Re: LinkedIn password database compromised

About six months ago I had a previous idea and I have found following: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnutls/ http://enigform.mozdev.org/ https://github.com/firegpg/firegpg/tree/master/content/GpgAuth http://gpgauth.org/ but none of them seems to be user friendly... 2012/6/20 Eugen Leitl

----- Forwarded message from Leo Bicknell -----

From: Leo Bicknell Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2012 12:43:44 -0700 To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: LinkedIn password database compromised Organization: United Federation of Planets

In a message written on Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 03:30:58PM -0400, AP NANOG wrote:

...

So the question falls back on how can we make things better?

Dump passwords.

The tech community went through this back in oh, 1990-1993 when folks were sniffing passwords with tcpdump and sysadmins were using Telnet. SSH was developed, and the problem was effectively solved.

If you want to give me access to your box, I send you my public key. In the clear. It doesn't matter if the hacker has it or not. When I want to log in I authenticate with my private key, and I'm in.

The leaks stop immediately. There's almost no value in a database of public keys, heck if you want one go download a PGP keyring now. I can use the same "password" (key) for every web site on the planet, web sites no longer need to enforce dumb rules (one letter, one number, one character your fingers can't type easily, minimum 273 characters).

SSL certificates could be used this way today.

SSH keys could be used this way today.

PGP keys could be used this way today.

What's missing? A pretty UI for the users. Apple, Mozilla, W3C, Microsoft IE developers and so on need to get their butts in gear and make a pretty UI to create personal key material, send the public key as part of a sign up form, import a key, and so on.

There is no way to make passwords "secure". We've spent 20 years trying, simply to fail in more spectacular ways each time. Death to traditional passwords, they have no place in a modern world.

-- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/

----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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