If you are paranoid, then there is only one option, you are the password manager. Certainly not a piece of software you didn't author yourself. Else you are not truly paranoid.
I authored my password manager. It doesn't store the passwords anywhere.
Horcrux: A Password Manager for Paranoids
141–150 of 168 posts
Re: Horcrux: A Password Manager for Paranoids
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow. This is yet another example of the fatal combination of Rolling Your Own Crypto + Using OpenSSL Directly And Blowing Your Own Foot Off Because It Lets You. var cipher = crypto.createCipher('aes-256-ctr', key.toString('hex')) Besides the completely fatal error of using derived and non-unique IVs (fatal as in, if you encrypt more than 1 item with it, it is exactly as good as plaintext because any two items encrypt…
5c from me: 1) why CTR mode was chosen? I would probably go with something like GCM: privacy + integrity check. 2) IV ideally should be re-generated on every re-encryption. It doesn't have to be secret, but has to be random (securely random).
GCM has exactly the same problem with respect to nonces (GCM, like CTR, has a nonce, not an IV, but the terms are unfortunately used interchangeably).
The secrecy/predictability/uniqueness rules for IVs and nonces depend on the specific cipher mode you're using, so be careful about writing generic recommendations. Also, be very careful with the word "ideally", because if you get an IV or nonce wrong, chances are your problems are much worse than "not ideal".
Re: Horcrux: A Password Manager for Paranoids
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an infosec guy, I'm honestly getting really tired of this. Virtually every time someone submits some new security tool to Hacker News, the author has made trivial, catastrophic, and what should be completely avoidable security mistakes. So for the hundredth time, if you're not a cryptographer or experienced security engineer, please stop releasing and promoting your crypto-related projects before they have been ve…
Is there a good way to find people who are qualified to do such a review? This paper was written by a Ph.D. student and professor of Computer Science at a respected university. The professor teaches a crypto course on Udacity ( https://www.udacity.com/course/applied-cryptography--cs387 ). If they don't meet the criteria for being cryptographers, I wonder how many people in the world do?
Not many. There's a Venn diagram to draw about academic cryptographers and practicing cryptographic engineers and people qualified to do cryptographic reviews and the overlap is less than you might think.
Re: Horcrux: A Password Manager for Paranoids
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used pass for a while before I moved on to gopass. It's a drop-in replacement for pass with a bunch of useful features (like encrypting a password-store for multiple people, or "mounting" password stores). Hope it gets picked up and supported more, it's pretty nice. https://github.com/justwatchcom/gopass
You might also want to consider hunter2, it's similar but with smartcards. https://chiselapp.com/user/rkeene/repository/hunter2/
What a fantastic name.
Re: Horcrux: A Password Manager for Paranoids
#145I am pretty sure the code is reusing IVs for AES-CTR[0] (i.e. the encryption is worthless), because it doesn't specify an IV and Node seems to derive the IV from the key.[1] This seems like a massive footgun in Node. I don't think their scheme results in different keys for each site, but I could be wrong. [0] https://github.com/HainaLi/horcrux_password_manager/blob/mas... [1] https://nodejs.org/api/crypto.html#crypto…
Wow. This is yet another example of the fatal combination of Rolling Your Own Crypto + Using OpenSSL Directly And Blowing Your Own Foot Off Because It Lets You. var cipher = crypto.createCipher('aes-256-ctr', key.toString('hex')) Besides the completely fatal error of using derived and non-unique IVs (fatal as in, if you encrypt more than 1 item with it, it is exactly as good as plaintext because any two items encrypt…
The good news appears to be that this has prompted some upstream discussion.
Re: Horcrux: A Password Manager for Paranoids
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is it with banks and their annoyingly terrible "security" requirements? My old bank once sent me an email saying I had to reset my password. The email seemed legit, but upon following the link therein something didn't seem quite right. So I use another device to visit my bank's site directly. Upon trying to login, I get redirected to the same form I reached from the email link and had a sinking realization that…
Your anecdote describes a very bad behaviour, but the generally simple requirements banks have is a necessity of dealing with the general public. The more complex the requirements, the more customer support with tech naifs you need. And overall, it generally kind've works for them; there are some slips through the cracks, but fraud isn't rampant - banks accounts have been successfully run this way for years for the v…
The problem with this is that if that if there is a breach your typical bank will not take responsibility and claim that the customer is liable.
It needs to be written into law in all jurisdictions, that if a bank has been negligent in security, then when responsibility for a breach is unclear the benefit of the doubt should be given to the customer and the breach classified as a bank robbery.
Re: Horcrux: A Password Manager for Paranoids
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Typically management at financial institutions see "security reasons" as a quick way to end questioning from a customer. Legacy software or partner integration requirements are almost always the reason for arbitrary changes within financial institution. Anecdotally, I've never seen a scenario myself where this wasn't referred to as a "security measure" or similar. This includes within the institution to all non-techn…
They had good reasons to enact security measures as I was trying to get into my account internationally and I kept forgetting the password. I understand what you're saying though.
Makes me wonder if they didn't have any other way to disable logging in to the account. Which is worrying in a whole other way.
Re: Horcrux: A Password Manager for Paranoids
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've known banks that don't let you change the PIN on their cards - for "security" reasons. And banks with 5-digit maximum password lengths - "oh, it's strong enough, you need to use a token to get money out anyway" ... but not to login.
Many banks in Saudi Arabia have changed their standard for PIN length from 6 digits to 4 digits. I cannot comprehend why would anyone make such decision.
Many international withdrawals only do 4 digits which means 6 digits in your home country becomes meaningless...
Re: Horcrux: A Password Manager for Paranoids
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many banks in Saudi Arabia have changed their standard for PIN length from 6 digits to 4 digits. I cannot comprehend why would anyone make such decision.
Many international withdrawals only do 4 digits which means 6 digits in your home country becomes meaningless...
they should fix the underlying problem but in the meantime, they probably could just automatically truncate to 4 chars when 6 can't be used?
Re: Horcrux: A Password Manager for Paranoids
#150Sticking with zx2c4 pass. It is an assembly of gnupg, git, and pwgen. Trusted open source components. Works with a Yubikey (opensc and gpg-agent) to prevent private key theft via software. PassFF extension provides excellent browser integration. Android Password Store and OpenKeychain allow pass and yubikey to work on my mobile. Strong 2 factor password storage everywhere I need it. My biggest problem these days is d…
Sometimes I think there should be a list of sites that don't allow long passwords - so that people can be aware of sites that don't take passwords seriously.
no what you are looking for but there's http://plaintextoffenders.com/ ...