Bitwarden releases “emergency access” feature • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitwarden releases “emergency access” feature

#131

Post by dspillett » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #128

My dad set me up with the equivalent feature to this on Dashlane. But it involved downloading their desktop app, which has all the usual anti-user behaviour - automatically adding to startup list, minimising to taskbar on quit, self updating without request, etc. So I ended up uninstalling it. I hope that I get an email notification, or I find out through other offline means, if the feature ever gets activated. I hat…

> Dashlane ... their desktop app, which has all the usual anti-user behaviour

They are going "web first" and eventually deprecating the desktop app, so you are going to need to reengineer that solution at oe point soon.

Re: Bitwarden releases “emergency access” feature

#132

Post by KineticLensman » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

fomine3 wrote: post #76

BerislavLopac wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good approach, but it requires having a partner in the first place...

Anyway does it needed unless partner or something exists?

If you have any 'estate' and any relatives, it is advisable to have a will to avoid painful / slow legal processes for those remaining.

Re: Bitwarden releases “emergency access” feature

#133

Post by leetcrew » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

xref wrote: post #93

bronco21016 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun story about shared passwords in Bitwarden... I recently had to undo that process because I’m going through divorce. We aren’t at the point of severing everything yet but my ex took the liberty of using the shared Bitwarden passwords to sign into each of the utility (gas, electric, etc) accounts and change the passwords. Thus locking me out. I had resisted doing anything with the shared passwords prior to this bec…

That sucks though I’m not sure your story supports “the Bitwarden process for unsharing is broken”. If you could remove shared passwords from someone else’s vault wouldn’t that just leave _you_ with access, effectively locking out your spouse?

the larger (but difficult to fix) issue here is that these important services don't seem to offer a good implementation of a joint account. if two people live in the same house, they should both have access to the account with the utility company to view balances and make payments, but neither should be able to lock the other out without some formal process. having multiple people share the same credentials is an antipattern.

Re: Bitwarden releases “emergency access” feature

#134

Post by alisonkisk » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

KineticLensman wrote: post #132

fomine3 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyway does it needed unless partner or something exists?

If you have any 'estate' and any relatives, it is advisable to have a will to avoid painful / slow legal processes for those remaining.

Sure for my money, but my heirs aren't going to kill each other fighting over my netflix recommendations.

Re: Bitwarden releases “emergency access” feature

#135

Post by alisonkisk » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #122

fomine3 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyway does it needed unless partner or something exists?

One might object to having different subscriptions to big corps draining your estate if you want eg. a charity to have it.

That's why you need to cancel the credit card when you die.

Re: Bitwarden releases “emergency access” feature

#136

Post by croon » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

pndy wrote: post #45

It's a good application and service that offers much on free accounts "but": * there's still no way to keep fetching icons disabled across all devices and instances of bitwarden - each time I have to disable it; I just simply don't like such feature anywhere it's present * there's no emptying the trash on desktop client and neither in browser addon * logging in generates email on which your account is registered, whi…

> * despite of having vault unlocking to set with pin, I have to provide password

You can configure how it locks upon close.

Re: Bitwarden releases “emergency access” feature

#137

Post by croon » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

SubiculumCode wrote: post #91

I use Lastpass, but I'm no longer a fan. So I am considering Bitwarden, but was wondering: What does this afford me that the built in Firefox password manager does not? Firefox now provides a method to generate passwords. Is there something else I am missing?

Password fill for every other app on your phone, and just generally decoupled from your choice of browser.

Re: Bitwarden releases “emergency access” feature

#138

Post by tbyehl » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

kbelder wrote: post #102

toomuchtodo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either on your keyring or in your fire safe. As I mentioned, if you lose it, you can get the lock drilled at the bank with sufficient ID. All trust waterfalls to meatspace trust providers, just like if you lose your Yubikey AWS support will reset your hardware 2FA with sufficient evidence you are you.

Just a note about safes... our community had a wildfire sweep through, and I have not heard of any fireproof safes actually working. Some were cracked open, or were so compromised they could be snapped apart by hand; some survived, but there were only ashes and melted metal at the bottom. I'm sure I didn't hear about the successes, only the failures, but still... I don't want people to proceed with the notion that th…

Every single one of them probably "worked" as designed and marketed, or close enough. Safes don't claim to be fireproof and will clearly state something like "Fire protection for 1/2 hour at 1400F." Very few get into "Likely to survive the total burn-down of a home" territory.

Re: Bitwarden releases “emergency access” feature

#139

Post by Terretta » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

aunlead wrote: post #16

The pandemic has made me (re)evaluate how my family can get to my finances and online services. Such solutions can solve issues related to bank/trading account access and key documents but what about subscription services? All my subscription services from Netflix/Plex (less important) to VPN/Blackblaze (more important) are tied to my credit cards, which upon my untimely demise will be deactivated. My family will sur…

This question feels like a potential opsec danger zone.

Same question reformulated: “What’s the one thing you need to compromise to get into my entire digital domain?”

Re: Bitwarden releases “emergency access” feature

#140

Post by Terretta » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 3:45 PM UTC

starfox64_ wrote: post #124

Unless I'm reading this wrong, this lacks a lot of granularity. I'd like to be able to only give access to a subset of my vault, not all of it. I'm of the opinion that my accounts should just disappear with me, apart for some things related to real life like utilities and the likes. Come to think of it, my GitHub account could be worth preserving too but right now I can't think of much else being worth it.

Here’s a list of password managers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_password_managers

It has a column for Secure Sharing, but not one to show granularity.

Ones that make organization easy seem to choose to offer persistent sharing at the vault level (multiple vaults shared to nobody or to different sets of people), easy ways to move items between vaults, and flagging if you have multiple or OOS copies of items.

Careful, most seem to offer per-item share-as-a-copy that the recipient should store, which I wouldn’t consider as counting as the kind of sharing needed for this thread.