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Using a Yubikey as a touchless, magic unlock key for Linux

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Re: Using a Yubikey as a touchless, magic unlock key for Linux

#31
post #26

This is really cool, but I still feel betrayed cause when I read "touchless" and "contactless" I thought this was gonna use NFC

Which NFC? Almost no laptop has nfc reader. I am not sure if the situation is different with PCs.

Personally, I only know Dell Precision 7740 to have built-in NFC. I guess tablet-like / 2-in-1 laptops might also have it.

Edit: Lenovo Yoga, Lenovo X1 Carbon have NFC too.

Edit 2: Dell Precision 7750 also offers it.

Edit 3: Models with pre-installed NFC module are very scarce, this site [0] lists only 204 occurrences among 7136.

[0]: https://geizhals.eu/?cat=nb&xf=3710_NFC

Re: Using a Yubikey as a touchless, magic unlock key for Linux

#32

The main drawback of this method if used daily would be broken USB ports.

I’ve been using yubikeys for at least the last 2-3 years for all ssh/gpg operations and I have my key on my actual keychain so there’s extra weight on it and sometimes the key sits at a bit of an angle. Still, I have yet to break a single USB port on my ThinkPad. I’m a bit worried about USB-C though.

Speaking from experience: the USB-C Yubikey will snap right off, without damaging the port (at least, on a ThinkPad X1).

Re: Using a Yubikey as a touchless, magic unlock key for Linux

#33

I think the concept is really cool and it’s awesome that Linux makes it relatively easy to play around with authentication methods. I love this kind of stuff. But I’m also a pragmatist. While I run Linux everywhere I reasonably can, my daily driver is macOS and I can’t help but wonder if a fingerprint reader would be a better solution. On my Mac, the fingerprint reader can unlock the system immediately and works acro…

As a daily user of Linux for the best part of a decade I'm curious where Linux falls short for you?

Re: Using a Yubikey as a touchless, magic unlock key for Linux

#34

The main drawback of this method if used daily would be broken USB ports.

As long as removing the key starts your screen locker and inserting kills it you'll fallback to typing your password. Though that could be hard if all you usb ports have suddenly all died at the same time.

Re: Using a Yubikey as a touchless, magic unlock key for Linux

#35

The main drawback of this method if used daily would be broken USB ports.

I'm genuinely curious, are broken USB ports a common thing? I've been using a Yubikey with my MBP, and many years ago used thumb drives all the time with my computers. I've never had a port or device break in any way (either a failure due to wear, or a literal break). Admittedly, I use USB ports much less frequently these days (as in, I plug things in and leave them in for weeks or months at a time, I don't swap USB devices like I used to).

Re: Using a Yubikey as a touchless, magic unlock key for Linux

#36
> Yubikeys are great for security, but not when you leave them in your computer unattended. At that point, anyone can take the key and use it for 2-factor authentication/SSH/GPG signing, so it’s not much better than just using a normal password.

Even after the edit at the top regarding PIN it still seems to not get the main point of a U2F token: It's physical. It's incredibly hard to extract secrets from it. It's local to where it physically is.

If I have a password then there are probably a couple of services and people that could reasonably get to it either by hacking the service the password unlocks (in storage if its a really insecure service or in transit the next time I log on), or can extract it from my password manager/memory/browser or whatever.

The point of a U2F token for me is to change the number of people who can reasonably authenticate as me from "everyone who has my password" to "everyone who have a physical key I keep within a reasonable distance from me that is incredibly hard to copy and has my password". U2F also validates auth origins quite a lot better than many other methods, although I guess that is not relevant to this argument.

A hardware U2F token is not the end-all be-all security, but it reduces potential attackers a lot.

Re: Using a Yubikey as a touchless, magic unlock key for Linux

#37

> Yubikeys are great for security, but not when you leave them in your computer unattended. At that point, anyone can take the key and use it for 2-factor authentication/SSH/GPG signing, so it’s not much better than just using a normal password. Even after the edit at the top regarding PIN it still seems to not get the main point of a U2F token: It's physical. It's incredibly hard to extract secrets from it. It's loc…

Honestly the threat of someone cloning the key is so minor that a USB stick is probably enough. If someone goes through the effort to make fake a USB stick with the right hardware ids then I've got way bigger problems.

Re: Using a Yubikey as a touchless, magic unlock key for Linux

#38

I think the concept is really cool and it’s awesome that Linux makes it relatively easy to play around with authentication methods. I love this kind of stuff. But I’m also a pragmatist. While I run Linux everywhere I reasonably can, my daily driver is macOS and I can’t help but wonder if a fingerprint reader would be a better solution. On my Mac, the fingerprint reader can unlock the system immediately and works acro…

As a daily user of Linux for the best part of a decade I'm curious where Linux falls short for you?

Yeah, that same PAM works on Linux too. Non-Apple hardware isn't exactly known for shipping the best readers but they work well enough.

Re: Using a Yubikey as a touchless, magic unlock key for Linux

#39
post #37

> Yubikeys are great for security, but not when you leave them in your computer unattended. At that point, anyone can take the key and use it for 2-factor authentication/SSH/GPG signing, so it’s not much better than just using a normal password. Even after the edit at the top regarding PIN it still seems to not get the main point of a U2F token: It's physical. It's incredibly hard to extract secrets from it. It's loc…

Honestly the threat of someone cloning the key is so minor that a USB stick is probably enough. If someone goes through the effort to make fake a USB stick with the right hardware ids then I've got way bigger problems.

If you are talking about a U2F usb stick I agree with you (I put "incredibly hard" instead of "impossible" there so that I don't get counterarguments with people reading memory with electron microscopes or similar).

If you are talking plain USB mass storage for keys I disagree.

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