Oh, they are. I keep telling people to WRITE DOWN YOUR PASSWORDS, and NEVER use same password on two sites. They dont listen. Its a lot easier to just remember 1-4 variations of a password and use that than carry around a password notebook. And they think themselves safe.
Honestly, the best solution for this is a password manager and not a notebook. The average person is not going to come up with strong passwords on their own for every website. A password manager once setup can be more convenient than whatever they were doing before, so if you can get people to use one they’ll be in much better shape.
I’m thinking most people shouldnt use passwords at all anymore. They are a huge point of failure because people are people. We need something else to be the norm. How can we make hardware keys or something the norm for logging in? Have everyone carry around a bankcard-like thing that fit into every computer where people need credentials. Would’nt that be safer while still being accessible and convenient?
My understanding is that this is basically what the whole passkeys initiative is. I have sort of mixed feelings on it. Hardware tokens for logging in is great, but I worry about people stealing the hardware tokens from others. Mostly people are going to use their phones, though, which should have some other mechanism of authentication.
1984@lemmy.today 1 year ago
There are yubikeys you can use to login, but it requires installing stuff on each computer you want to access. Nothing is simpler then passwords. :)
Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
FIDO2 can be used for passwordless log in on a few sites, but the site and browser need to support the feature (no extra installation). It sets a pin on the yubikey and when entered the key does all the authentication. It will likely be seen more as Apple “passkeys” gain more popularity, Windows and Android already have native support but don’t market as hard.
emptyother@programming.dev 1 year ago
Nothing is simpler than passwords. But we want something thats both simple and safe. Even for lazy people, tech-unsawy people, and people with bad memory.
What if every pc came with a jubikey-ish reader and every website supported a browser api for it? Probably not jubikey, but something that fit in a wallet like bank cards do. Wouldn’t it be both safer and simpler than passwords? It would take some time to turn around of course but the same was probably the case for https, 2fa, ipv6, and tpm’s.
Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
Those are called smart cards. Traditional smart cards needed centralized management of credentials, but FIDO2 smart cards exist that work like the keys. The reason tokens are more typically USB-based (or NFC) is every PC has USB, but most don’t have smart card readers.
Chobbes@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Oh yeah… Definitely good IPv6 support everywhere. That really turned around, and we’re not dragging our feet on implementing IPv6 at all 🥲.