monko
@monko@lemmy.zip
- Comment on No, it can't be 8 months ago:
Better the devil you know than the Jesus you don’t
- Comment on Imagine a man - born, live, die, in a shoebox. His universe is a constant air-conditioned 8x13x5. What does that do to his perspective, values, science...? 9 months ago:
Perspective: shoebox.
Values: likely shoebox-based, or perhaps worshipping the ever-present AC
Science: science as a set of principles and methods for understanding the physical world wouldn’t be affected by a man or men in a shoebox.
- Comment on On Ash Wednesday many people look like they have an Iron Cross on their forehead. That's a bad look. 9 months ago:
I wasn’t really sure what you were talking about, so I looked them both up, and I think there’s a really good chance your optician gave you Nazi-tinted lenses by mistake.
- Comment on Passkeys might really kill passwords 9 months ago:
Gotcha, point taken. Ultimately, I think there needs to be a better identity proofing process overall. But that may rely on a total infrastructure overhaul, which seems unlikely.
- Comment on Passkeys might really kill passwords 9 months ago:
I get what you’re saying, but it’s not about getting locked out. It’s about other people using recovery methods to take over your account. Why would anyone try to break through durable public-key encryption when you can just phish a victim’s email account password?
And it’s not like real-time phishing for 2FA/MFA isn’t widespread—it’s just not automated to the same level as other methods. That said, two- or multi-factor is going to stop 99% of automated hacks. It’s the determined ones that I’m concerned about.
In regards to the Apple thing… Apple passwords can be reset using a recovery email. That means the security of the account leaves Apple’s ecosystem and relies on the email provider. So, if I’m a cybercriminal determined to hack your account, I start there.
Then, if you’ve got your keychain all set up, it’s time for a SIM swap. I clone your SIM or convince your mobile carrier to give me a SIM with your number. And even if recovery contacts and keys are alternatives, the use of SMS is problematic. If you really can turn it off, then I’m all for it. But if you can’t be sure, neither can I.
SMS is a very low-security option that is showing its age. It was never intended to be a secure verification method, yet it’s become incredibly popular due to its availability. Unfortuantely, telecom companies are simply not interested in upping their security.
All SIM swap protection is opt-in at this point. Verizon and the gang might wise up considering the lawsuits leveled at them by victims—many of whom lost millions in cryptocurrency due to the carriers’ negligence—but it’s not likely.
The point here isn’t that passkeys are bad for consumers. They’re convenient and about as secure as existing methods. The problem is that they’re being sold on average folks as a security upgrade even though they’re more of a sidegrade. PKI/FIDO already existed before the whole passkeys buzz did, and it had the same limitations. This is mostly just branding and implementation.
- Comment on Relationship advice? 9 months ago:
Mozel tov, may your love enemy forever crawl on his belly
- Comment on Passkeys might really kill passwords 9 months ago:
Depends on the provider in question. While Apple does allow SMS recovery, they also let you designate a trusted contact who can let you in as an alternative. This is obviously more convenient (if you have a friend or family member who can be available when you need them), but the situation with SMS vulnerabilities is still my main gripe.
- Comment on Passkeys might really kill passwords 9 months ago:
Totally! Browser and device fingerprinting are commonly used as first-line defenses against ATOs (account takeovers). There are other kinds of fingerprinting, like those that can learn about your installed hardware and drivers. Really, I’m learning about more fingerprinting methods all the time. That said, decisions are usually made based on several different information sources. These include variables like:
- GPS geolocation
- IP address/location
- Time of day
- Device ID, OS version, browser version, etc.
- Hardware profiles, including CPU and GPU architecture/drivers
- User behavior like mouse movement, typing patterns, and scrolling
- Whether the user is connecting via a known VPN IP address
- Cookies and extensions installed on the browser
There’s even some buzz around “behavioral biometrics” to identify individuals by how they type, but this is still not the sole method of identification. It’s mainly about flagging bots who don’t type like humans. However, learning how an individual types can help you determine if a subsequent visitor is the actual account owner or a bad actor.
In my experience, fingerprinting and adjacent identity proofs are rarely used in isolation. They’re often employed for step-up authentication. That means if something doesn’t match up, you get hit with a 2FA/MFA prompt.
Step-up can be pretty complex if you want it to be, though, with tons of cogs and gears in the background making real-time adjustments. Like you might not even realize you’ve been restricted during a session when you log in to your bank account, but once you try to make a transfer, you’ll get an MFA prompt. That’s the UX people in action, trying to minimize friction while maintaining security.
- Comment on Relationship advice? 9 months ago:
Sorry, I didn’t mean to poke at your anxieties! I was remarking on the arbitrary nature of the original post.
While you’re probably right that Eliezer is open to dating poly people, the post in question definitely appears to take a monogamous stance—that is, the question of whether to exchange one person for another of “higher value.”
Saying that you’re cool if
one my partners meets someone else they want to date at least as much as me, they do
is different from
I’d trade up if I found somebody 10%/25%/125% better than you
which is what the original post said.
- Comment on Relationship advice? 9 months ago:
If they meet someone they want to date more than you, why would they keep you around? You’re 75% less ideal. What are you bringing to the table, besides a lower average score for the polycule?
