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You're wrong about LinkedIn, it's not the users, it's you

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Re: You're wrong about LinkedIn, it's not the users, it's you

#11

Post by dpark »

smoyer wrote: post #4

I agree with the article's premise, but the user does need to be educated about the risks at the same time. We can enforce some degree of password strength, but we can't keep the user from reusing the same password. If we could guarantee that their password would never be exposed, that would be fine but I'm never going to make that guarantee. I can be diligent and yet one mistake can still expose the user's (hopefull…

> we can't keep the user from reusing the same password

Neither can the user. Users cannot remember a unique password for every site they visit. That's just not realistic.

The simple fact is that unique-password-per-site does not scale. Password managers don't work well, either, because they can't be integrated into the common mobile browsers, and they frankly just require too much user intervention. (Sure, I'll install this plugin on every machine I use, plus the gimpy custom browser for my phone and tablet, and I'll use the app to cut/paste into other apps that need auth...)

We really need to big players to get together and build a system that works, and for them to all implement it properly and push 3rd parties to use it. BrowserID seems promising, but I haven't heard of any other big players signing on to implement and support it.

Re: You're wrong about LinkedIn, it's not the users, it's you

#13

Post by huggyface »

deelowe wrote: post #7
huggyface wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the interesting point? That users should place a foolhardy, ridiculous level of trust in developers and processes that they don't know and have no insight into?

I don't know what it takes to build a lot of things, but I trust that the engineers will do a good job. I see no difference with software. I've always found it odd that SWEs can harbor this type of opinion. That is, "it's the user's fault for trusting me/us." when every other engineering discipline would consider such a stance insane. All other disciplines would place responsibility directly on the engineering team.…

That is, "it's the user's fault for trusting me/us."

No, it's the user's fault for trusting any given site more than necessary. People outraged that LinkedIn leaked the same credentials that they use for PayPal, for instance. That is ABSOLUTELY a user issue. LinkedIn, and many before, screwed up. People aren't upset as much about the root screwup though (I mean just reset your password and move on), but that, yet again, it reveals that people rashly and irresponsibly reuse credentials en masse.

Your analogies -- if we accept that software should be built like a bridge (which is ridiculous) -- is misplaced. LinkedIn, like a bridge, should be built well to the limits of its purpose. If a bridge has a defect, however, it shouldn't cause my house to fall down as a consequence.

Re: You're wrong about LinkedIn, it's not the users, it's you

#14

Post by smoyer »

dpark wrote: post #11
smoyer wrote: post #4

I agree with the article's premise, but the user does need to be educated about the risks at the same time. We can enforce some degree of password strength, but we can't keep the user from reusing the same password. If we could guarantee that their password would never be exposed, that would be fine but I'm never going to make that guarantee. I can be diligent and yet one mistake can still expose the user's (hopefull…

> we can't keep the user from reusing the same password Neither can the user. Users cannot remember a unique password for every site they visit. That's just not realistic. The simple fact is that unique-password-per-site does not scale. Password managers don't work well, either, because they can't be integrated into the common mobile browsers, and they frankly just require too much user intervention. (Sure, I'll inst…

Jeff Atwood has made the same claim and it's his rationale for using OpenID on the StackExchange sites. I don't disagree, but most users won't figure out how to use OpenID. FB login is widely known but it's not at all side-effect free.

Re: You're wrong about LinkedIn, it's not the users, it's you

#15

Post by eli »

smoyer wrote: post #14
dpark wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can't keep the user from reusing the same password Neither can the user. Users cannot remember a unique password for every site they visit. That's just not realistic. The simple fact is that unique-password-per-site does not scale. Password managers don't work well, either, because they can't be integrated into the common mobile browsers, and they frankly just require too much user intervention. (Sure, I'll inst…

Jeff Atwood has made the same claim and it's his rationale for using OpenID on the StackExchange sites. I don't disagree, but most users won't figure out how to use OpenID. FB login is widely known but it's not at all side-effect free.

I also seem to recall it took quite a bit of engineering to get OpenID working properly...

Re: You're wrong about LinkedIn, it's not the users, it's you

#16

Post by deelowe »

bwanab wrote: post #10
deelowe wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what it takes to build a lot of things, but I trust that the engineers will do a good job. I see no difference with software. I've always found it odd that SWEs can harbor this type of opinion. That is, "it's the user's fault for trusting me/us." when every other engineering discipline would consider such a stance insane. All other disciplines would place responsibility directly on the engineering team.…

It might be interesting to point out that in all the examples you give there exist strong regulatory requirements. Are you (we, collectively) saying that regulations and government oversight should be on the table for web sites that provide services requiring a certain level of security?

The regulatory compliance varies from state to state. For example, ChemE doesn't require a PE in most (all?) states. Typically, regulatory compliance is only required when the work involves some sort of interstate commerce.

With all the leaks and concerns over privacy lately, I think we'll see some sort expansion of the laws covering PII sooner than later. So wether or not I agree with it, I think this will happen.

Re: You're wrong about LinkedIn, it's not the users, it's you

#17

Post by mhellmic »

I would like to disagree on that:

"It's not really about MD5, SHA1 or BCrypt, (...) It wouldn't matter if the passwords were all in plaintext if they never got out."

It is also about the hashes, because a good security infrastructure should anticipate the possibility of a leak and still protect the users.

For that, you need to use the right encryption so that users don't have to change their passwords in the next days, but have 5+ years for that.

And yes, I see that you are promoting dedicated authentication services (which would do it right), it just looks strange to me there.

Re: You're wrong about LinkedIn, it's not the users, it's you

#18

Post by cpt1138 »

mhellmic wrote: post #17

I would like to disagree on that: "It's not really about MD5, SHA1 or BCrypt, (...) It wouldn't matter if the passwords were all in plaintext if they never got out." It is also about the hashes, because a good security infrastructure should anticipate the possibility of a leak and still protect the users. For that, you need to use the right encryption so that users don't have to change their passwords in the next day…

You're absolutely right, what I meant is that its not just about using the right algorithms and making sure they are implemented and used correctly. It's also a whole host of other things including avoiding SQL injection, CSRF, XSS, data leakage in logs, proper access and provisioning, following and reacting to the constant stream of security alerts (case in point: the MySQL Ubuntu issue that cropped up yesterday).

Re: You're wrong about LinkedIn, it's not the users, it's you

#19

Post by hello_asdf »

The trick that I've found works is to use a password that I can remember on sites like Facebook. It's the only site I'm likely to log into on my phone. GMail should be a random password though, but it can be stored on your phone so you don't need to remember it. Everything else that doesn't require mobile access use a random password managed through a program like LastPass. If you're thinking about logging in to sites like your email from a public computer or something, well you shouldn't do that anyway.

Re: You're wrong about LinkedIn, it's not the users, it's you

#20

Post by Splines »

smoyer wrote: post #14
dpark wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can't keep the user from reusing the same password Neither can the user. Users cannot remember a unique password for every site they visit. That's just not realistic. The simple fact is that unique-password-per-site does not scale. Password managers don't work well, either, because they can't be integrated into the common mobile browsers, and they frankly just require too much user intervention. (Sure, I'll inst…

Jeff Atwood has made the same claim and it's his rationale for using OpenID on the StackExchange sites. I don't disagree, but most users won't figure out how to use OpenID. FB login is widely known but it's not at all side-effect free.

FB seems like the lowest-bar when it comes to usability. Most people have a facebook account, and are familiar with the "app needs your permissions" flow.

I'm not familiar with how you write a web-app to use FB authentication - how much does using FB auth obviate the need for you to worry about user credentials?

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