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What is the origin of passwords submitted to honeypots?

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11–20 of 44 posts

Re: What is the origin of passwords submitted to honeypots?

#11
post #8

Passwords should be dead soon and this article should be irrelevant soon after. PSA: For most basic and routine websites/apps of low-value, please, please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. And for those archaic sites that still insist on passwords (why? tell them about passwordless by writing feedback/app reviews), use the platform built-in password managers. Do…

> please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication.

No, thank you, I don't wear my passwords on my face or my fingers because they need to be secret to serve their purpose. I don't really feel like wearing a balaclava and gloves all the time.

Also sometimes I need to change them (if they get compromised, if computing progress made them easier to bruteforce, etc.), and I don't really want to have to use cosmetic surgery when that happens.

Biometrics are closer to a username than a password in this regard.

> Don't do passwords by memory.

We can agree on this (and the disaster that SMS OTP is due to lousy carrier security mostly), you will still need a password for that password manager usually though. You can have a key based setup but you still need a way to store/remeber that key. So passwords will not die just based on this, they might become less ubiquitous.

It sounds like you want to trivialize a problem that has existed for way longer than computer science and systematically relies at some point on human memory if you want a certain level of security and secrecy.

Obviously if you decrease these requirements, you can get away with weaker authentication mechanisms... but you will not secure whatever that password was securing as well then.

Re: What is the origin of passwords submitted to honeypots?

#12
post #8

Passwords should be dead soon and this article should be irrelevant soon after. PSA: For most basic and routine websites/apps of low-value, please, please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. And for those archaic sites that still insist on passwords (why? tell them about passwordless by writing feedback/app reviews), use the platform built-in password managers. Do…

> please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. No, thank you, I don't wear my passwords on my face or my fingers because they need to be secret to serve their purpose. I don't really feel like wearing a balaclava and gloves all the time. Also sometimes I need to change them (if they get compromised, if computing progress made them easier to bruteforce, etc.), and I…

I didn’t know Jason Bourne posted on HN. In all seriousness, where’s the threat of someone taking extremely high resolution scans of your iris unless you are truly rich/powerful/connected.

Re: What is the origin of passwords submitted to honeypots?

#13
post #8

Passwords should be dead soon and this article should be irrelevant soon after. PSA: For most basic and routine websites/apps of low-value, please, please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. And for those archaic sites that still insist on passwords (why? tell them about passwordless by writing feedback/app reviews), use the platform built-in password managers. Do…

I don't know. For banks and tech SaaS? Maybe.

But for the average website, passwordless is confusing for the end user.

I've researched WebAuthn for a web game to see if I could make the login natively and seamless. And it sucked. In Windows, it would prompt a confusing window asking for either an USB key, Windows Hello (So, a PIN or face, and most of people don't have this feature enabled), or to use a QR code. The average user won't know what they should do, so they won't be able to register.

Also, it's really hard to use your account on other devices. Like, if you log in first with a Google phone, then yeah, you'll be able to use your key by scanning a QR when prompted on your computer. But if you log in with a computer first, you won't be able to use your key anywhere else because exporting keys isn't implemented anywhere yet.

I've ended up just implementing Google and Apple OAuth, since WebAuthn requires accounts anyways to store your keys (Microsoft on Windows, Google on Android, Apple on Mac/ios), so why not just log in with them directly?

Re: What is the origin of passwords submitted to honeypots?

#14
post #8

Passwords should be dead soon and this article should be irrelevant soon after. PSA: For most basic and routine websites/apps of low-value, please, please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. And for those archaic sites that still insist on passwords (why? tell them about passwordless by writing feedback/app reviews), use the platform built-in password managers. Do…

> please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. No, thank you, I don't wear my passwords on my face or my fingers because they need to be secret to serve their purpose. I don't really feel like wearing a balaclava and gloves all the time. Also sometimes I need to change them (if they get compromised, if computing progress made them easier to bruteforce, etc.), and I…

To clarify, biometrics are only used for local authentication against the platform authenticator. An attacker still needs the authenticators private data, too. The authentication against the service is using public key crypto.

Also, you should be able to use a platform authenticator with a PIN.

Re: What is the origin of passwords submitted to honeypots?

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. No, thank you, I don't wear my passwords on my face or my fingers because they need to be secret to serve their purpose. I don't really feel like wearing a balaclava and gloves all the time. Also sometimes I need to change them (if they get compromised, if computing progress made them easier to bruteforce, etc.), and I…

I didn’t know Jason Bourne posted on HN. In all seriousness, where’s the threat of someone taking extremely high resolution scans of your iris unless you are truly rich/powerful/connected.

How long until a high resolution iris scanner can be embedded in a pair of sunglasses?

