Live data from Hacker News

Bcrypt at 25

usenix.org

21–30 of 78 posts

Re: Bcrypt at 25

#22
post #18

As one of the creators of bcrypt back in 1997, I find it somewhat surprising that, 25 years later, we still rely heavily on passwords. Not that surprising. It's hard to think of any better alternative. Attempts at replacing passwords results in worse user experience or added complexity.

Besides the usual tricks of emailing a magic link or using your 2FA as a super login code, I can see either some sort of hardware token (cost prohibitive for most people) or more likely something like SQRL[0][1]. [0]: https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQRL

I was incapacitated for many years and my phone plan lapsed, so I lost the number. My email account lapsed and so did all my domains, so I lost access to all my email addresses. I now have about 1000 online accounts that I have no way to access because there is no way to authenticate myself. 2FA can be a real pain in some situations, even though I still advise everyone I know to enable it on their most sensitive accounts as the alternatives aren't great.

Re: Bcrypt at 25

#23
post #6

> This came over the strenuous objections of Richard Stallman who famously tried to resist the introduction of passwords at MIT in the 1970s (Levy, 1984). Out of curiosity, what was his competing proposal?

Background to his desire for open (non locked down) systems (covers the period when the MIT AI lab went from the completely open in-house developed ITS to a proprietary Digital system):

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/stallman-kth.en.html

"...But that machine wasn't designed also to support the phenomenon called “tourism.” Now “tourism” is a very old tradition at the AI lab, that went along with our other forms of anarchy, and that was that we'd let outsiders come and use the machine. Now in the days where anybody could walk up to the machine and log in as anything he pleased this was automatic: if you came and visited, you could log in and you could work. Later on we formalized this a little bit, as an accepted tradition specially when the Arpanet began and people started connecting to our machines from all over the country. Now what we'd hope for was that these people would actually learn to program and they would start changing the operating system. If you say this to the system manager anywhere else he'd be horrified. If you'd suggest that any outsider might use the machine, he'll say “But what if he starts changing our system programs?” But for us, when an outsider started to change the system programs, that meant he was showing a real interest in becoming a contributing member of the community. We would always encourage them to do this..."

Re: Bcrypt at 25

#24

I'd like to use Argon2 for web stuff but Web Crypto doesn't support it yet ( https://github.com/WICG/proposals/issues/59 ) and the WASM flavor creates problems with bundling and testing. Stuck with PBKDF2 for now...

An algorithm that requires a ton of memory doesn't really make sense for web applications IMHO. bcrypt and bscrypt are better choices.

Re: Bcrypt at 25

#25

It actually wouldn't be that hard to make off the shelf security solutions for free. We just need to take away the developer's choice and force them to integrate with some simple functionality. For example, make a login management framework that is feature-complete and does not require the dev to implement their own "hooks" into its methods. Instead use a config file to tell the framework how to work (expose this HTT…

> does not require the dev to implement their own "hooks" into its methods

> tell the framework how to work [...] and just send it data in the way it expects

What is that, if not also "hooks"? I've long thought about this and tried many different solutions, and there's only 2 sane points to implement a library/framework like this in an unopinionated way IMHO (without prescribing the DB schema, etc): you provide a library like passport.js with lower level hooks (data hashing, vendor connections, etc), or you provide a framework integration with higher level hooks (API, DB schemas, etc); the problem with the higher level hooks is that you'll need many more hooks, with the only advantage that the dev might need to write a bit less code overall.

As an example, let's see password recovery. With lower level hooks, the dev writes the recover page fully, the API endpoint and backend for it, and somewhere in this backend has a small integration with the hashing the new password; which then the dev saves in the DB. The dev has to do all of this, but in exchange the hook integration is just "hash the password".

However for a higher-level (let's assume a JSON API) integration as you seem to suggest, now you need to use the hooks from the front-end to the custom API, two endpoints that hopefully work as expected. And then you need to use the hooks to connect from the data generation to the DB, again at least 3-4 hooks to check for the valid user, check for duplicated password (maybe?), save the new password. And error handling here and to the front-end, which is going to be a monster.

(or an opinionated way like Firebase where you bring the whole house, but let's leave that for another post)

Re: Bcrypt at 25

#26
post #15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We just need to take away the developer's choice and force them to integrate Who's we? Who are they integrating with? A protocol? A business? A government? This has been tried in a multitude of ways. There's always a bit too much friction or cost.

Also, all the standards were crap. HTTP got basic auth, which is crap because plaintext password transmission happens, also the browsers never got around to implement any sensible UI (e.g. you cannot log off). Then it got digest auth, which at least wasn't plaintext in transmission, but required plaintext password storage on the server. Then came negotiate, which only worked with some proprietary products, had even w…

Since everything is TLS now, basic auth no longer transmits in the clear. But I agree browser vendors have refused to bother putting in even the bare minimum of effort for years. I've been subscribed to the firefox ticket to allow http auth logout for my entire adult life.

Re: Bcrypt at 25

#27
post #2

Now following Activ8te on SoundCloud!

Since this comment seems the be getting down voted, it might benefit from context: Activ8te is Niels Provos (author of this article)'s EDM pseudonym, where he's making music with cyber security themes:

> To address this scarcity of talent, I've pursued a very unconventional approach. I've embarked on a new venture as an EDM (Electronic Dance Music) producer under the artist name Activ8te, creating cybersecurity-themed EDM tracks. My goal is to captivate a younger audience and ignite their interest in security topics. Some of my recent tracks, like "Teardrop Falling" and "I Am Tracking You," explore challenging security themes such as denial of service, censorship, and the risks to our privacy posed by sophisticated spyware (Activ8te, 2022). By raising awareness and enthusiasm for the field, I hope to contribute to the expansion of a skilled security professional pipeline.

Re: Bcrypt at 25

#29
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the usual tricks of emailing a magic link or using your 2FA as a super login code, I can see either some sort of hardware token (cost prohibitive for most people) or more likely something like SQRL[0][1]. [0]: https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQRL

I was incapacitated for many years and my phone plan lapsed, so I lost the number. My email account lapsed and so did all my domains, so I lost access to all my email addresses. I now have about 1000 online accounts that I have no way to access because there is no way to authenticate myself. 2FA can be a real pain in some situations, even though I still advise everyone I know to enable it on their most sensitive acco…

What you went through must have been really awful, I’m sorry that happened to you. That being said, this sounds like a rare occurrence. I’m sure since then you’ve created some contingency plan especially if there is a potential for a repeat. This actually highlights one of my fears of everything being tied to a phone number because you can never truly own it and it can be canceled or you could be sim-swapped.

Re: Bcrypt at 25

#30
post #27
post #2

Now following Activ8te on SoundCloud!

Since this comment seems the be getting down voted, it might benefit from context: Activ8te is Niels Provos (author of this article)'s EDM pseudonym, where he's making music with cyber security themes: > To address this scarcity of talent, I've pursued a very unconventional approach. I've embarked on a new venture as an EDM (Electronic Dance Music) producer under the artist name Activ8te, creating cybersecurity-theme…

Thanks! As it happens we've now had a pleasant chat in PMs on SC and he has given me a little advice on my home (mainly energy) data -> house music thing! B^>
Post reply on HN