Techdirt Podcast Episode 92: Passwords Suck; What's Next?

from the correct-horse-battery-staple dept

Data breaches that expose passwords are pretty much a fact of life at this point -- and the effects are multiplied by the fact that many, many people reuse passwords no matter how much they know they shouldn't. As such, there's a big push to move to password managers, two-factor authentication, and even biometrics -- because the simple fact is that the password sucks. This week, we're discussing what if anything will succeed in replacing it.

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Filed Under: encryption, passwords, podcast, privacy, security


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  • identicon
    Stephen, 27 Sep 2016 @ 7:08pm

    No mention of SQRL?

    No love for Steve Gibson's upcoming SQRL password-less authentication?

    https://www.grc.com/sqrl/sqrl.htm

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    nasch (profile), 28 Sep 2016 @ 5:59pm

    Randomness

    You seem to indicate the randomness of a (master) password is very important, even going so far as to claim that a non-random passphrase that you choose yourself "can be figured out", but my understanding is length is far more important than anything else, including randomness. Isn't it true that a meaningful 60 character phrase that isn't at all random (but also not a common string like a popular saying or some such) is much harder for a computer to crack than 30 characters of randomly chosen words?

    If anyone's interested, LastPass is very similar to Dashlane from Mike's description. It also supports fingerprint authentication on Android - don't know if Dashlane does. One difference is if you want to synchronize between devices with Dashlane it's $40 a year, but only $12 for LastPass.

    Now listen to the podcast and count how many times someone says "like". ;-)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 29 Sep 2016 @ 6:32pm

    Dashlane ad...

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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