81
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] cacheson@piefed.social 6 points 3 weeks ago

One time pads or bust motherfuckers.

Not sure if you're being facetious, but one time pads are for encryption, not authentication. They're also impractical (and overkill) for most purposes.

[-] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 weeks ago

OTP 2FA Codes are one time pads

[-] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

They're actually not, they're algorithmically derived state machines, most are public key hashes of secrets concatenated to the current time in seconds from the epoch.

Ideally they would be otp, but that would also be obnoxious.

[-] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 weeks ago

Oh, interesting. Okay. In that case, they are totally misusing the term.

[-] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Yeah, I think it's because that's where the model originated, and that's basically what it's supposed to be, but having almost everyone synchronized on time gives us a new trick because we can just generate 'keys' and have them expire, so even if you manage to get one by force, it's only valid a short window. Instead of one time pad they often call them one time passwords.

You need extended access to a generator over time to be able to use it, which gives the user a chance to report it for invalidation.

Not perfect, but it does its job fine especially compared to passwords or sms (where you're at the mercy of the minimum wage kid down at the mall's Verizon kiosk).

[-] cacheson@piefed.social 5 points 3 weeks ago

Ah, gotcha. Those are one-time passwords. Same acronym, so it's easy to confuse them.

But yeah, I agree that everything should use (T)OTP for two-factor authentication, instead of SMS messages. The later mainly provides a false sense of security and presents only a minor hurdle for attackers to overcome.

this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
81 points (98.8% liked)

Technology

59174 readers
2113 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS