Slashdot Mirror
NYT Password Security Discussion Overlooks Universal Logins
A recent NYT piece explores the never-ending quest for password-based security, to which reader climenole responds with a snippet from ReadWriteWeb that argues it's time to think more seriously about life beyond passwords, at least beyond keeping a long list of individual login/password pairs:
"These protective measures don't go very far, according to the New York Times, because hackers can get ahold of passwords with software that remotely tracks keystrokes, or by tricking users into typing them in. The story touches on a range of issues around the problem, but neglects to mention the obvious: the march toward a centralized login for multiple sites."
In matters of security, the most important tool anyone can have is common sense. Phishing scams, "dangerous" websites, revealing important information willy nilly...all things that cause major problems in the digital world, and all things that could be almost completely avoided if common sense was more prevalent.
Granted, some people "don't know any better"...but that's why you educate those types of people if you know any.
Living With a Nerd
Always a great idea. Windows registry anyone?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I'll admit, I feel torn when I see that OpenID login. Increase my chance of giving someone access to everything? Or make it simple?
In the end I compromise and simply use a variation of one password for those.
There is the problem with centralized logins: the masses don't consider the first part, and only think of the convenience.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Exactly my thoughts.
Keyloggers still work, phishing scams still work, and social engineering still works. If centralized logins become the norm, the bad folks will simply target the centralized logins.
Your risk with centralized logins, however, skyrockets. Now, instead of losing control of one login to one website, you lose everything. Moreover, they don't even have to guess what sites you have access to, they can simply dig through the centralized login site and find it once they have your account info.
The NYT article is interesting, but the SlashDot summary is near useless. There is no need to specifically include universal logins in the discussion, because universal logins suffer from exactly the same issues that individual logins do. The only possible reason for including them is the fact that the potential loss is much much higher with a universal login.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
And this solves the keylogger problem how?
It doesn't. You still have to authenticate at some point; at most, it reduces the opportunities for a keylogger to catch the password (if you only have to type it in every couple of weeks).
In exchange, it provides phishers with a dream environment. The only way to be certain you're actually connected to your authentication provider is to use SSL and make sure that you see the lock -- and if your security depends on Joe Random User doing that, you've already lost.
Shalon Wood
NY Times knows what they are doing while supporting this call for centralized password management and identity system. They serve the powers that be on their quest to even greater power. I agree with their point - increasing the so called safety - but on the other hand I am a bit worried about having a few people in charge of the identities of eventually entire population. Almighty government and rich corporations will certainly be willing to help us with our identities.
I like OpenID, but if you couple it with a three factor authentication, whether it be a smartcard, or biometric, or whatever.. that's when it becomes useful.
Too bad the current implementation doesn't support it. Sadly, World of Warcraft and Starcraft II do.
Go figure.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
What has always amazed me about authenication for access-control via a computer is the widespread use of "passwords". We treat computer access-control like it's a brand new problem, however it's really just the same old access-control problem that we solved at least 4000 years ago.
Why don't we have passwords to get into our houses? Why don't we have passwords to get into our cars or P.O. boxes or even safe-deposit boxes? Because passwords are a pain in the ass that are inherently insecure because we, as humans, are terrible at remembering arbitrary strings of numbers/letters/symbols. What we are good at remembering - objects/ideas and the words associated with them - make for terrible passwords because they are so darn easy to guess.
The idea of a lock and key is one which we have been using for millenia for security, so why haven't we applied this simple metaphor for electronic access-control. We even have the technology readily available: Public Key Authentication. But for some reason the only place I've ever seen it used is in OpenSSH. In fact, it's considered superior to password authentication in OpenSSH and recommended over a password.
So why not have RSA keys to our email, online banking etc. just like we have keys to our houses, cars etc?
So educate me... How do I use common sense to determine if the site I just logged into actually secures the login information on the backend? Is it stored in clear text, transmitted in clear text, available to everyone in the company? I have no idea what happens to the credentials I just entered. How do I use common sense to determine if Facebook, MySpace, Slashdot, NYT, etc are taking the securing of my personal and login information seriously? Do you read every EULA completely? Would you even know if the company did not follow their EULA? Do you have the resources to sue if they don't?
Common sense tells me that no site is to be trusted implicitly; they are all dangerous.