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by woodrowbarlow
1941 days ago
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that is true, but that is virtually always because of password re-use. if you use a password manager and randomly-generated passwords unique to each service, this is almost entirely mitigated. with a single third party login for all services, though, if that third party account gets compromised the results are catastrophic. |
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The same can be said of the password manager account. It's turtles all the way down.
The fact that we rely on users to not reuse passwords, the fact that using a password manager is all but required to get reasonable security despite being far from convenient, these indicate a major failure to serve the actual needs of users, in my view.
Users have head space for 1-3 strong passwords. They can tolerate carrying maybe 1 security token with them. They can tolerate a little bit of security setup when using a new device for the first time, and they can tolerate a touch or fingerprint scan at authentication time. All authentication systems can and should operate within these parameters.
No web site or app outside of an authentication provider should ever present a user a screen asking them to pick a strong password that they have never used before. That is asking a user to do something that the human brain cannot reasonably do for 99% of the population. At best, a browser or password manager will intervene at that point and pick the password for them. At worst, the user ignores the warning and picks the same password they use for everything else.