Mastodawn

Mario Restuccia Jun 7

Here's the nightmare scenario for anyone who uses a password manager, 2FA, and other modern online security tools.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/06/ive-locked-myself-out-of-my-digital-life/

I've locked myself out of my digital life

Imagine… Last night, lightning struck our house and burned it down. I escaped wearing only my nightclothes. In an instant, everything was vaporised. Laptop? Cinders. Phone? Ashes. Home server? A smouldering wreck. Yubikey? A charred chunk of gristle. This presents something of a problem. In order to recover my digital life, I need to be able to log in to things. This means I need to know my u…

Terence Eden’s Blog

Amin Hollon 🏳Jun 7

Hmm, this has got me considering—if I locked a copy of my password vault in an encrypted tomb (https://dyne.org/tomb/), I could then spread copies of that tomb around to various places I could get access back (with a memorized password or something), then put a copy of the keyfile on a USB drive given to a friend (or multiple friends). That way I don't have to get access to the friend's USB whenever I update or add a password, I just update the tomb. The friend also wouldn't have access to the tomb, just the key.

Probably not foolproof, but feels like it addresses a number of points on the threat model?

Tomb | Tomb: The Linux Crypto Undertaker

Tomb is a minimalistic command line tool based on Linux dm-crypt and LUKS, trusted by hackers since 2007.

Tomb

Amin Hollon 🏳Jun 7

Great post, by the way, that was a fun and thought-provoking read. :)

Amin Hollon 🏳Jun 7

Ah, another note—a key file can also be hidden inside an ordinary-looking photo with steganography. That way if someone who shouldn't got ahold of the USB drive, they wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary, it would just look like a directory full of family photos or something.

Or, keys can be printed out as QR codes for a more physical backup.

@amin
Doesn't KeePass encrypt the database by default
You could do that, and put it in a directory which you sync via Syncthing with a bunch of people whom you trust and can reach IRL who have all done the same thing and put their password database inside it.
If you lose your database, just get it from one of your friends.
@Edent

Amin Hollon 🏳Jun 8

I mean, yeah, the databases are encrypted. Tombs feel like an easy way to separate the key from the encryption, but I guess it's not totally necessary.

Elias Probst Jun 8

@amin to solve the problem of having to either remember a single passphrase or to put it into the single hand of a trusted person, use SSS (Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme) to distribute shards of the passphrase amongst multiple people, so e.g. 3 out of 5 have to provide theirs to unlock your tomb.

#Paperback has built a whole concept around this idea, so a paper with instructions & a QR code can be archived by your trusted ones:
https://github.com/cyphar/paperback

GitHub - cyphar/paperback: Paper backup generator suitable for long-term storage.

Paper backup generator suitable for long-term storage. - cyphar/paperback

GitHub

Terence Eden Jun 8

@eliasp @amin
I wrote about the problems of SSS at https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/07/how-does-shamirs-secret-sharing-deal-with-the-murder-on-the-orient-express-problem/

How does Shamir's Secret Sharing deal with the Murder on the Orient Express Problem?

Shamir's Secret Sharing (henceforth "SSS") is clever. Far too clever for most people to understand - but let's give it a go. Suppose you have a super-secure password for a Really Important Thing. Th15IsMyP4s5w0rd!123 You can remember this - because you're awesome. But it might be a good idea to share the password with someone else, just in case. Of course, if you share it with one person,…

Terence Eden’s Blog

Elias Probst Jun 8

@Edent sure, a known weakness of SSS, but not so much a technical, but more of a social one.

This could be mitigated by a second layer, where e.g. key-shards are once again split into shards with 2/2 or 2/3 requirements and distributed amongst individuals, that are the least likely to conspire.

But since this influences also the risk of the 1st layer, that's quite tough to model and most likely not worth the hassle for a personal vault.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Terence Eden Jun 8

@eliasp yes. All weaknesses eventually boil down to social problems.

Chris Ahchay Jun 7

@Edent I went through this about ten years ago when I had to change my number (stalky reasons) - locked myself out of several accounts I will never see again.

Apple, particularly, make it next to impossible to regain access to your accounts if you've lost devices

adingbatponder Jun 7

@Edent This problem would perhaps be helped by having a very very secure but ultra small (to be cheap) fire-proof and disaster-proof box, inside another one, for one ubikey that serves as the 2FA for your password manager and a couple of email accounts, and which is tested on the 1st April every year. I was wondering what sort of boxes would suit.