Point is it wasn’t long ago that nobody could fake your voice either.

Re: What is the origin of passwords submitted to honeypots?

#16
post #8

Passwords should be dead soon and this article should be irrelevant soon after. PSA: For most basic and routine websites/apps of low-value, please, please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. And for those archaic sites that still insist on passwords (why? tell them about passwordless by writing feedback/app reviews), use the platform built-in password managers. Do…

I don't know. For banks and tech SaaS? Maybe. But for the average website, passwordless is confusing for the end user. I've researched WebAuthn for a web game to see if I could make the login natively and seamless. And it sucked. In Windows, it would prompt a confusing window asking for either an USB key, Windows Hello (So, a PIN or face, and most of people don't have this feature enabled), or to use a QR code. The a…

Because the goal of WebAuthn is to not depend on any companies infrastructure.

And there's work being done in that direction. Apple supports passkeys from third-party password managers, 1Password has a Passkey beta and KeePassXC has a pull request working on passkey support. [0]

That independence is a design goal of passkeys, because they want to replace passwords and passwords are independent by their nature.

[0]: https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/pull/8825

Re: What is the origin of passwords submitted to honeypots?

#17
post #8

Passwords should be dead soon and this article should be irrelevant soon after. PSA: For most basic and routine websites/apps of low-value, please, please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. And for those archaic sites that still insist on passwords (why? tell them about passwordless by writing feedback/app reviews), use the platform built-in password managers. Do…

I don't know. For banks and tech SaaS? Maybe. But for the average website, passwordless is confusing for the end user. I've researched WebAuthn for a web game to see if I could make the login natively and seamless. And it sucked. In Windows, it would prompt a confusing window asking for either an USB key, Windows Hello (So, a PIN or face, and most of people don't have this feature enabled), or to use a QR code. The a…

[deleted]

Re: What is the origin of passwords submitted to honeypots?

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. No, thank you, I don't wear my passwords on my face or my fingers because they need to be secret to serve their purpose. I don't really feel like wearing a balaclava and gloves all the time. Also sometimes I need to change them (if they get compromised, if computing progress made them easier to bruteforce, etc.), and I…

I didn’t know Jason Bourne posted on HN. In all seriousness, where’s the threat of someone taking extremely high resolution scans of your iris unless you are truly rich/powerful/connected.

Fingerprint scanning is going mainstream, heres a post about Amazon using palm scans on point of sale systems [1]. It seems reasonable that point of sale systems will get hacked or skimmers will get installed (common problems impacting normal people today). The current fix is to issue a new card. Unfortunately, you cannot have a new finger/palm print issued, so the threat appears unmitigated.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54337984

Re: What is the origin of passwords submitted to honeypots?

#19
post #8

Passwords should be dead soon and this article should be irrelevant soon after. PSA: For most basic and routine websites/apps of low-value, please, please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. And for those archaic sites that still insist on passwords (why? tell them about passwordless by writing feedback/app reviews), use the platform built-in password managers. Do…

> please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. No, thank you, I don't wear my passwords on my face or my fingers because they need to be secret to serve their purpose. I don't really feel like wearing a balaclava and gloves all the time. Also sometimes I need to change them (if they get compromised, if computing progress made them easier to bruteforce, etc.), and I…

> It sounds like you want to trivialize a problem that has existed for way longer than computer science and systematically relies at some point on human memory if you want a certain level of security and secrecy.

Assuming the "problem" you are referring to is authentication, this is not necessarily true. "Something you know" is just one auth factor of several. Using a thumbprint (something you are) to grant access to a private key stored on a device to sign a challenge does not rely on human memory, and is probably more secure than using a password in most cases.

An argument can also be made that using a password manager implies that you are specifically doing the opposite of relying on human memory for authentication.

That said, I also disagree with the premise of the original comment that "Passwords should be dead soon and this article should be irrelevant soon after." They will be around for a while, although I hope passwordless mfa can soon replace them as the default choice.

Re: What is the origin of passwords submitted to honeypots?

#20
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> please use the FaceID/TouchID protected platform authenticators for passwordless authentication. No, thank you, I don't wear my passwords on my face or my fingers because they need to be secret to serve their purpose. I don't really feel like wearing a balaclava and gloves all the time. Also sometimes I need to change them (if they get compromised, if computing progress made them easier to bruteforce, etc.), and I…

To clarify, biometrics are only used for local authentication against the platform authenticator. An attacker still needs the authenticators private data, too. The authentication against the service is using public key crypto. Also, you should be able to use a platform authenticator with a PIN.

I think understanding this distinction is going to be one of the main challenges for mainstream WebAuthn adoption over passwords as the default authentication method.
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