you go to email.MyURL.com and get redirected to a standard Google login screen where you now have to click a button to not sign in as your personal account, then come back and sign in as a business account, plus also add the "@MyURL.com" at the end (didn't used to have to do this), and you're doing that with multiple different accounts, it gets pretty tricky pretty in a hurry.
- samstave 13y agoYep! I have my own domain email on google, plus a personal @gmail, and have my work email hosted... It can get laborious.
- fourspace 13y agoAn extremely common use case is to have several google accounts, typically when using various Google Apps domains. Instead of understanding that I'm the same person with access to all of the accounts, it makes me log into each one separately. For most products you can be logged into each one simultaneously, but the first one you log into is the "default". Analytics, for example, doesn't even support multi-login, so if that "default" account is not the one you want, you have to log out of ALL of them. WAT
- noname123 13y agoAwesome! Saw the team pitch at AngelHack, one of the more technical teams I have seen amongst all of the "Me Too" consumer social startups. Congratulations!
- lisper 13y agoSo... if my speakers are off (which mine are most of the time) it doesn't work?
- nandemo 13y agoIs there something like HN for the Israeli scene?
- Fasebook 13y agoI already don't care. Amazing!
- HarveyW26 13y agoIs, perhaps, http://www.startcom.org http://www.startcom.org also in Google's sights ?