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Warning: Google Authenticator upgrade loses all accounts

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Warning: Google Authenticator upgrade loses all accounts

#91

Post by philip1209 »

guiambros wrote: post #29

Authy (YC W12, [1]) is a nice replacement for the GA app. Besides being more stable, it has also the "benefit" of allowing you to back up your keys, and recover in the case of a lost phone or deleted app. Thankfully, backing up is entirely optional, and turned off by default. While they claim backups are encrypted with PBKDF2 [3], I still would never ever use something that sends my tokens to a remote server, as it'd…

I've been using Authy on iOS7 because of incompatibility issues with Google Authenticator

Re: Warning: Google Authenticator upgrade loses all accounts

#93

Post by Xymak1y »

guiambros wrote: post #29

Authy (YC W12, [1]) is a nice replacement for the GA app. Besides being more stable, it has also the "benefit" of allowing you to back up your keys, and recover in the case of a lost phone or deleted app. Thankfully, backing up is entirely optional, and turned off by default. While they claim backups are encrypted with PBKDF2 [3], I still would never ever use something that sends my tokens to a remote server, as it'd…

Nice idea, but I hated the workflow of setting up an account - first I have to type in a phone number manually twice, which is easily readable from Android. I also missed an explanation why I needed to set up an encryption token rightaway (I get what the point is, I'd just much rather try using the app first without having to set up all kinds of passwords and credentials first).

Re: Warning: Google Authenticator upgrade loses all accounts

#94

Post by chmars »

guiambros wrote: post #29

Authy (YC W12, [1]) is a nice replacement for the GA app. Besides being more stable, it has also the "benefit" of allowing you to back up your keys, and recover in the case of a lost phone or deleted app. Thankfully, backing up is entirely optional, and turned off by default. While they claim backups are encrypted with PBKDF2 [3], I still would never ever use something that sends my tokens to a remote server, as it'd…

Authy wants to 'make data available to nearby bluetooth devices' and – even if you don't allow for it – asks for Bluetooth to be turned on. What's the reason for this requests?

I'd appreciate an application directly in the app. In doubt, I simply deny such requests.

Screenshots:

http://i.imgur.com/jTC5msY.png http://i.imgur.com/seytfhy.png

Re: Warning: Google Authenticator upgrade loses all accounts

#95

Post by chmars »

chmars wrote: post #94
guiambros wrote: post #29

Authy (YC W12, [1]) is a nice replacement for the GA app. Besides being more stable, it has also the "benefit" of allowing you to back up your keys, and recover in the case of a lost phone or deleted app. Thankfully, backing up is entirely optional, and turned off by default. While they claim backups are encrypted with PBKDF2 [3], I still would never ever use something that sends my tokens to a remote server, as it'd…

Authy wants to 'make data available to nearby bluetooth devices' and – even if you don't allow for it – asks for Bluetooth to be turned on. What's the reason for this requests? I'd appreciate an application directly in the app. In doubt, I simply deny such requests. Screenshots: http://i.imgur.com/jTC5msY.png http://i.imgur.com/seytfhy.png

It gets even more confusing:

Authy asks me for my mobile phone number – once to 'securely identify' me and once to create an account, apparently with Authy.

Why is an account necessary for such an app? Can't I use Authy without an account?

Re: Warning: Google Authenticator upgrade loses all accounts

#97

Post by henryaj »

chmars wrote: post #94
guiambros wrote: post #29

Authy (YC W12, [1]) is a nice replacement for the GA app. Besides being more stable, it has also the "benefit" of allowing you to back up your keys, and recover in the case of a lost phone or deleted app. Thankfully, backing up is entirely optional, and turned off by default. While they claim backups are encrypted with PBKDF2 [3], I still would never ever use something that sends my tokens to a remote server, as it'd…

Authy wants to 'make data available to nearby bluetooth devices' and – even if you don't allow for it – asks for Bluetooth to be turned on. What's the reason for this requests? I'd appreciate an application directly in the app. In doubt, I simply deny such requests. Screenshots: http://i.imgur.com/jTC5msY.png http://i.imgur.com/seytfhy.png

Authy has a desktop client that can request tokens from your phone via Bluetooth, so you don't need to generate a token and type it in manually.

https://www.authy.com/thefuture

Re: Warning: Google Authenticator upgrade loses all accounts

#98

Post by Groxx »

natch wrote: post #72
gmac wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get greeted by a "let's begin" screen, and all your accounts/credentials have magically gone away. This happened to me 5 minutes ago. Edit: tweet with picture: https://twitter.com/jawj/status/375144792126410752

So your account has not gone away, nor has it been deleted, nor has any magic happened; your account is still there safe and sound on Google's servers, it's just that the settings in this one mobile app have been wiped, correct?

Well, depends on where you're looking. The app's record of the account has gone away. Given that this is an authentication app, that's a rather serious problem.

Re: Warning: Google Authenticator upgrade loses all accounts

#99

Post by chmars »

henryaj wrote: post #97
chmars wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authy wants to 'make data available to nearby bluetooth devices' and – even if you don't allow for it – asks for Bluetooth to be turned on. What's the reason for this requests? I'd appreciate an application directly in the app. In doubt, I simply deny such requests. Screenshots: http://i.imgur.com/jTC5msY.png http://i.imgur.com/seytfhy.png

Authy has a desktop client that can request tokens from your phone via Bluetooth, so you don't need to generate a token and type it in manually. https://www.authy.com/thefuture

Thanks!

Re: Warning: Google Authenticator upgrade loses all accounts

#100

Post by gmac »

Too late for me, but a pleasingly fast and pro-active response from AWS (which rather shows Google up) just received by email:

"If you are an AWS customer who uses Google Authenticator for iOS as a multi-factor authentication device to secure your AWS account via AWS MFA (http://aws.amazon.com/mfa/), please read on. We are writing to inform you that Google has recently released an update to the Google Authenticator App in the iOS Store. We've received reports indicating this update is inadvertently deleting all MFA tokens from the smartphone; this could prevent you from authenticating to your AWS account.

At this point, it is our recommendation that you do not update your Google Authenticator App if you're using an iOS Device. If you have already updated your Google Authenticator app and are no longer able to login successfully you can request assistance from our AWS Customer Service team at:

https://portal.aws.amazon.com/gp/aws/html-forms-controller/c...

We have posted this as an announcement to our AWS Developer Forums at https://forums.aws.amazon.com/ann.jspa?annID=2091 and will be posting updates if new information becomes available."

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