Google Declares War On the Password

An anonymous reader writes "Wired reports on a research paper from Google employees about the future of authentication on the web. 'Along with many in the industry, we feel passwords and simple bearer tokens such as cookies are no longer sufficient to keep users safe,' the authors write. Their plan involves authenticating just once, to a single device, and then using that to unlock all of your other accounts. "We'd like your smartphone or smartcard-embedded finger ring to authorize a new computer via a tap on the computer, even in situations in which your phone might be without cellular connectivity." Recognizing that this isn't something they can accomplish on their own, they've gone ahead and created a device-based authentication protocol that is 'independent of Google, requires no special software to work — aside from a web browser that supports the login standard — and which prevents web sites from using this technology to track users.'"

Comments

Brilliant idea

[0123456]

Because I totally want anyone who steals my phone to be able to access every other site I use.

Re:Brilliant idea

[Andrio]

The best feature of the password is that it's in your head. You carry it around everywhere, and it can never be physically taken from you.

This proposed plan just makes cellphones that much more attractive to steal.

Re:Brilliant idea

[aahzmandius]

So have the phone de-auth after a certain amount of time without you entering your credentials. You'd still only have to remember credentials to one device, and then *it* does all of the 'heavy lifting' of authenticating everywhere else.

Re:Brilliant idea

[Dexter Herbivore]

The best feature of the password is that it's in your head. You carry it around everywhere, and it can never be physically taken from you. This proposed plan just makes cellphones that much more attractive to steal.

The WORST feature of the password is that it's in your head. I have 20+ login passwords between work and home, my security is lower because you have to simplify them to remember them. If we can find a way to escape the tyranny of passwords that can generally be cracked by anyone who's determined anyway it can only be progress. Not that I have any faith in any organisation to do it after many failed or barely passable attempts (biometrics, smart cards etc).

Re:Brilliant idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Please explain how I can log into whatever service provides the remote kill if I can't log into my computer, my email account, or anything else. Keep in mind that I don't know my phone's MAC or SIM identification off the top of my head.

Re:Brilliant idea

[dkleinsc]

As you hint, passwords are both necessary and insufficient for real security. For anything important, you really ought to have 2/3 of the ID triangle: something you know (like a password), something you have (like an RSA token), or something you are (like fingerprints).

Re:Brilliant idea

[terrab0t]

I use a password manager to solve this problem. It stores all (or a large set of) my passwords in an encrypted database. I have one very strong password that lets me access the database. The passwords it stores are all strong (sometimes hard to remember) passwords that I do not have to store in my head.

I still have all of my eggs in one basket, but that basket is sealed in a solid iron box.

Re:Brilliant idea

[kaiser423]

It really is. I love their current implementation. It's actually security done right. I use Google Authenticator on my phone. If I login from an unknown computer, it asks me for a pass code also, which I just bring up on my phone. I only need to remember the password to my phone/tablet. It's easily the most seamless and secure two-factor authentication I've ever used, and I've used a lot of them....

I also use it as a token to access a couple of other sites. I believe that Apache has a module that can sync to Authenticator. It's great two-factor.

It also comes with a list of one time codes that I can carry around for when I don't have access to my phone or tablet.

It's like a permanent key/password manager for all of Google. It'd be great to turn it into my whole life. Much easier to just de-sync the Authenticator, then re-sync rather than blow away passwords for all sites, then re-create them for all sites if something gets compromised.

TL;DR I trust Google to do this right because they're already miles ahead of everyone else.

Re:Brilliant idea

[kaiser423]

True, but if that password manager gets compromised by, say, Red October via capturing your keystrokes, everything is compromised for all sites until you take the time individually change each one,.

Currently, with Google Authenticator, I have it set up to authenticate me for a number of things, as if it gets compromised, simply telling it to re-sync again re-secures all of my credentials. Much, much better management. Single point control.

Re:Brilliant idea

[realityimpaired]

There is a device called a "telephone" You pick up a "receiver", and "dial" a series of numbers associated with the person or company you are trying to communicate with.

Your cell phone has a similar series of numbers associated to it, with which your service provider can locate your EMEI code (which is much more useful for remote killing your phone than the SIM card). Additionally, they can burn the EMEI so that it can't be activated on other providers (at least in most of the world). If you do not know your telephone number, then they can find it with your name, your account number, and many other pieces of information you can give them. Most cell providers have an option in their IVR to report a lost or stolen phone, too, with after-hours emergency support.

Re:Brilliant idea

[SirGarlon]

From the point of view of a digital stream of data, something you have is indistinguishable from something you are. (Fingerprint scanners are vulnerable to replay attacks.)

Re:Brilliant idea

[Baloroth]

True, but if that password manager gets compromised by, say, Red October via capturing your keystrokes, everything is compromised for all sites until you take the time individually change each one,.