- Comment on Passkeys might really kill passwords 9 months ago:
I’d anticipate that most providers will do something similar. I just mentioned Apple because they’ve been pushing their “cloud backup” hard while still using SMS as a fallback.
I’d be interested to hear which provider, if any, has managed to get around the usual (vulnerable) channels for recovery.
- Comment on Passkeys might really kill passwords 9 months ago:
Not sure exactly what you’re getting at, but any authentication model must be designed with the assumption that a user can lose all their devices, passkeys included. That’s where fallbacks come into play. Even with Apple’s system, you can recover your keychain through iCloud Keychain escrow, which (according to their help page) uses SMS:
To recover your keychain through iCloud Keychain escrow, authenticate with your Apple ID on a new device, then respond to an SMS sent to a trusted phone number.
While SIM swaps aren’t super common, they’re not the most difficult attack. Passkeys are strong against direct attacks, for sure. But if I can reset your account using a text message sent to a device I control, is it really that much more secure?
- Comment on Relationship advice? 9 months ago:
Yudkowsky is well-known for his work in AI. He occasionally makes jokes, but it’s usually about AI (not relationships). I know that on his profile, it says something like “when I don’t use punctuation, it’s a joke,” akin to Reddit’s /s.
And yeah, he left off a period on the first post, though not the other two. But that said, he rarely makes multi-part jokes. It’s pretty clear to me, having read his posts and articles for a while, that he means this.
- Comment on Passkeys might really kill passwords 9 months ago:
Good talk, glad this is being discussed. Having worked adjacent to the authentication market, I have mixed feelings about it, though.
There are a few problems with passkeys, but the biggest one is that no matter what, you will always need a fallback. Yes, Apple promises a cloud redundancy so you can still log in even if you lose every device.
But that’s just Apple’s ecosystem. Which, for what its worth, is still evolving. So the passkey itself is phishing-resistant, but humans still aren’t. Fallbacks are always the weakest link, and the first target for bad actors. Email, or sometimes phone and SMS, are especially vulnerable.
Passkeys in their current iteration are “better” than passwords only in that they offload the fallback security to your email provider. Meanwhile, SIM swapping is relatively ready easy for a determined social engineer, and mobile carriers have minimal safeguards against it.
Usability? Great, better than knowledge-only authentication. Security? Not actually that much better as long as a parallel password, email, or SMS can be used as a recovery or fallback mechanism.
I’m not saying passkeys are bad, but I’m tired of the marketing overstating the security of the thing. Yes, it’s much more user-friendly. No one can remember reasonably complex passwords for all 100 of their online accounts. But selling this to the average consumer as a dramatic security upgrade, especially when so many still run passwords in parallel or fall back to exploitable channels, is deceptive at best.
- Comment on Relationship advice? 9 months ago:
I also choose this guy’s wife.
- Comment on Relationship advice? 9 months ago:
No, I know this dude’s deal, he is 100% for real (or trying to get a reaction, but that’s not satire on its own). His posts are often like this.
- Comment on Relationship advice? 9 months ago:
“Is this normal?”
No, it is not normal to state what percent-better-person you would leave your romantic partner for. It’s cynical and narcissistic.
What if your partner is in an accident that changes how they look or live? Now that they’re X% “less” than what you signed on for, you can just dip?
Like I get being upfront about stuff, but this is just transactional. It’s not about your commitment to another person, it’s about maximizing your return on investment.
- Comment on My pick is Rubberband Man by the Spinners. 9 months ago:
Born to Die by MDC
- Comment on What y'all doin 10 months ago:
In Español, my name is El Tigre Chino!
- Comment on Digested is a bodycam horror game about being ssssstuck on an island with a giant snake 10 months ago:
Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
inhales
Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
- Comment on Son And Bone Is A PS5 Exclusive First-Person Shooter Where You Kill Dinosaurs 10 months ago:
Can’t wait to play as John Son and Bone, saying his catchphrase: “It’s bonin’ time!”
- Comment on Nacon think there are “too many games” due to a Covid-era boom and player standards are going up 10 months ago:
Regardless of how terrible Nacon’s releases have been, it is true that there are an astounding number of mid-to-low quality titles flooding the PC market. I find filtering out the shovelware and endless deluge of EA titles to be too frustrating to bother with.
- Comment on Nexus Mods Vortex Mod Manager 1 year ago:
I’ve only used Vortex for NMS. I used MO2 for Skyrim and FO4. I don’t trust Vortex based on several bad experiences with it failing to install mods properly. It’s not reliable for certain use cases.
But regardless, enough of the most popular mods require manual installs that I would avoid it. I will be more favorable toward Vortex when mod tools systematize things.
- Comment on What Are You Playing This Week? September 04, 2023 edition 1 year ago:
I took Friday off work to play Starfield. Labor Day is nearly over. Back to the office tomorrow. Wish I had more time.
- Comment on What Are You Playing This Week? September 04, 2023 edition 1 year ago:
You beast. I’m desperately trying to relearn how to do this with all games myself. Best of luck.