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.

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?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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. :)

I used a yubikey for a while, they are alright, but I could only use it for logging on to a computer, not for logging into specific sites. Even though I guess that could be solved with a password manager integration.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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 (but also was an open tech so that anyone can implement and sell cards). 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 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 2 points 1 year ago

It would take some time to turn around of course but the same was probably the case for https, 2fa, ipv6, and tpm’s.

Oh yeah... Definitely good IPv6 support everywhere. That really turned around, and we're not dragging our feet on implementing IPv6 at all 🥲.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 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.

[–] Chobbes 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

suggest something like this

use your favorite password but add the site to it

so your lemmy password would be ilovemypasswordLEMMY

and your reddit password would be ilovemypasswordREDDIT

that way they can keep their shitty password but it won't be the same password on every site and they have an easy way to remember what the proper password is for the site they want to accesss

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That's horrible if you ever become the victim of a targeted attack. Compromise your password once on some random shitty site and they've got access to everything.

It's also quite likely that incidents involving password dumps will have crackers filtering the dumped data looking for exactly passwords like this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This will create individual passwords which is better than the same password everywhere. If it's the least they will do, it's better than not.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I used to do this, but I realized that if someone got access to any of my passwords, they would easily spot the pattern.

In the end, using a password manager and generating large random passwords for each site was the best solution I found.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Still better than using the same password. My argument is if you can only convince them to do at least that, it's better than every site using the same password