Currently, with Google Authenticator, I have it set up to authenticate me for a number of things, as if it gets compromised, simply telling it to re-sync again re-secures all of my credentials. Much, much better management. Single point control.

LastPass offers Google Authenticator security over the vault, which means even if they get the master password they still wouldn't be able to access my vault. This does, however, mean the vault is technically not under my complete control (since I don't store it locally, although I do keep a semi-regular back of it). But, the advantage is worth it in my opinion.

Re:Brilliant idea

[Anonymous Coward]

There sure are a lot of people responding to you to explain the convoluted acrobatics they do to manage their passwords.

If nerds have to do a bunch of tricks just to give themselves a little faith in their passwords, what hope does everyone else have?

Re:Brilliant idea

[Cinder6]

What's particularly disturbing to me is that my bank has the most draconian password requirements, which make my bank password one of the weakest that I use. Joy.

Re:Brilliant idea

[blueg3]

No, it requires both the password and A phone, but not necessarily THE phone.

Specifically, it requires the secret stored on the phone. The phone is not simply an algorithm for turning a password into a security token. It stores its own secret, independent of the password, that you would need to acquire.

However, even if it does require THE phone, how often do people loose their phone?

You mean how often do they lose their phone to someone who is interested and able to guess their password? A lot less often than how often people choose trivially-guessable passwords or have their passwords disclosed by a hacked website.

Security should include a password, a device and a biometric check. Without all three, you are just as vulnerable as having using only a password.

Strictly untrue. A password plus one of those two things is more secure than a password alone.

Re:Brilliant idea

[DMUTPeregrine]

KeePass allows the use of key files on USB drives (or any drive.) This allows you to control the password safe, and the key file needed for authentication forms the second (something you have) factor.

Re:Brilliant idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped using LastPass and switched to hiding keepass in SpiderOak when last year and someone downloaded LastPass' entire, albeit encrypted, password database. I was burned bad by that break in, because I had to sit there and changed dozens of passwords just in case. I migrated to keepass and generated very strong long random passwords for each website with it. I can't login to any sites now without it. I'd also recommend locking your keepass with a key file that you keep hidden elsewhere in addition to a password just in case your main password is stolen. Oh, and if you use webmail like gmail, make sure to use two-factor authentication that they provide to give some added security. It is far too easy to reset an account with very little knowledge of the person who owns the account, e.g. Wired's editor. I have a personal example of this myself, a coworker didn't know the password to a gmail account that we had set up for sending out continuous build integration emails (I.T. has lots of ports blocked and won't configure exchange for us) and we needed to reconfigure it. I simply guessed the location he had logged in at (he's in another country) but that didn't work, and then I tried his various known email addresses and one of them was accepted. Google gave me full access to the account, it was ridiculously easy. But, I digress. However, we still need at least a second part of the equation to protect a scheme like the one they're recommending. What they're offering is only one-factor and is just as poor if not more poor than using a password alone, it's only together that they're strongest.

Re:Brilliant idea

[swanzilla]

They must be in cahoots with my luggage manufacturer.

Re:Brilliant idea

[kevmeister]

+1 for LastPass.

LastPass keeps an AES encrypted vault on my system, so I can use it when their vault is unreachable. AES is important as too many password "vaults" use undefined or obsolete and possibly vulnerable encryption. Works with Google Authenticator, too. Runs on Windows, MacOS, Linux and even my FreeBSD systems as well as iOS and Android. I'll admit that the mobile version is sub-optimal, but it does work. (A few apps don't allow a paste into the password field, so it won't work properly with them.)

Oh.It is commercial and not free for mobile devices. It is subscription based, costs about USD 1 a month for all mobile devices sharing a single vault and is paid annually. It is free for desktop devices. LastPass also owns XMarks, the multi-browser bookmark and history sync service that I also use.

I have no association with LastPass other than as a generally happy user.

Yeah yeah, we have seen this before

[s.petry]

Every big company at some point has declared war on the password. We have smart cards, biometrics, RSA tokens, and finger paintings to prove it. None of those things work any better than a password when used alone. In conjunction with a password, we can achieve "better" security.

The logic of a password-less world is what's broken. Period, end of statement. If the logic is broken, no matter who implements the password-less solution we still end up with a broken solution.

Re:Yeah yeah, we have seen this before

[ColdWetDog]

One phone to rule them all, One phone to find them,
One phone to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Google where the Shadows lie.

Don't be evil!

Tracking

[QuietLagoon]

... Their plan involves authenticating just once, to a single device, and then using that to unlock all of your other accounts. ...

That certainly makes it much, much easier for google to track you as you go around the web.

Re:Tracking

[TheGratefulNet]

security principles for authentication:

1) what you have
2) what you are
3) what you know

for google:

1) what you have: you have a tracking device that we'd like you to always have on and always transmit your location and other info to us.

2) what you are: you are a source of marketing info to us, as well as other info we can give/sell to others.

3) what you know: you are told that we are 'not evil' and we've repeated that so many time, you just KNOW its true.

Anonimity

[Anonymous Coward]

Passwords are bad because they allow any individual to create as many distinct accounts as he or she wants. Require a hardware device per account and you now need an investment for every distinct account. Google wants every user to be identifiable across all sites/services using the same ID.

For the last time Google!

[Sydin]

I really mean it: I don't want to have to login to the internet. You keep trying to get me to do it with Chrome, so I switched from that, but now you're going to badger me about this for my phone, too? Sometimes I want to surf anonymously. Sometimes I don't want Site X and Site Y knowing that I'm the same person logging into both. And I can say for certain that all the time, I don't want to be tracked by you so you can present me with more "targeted ads" to give me a better user experience. Let's not even get into what happens if my phone gets stolen, and suddenly all my consolidated information is at some stranger's fingertips. There are far, FAR too many problems with centralized authentication, and I'm really getting sick of Google trying to force it down my throat.

Do not RTFA

[Night64]

Would you all PLEASE do not RTFA this time? I cannot, for the love of God, read another whiny story about "I'm Matt Honan and I was fucked in the ass (metaforically speaking) by a 15 year old". And if this post get slashdotted, Wired will post another 100 stories about that. So please DNTRFA!

Re:Biometrics

[Nerdfest]

You should always use 2 factor authentication, with biometrics and with what is being suggested here. You know, both something you can lose, and something you can forget.

how about REMOVING ARBITRARY PASSWORD LIMITS!

[Umuri]

Relevant xkcd
But seriously, how many times have you seen minimum (ok, can see a point here) or maximum (WTF) limits on a password length? Or requirements of what it can or cannot contain.

Is there any reasonable excuse for why a password must not contain certain characters, besides breaking poorly made scripts? I mean password security 101 says they'll hash it anyway, so why should it matter?

Re:how about REMOVING ARBITRARY PASSWORD LIMITS!

[codemaster2b]

Yes there is a reasonable excuse why it must contain certain minimum lengths and characters. It has to do with exponents. For fun I've written several types of password hash crackers in the past. The best way to defeat a brute-force password cracker is to expand the keyspace.

A good password today at a minimum 8 characters, and can consist of any one of 95 keypresses on the keyboard. 95^8 = 6.6e15 combinations.
If you don't use special characters, that 8 character password is only 62^8 = 2.2^14 combinations.
If you don't use numbers, that 8 character password is only 52^8 = 5.3^13 combinations.
And If you don't even bother to change cases, that 8 character password is 26^8 = 2.1e11 combinations.

Those numbers don't tell the real story. Old Windows XP passwords could be cracked on average 2011 hardware at about 10 million (1e7) combinations / second. The "good" password above would be cracked in 21 years (max). No special characters would be cracked in 8 months. No numbers in 2 months. And single-case only in 6 hours.

But today we have GPU password cracking, and much better hardware. A Radeon 5770 could crack the "good password", 8 characters long in a mere 28 hours. That was hardware from 2 years ago.

Common sense, FTW

[Okian Warrior]

Suppose you have a "smart" credit card in the form of one of those "credit card" calculators. Keypad + simple LCD display.

When you use the card, you type a pin/password on the card, which then generates a new single-use credit card number which attaches to your account, encrypts it with your personal key, and sends it off when the card is swiped.

If you lose your card, no one else has access since they don't have your PIN(*). No one can snoop the data since it's encrypted en-route. No one can copy your card since the information never leaves the card and anyway the number is single-use only.

Suppose this same card is in the form of a thumb drive. It identifies as a security token, and will encode and decode on request, but will not under any circumstance let the keys out. All calculations are done on the device, the code is fixed and cannot be changed, and requires a PIN once when the computer boots.

You don't have to worry about viruses or data leaks.

Since it is a thumb drive, you can add public keys with abandon. To do business with any company, you send them a token encoded with your private key and their public key, they send you information using their private key and your public key. The card will require the operator to enter the PIN to store a new corporate key (for convenience). All the public keys for your credit cards, store cards, bank access, &c are stored in one place.

Suppose the device is blue-tooth enabled. Now you don't need to hunt around for a USB port - you can enter your pin and hit "accept" when you want to make a purchase at a store - after the LCD display shows you the purchase price.

If you lose your device you get a new one. Go to the bank, show identification, get a new card with the bank's keys on it. If the bank keeps a backup of your stored corporate keys, they can download the keys along with your new private key at their secure site.

The important bit for all of this is a) the calculations are done on the device not an external computer, and b) storage for multiple corporate keys (visa, MC, Pennys, Wal-Mart, &c) in one device.

This has been obvious for years, it's just one of those cases where the entrenched monopoly has no incentive to fix the problem.

(*) Even assuming a thief can hack the physical card, it takes credit card theft away from "millions of cards were exposed by computer hack" to "lots of work required to hack a single card". And your bank will invalidate your old private key when the new card is issued.