Terence Eden Jun 7

@adingbatponder that doesn't get around the problem though. What if that box is destroyed or stolen?
I'm talking about how you can bootstrap from nothing.

adingbatponder Jun 7

@Edent Oh. Sorry. My understanding of the article was that once you have 2FA then you cannot. At least I cannot see how.

Moe Lassus Jun 7

@Edent thanks for sharing this. I’m going to make this a priority to figure out right away!

Chip Butty Jun 7

@Edent don't worry. This will all be solved by a digital ID in a wallet on your phone /s

Dаn̈ıel Раršlow 🥧Jun 7

This is why you need the Guy Pearce in Memento approach, and tattoo all your secrets onto your corporeal self

Khleedril Jun 7

@Edent I get the impression that you are a clever enough person that you've worked out a solution to this for yourself, and if your house really did burn down you'd get your life back soon enough.

Terence Eden Jun 7

@khleedril I regret to inform you that I am *not* that smart!

Khleedril Jun 7

@Edent Copy the bootstrap data you need to several USB drives encrypted with a long password you can easily remember ('icanrememBerthispassword,' for example), and scatter the drives around a bit. It doesn't actually matter who you give them to. And yeh, you'll need a scheme in place to refresh them from time to time.

Terence Eden Jun 7

@khleedril so you're basically saying it is impossible.

Khleedril Jun 7

@Edent I am not.

Terence Eden Jun 7

@khleedril people can't remember long passwords - especially ones they rarely use - that's why they use a manager in the first place!

Khleedril Jun 7

@Edent
If your life depends on one, you can remember it. I do. It probably wouldn't be too bad if you used the same one as the master password for the manager.

Angela Scholder Jun 7

@khleedril @Edent I'm specifically not using the same PW for the extra online storage space I've just added as is used for the KeePass database in it.

@Edent @khleedril For the way companies have trained us to make passwords (random string of numbers punctuation and lower and uppercase letters) this is true.

But remembering it's the last sentence of your favourite book would just mean you need to pop to the library (you don't even need a library membership as you're not going to borrow the book) to look up the password.

AlgoCompSynth by znmeb 🇺🇦Jun 7

@Edent I have come dangerously close to that on occasion. I'm not quite ready to drop back to stuffing cash in a mattress, but I fear that's a distinct possibility.

Fazal Majid Jun 7

@Edent I remember that post, it was a great one. As I commented then, one risk factor most people don't seem to consider is that *you* could have a stroke and be incapable of remembering your passwords, or even be capable of using a computer any more.

The best solution I have been able to come up with is to put all my digital credentials on a pair of Apricorn ASK3-NXC-4GB USB drives with a passcode keypad (I used to use a pair of IronKey S200, but they are no longer supported on newer macOS because the unlock is in software that suffers from bitrot, hence using a solution with an OS-independent physical unlock), have one in the safe, rotate them regularly, and have either a dead-man's switch to release the code to my spouse or give it in a sealed envelope to the lawyer who administers my will.

@Edent fun read, slightly terrifying - i'd never have considered the risk of losing physical documentation as well as digital stuff

digital recovery is something i thought about a bit in march this year when i nearly locked myself out of every single account i have https://www.akpain.net/blog/disaster-recovery/

though i haven't really thought about it since then and there are definitely still things that need addressing soooo.... thanks for the reminder? haha

On Diaster Recovery

Stupid shutdowns and lucky lockouts

abi abi

@Edent This is pretty scary. I'm really sorry you are living through this calamity.

The only thing that might make sense is a combination safe buried under ground in the garden. Assuming it was waterproof that would likely survive most any disaster. But OUCH!

So now I'm thinking can I create a small server and equipment underground on my lot that could connect via wifi to my network? Then back up into that? Crazy talk.

@Edent great, a reminder of just how unprepared I am. Thanks!

I guess my next couple of weekend projects might be writing this stuff down for my own sanity and the potential future benefit of other people...

Angela Scholder Jun 7

@Edent Actually, you had me thinking.
Our KeePass database is on a NAS. Yes, with backups in a safe, and in online storage.
But, it needs an extra place.....

Angela Scholder Jun 7

@Edent Sorted!
An extra online storage account with a password we can remember which only has the KeePass database synchonised daily.

Archnemysis Jun 7

@Edent Thinking through the 3 risks at the end, I think the last risk is the most disastrous but least likely. The first 2 are more likely, but damage can be contained. A bad guy might be able to gain access to some of my accounts, even a credit card or bank account. But if I isolate accounts, there would be damage just not total. Personally, I lean more towards protecting against the first 2 and less 3rd, but that’s because I live a comfortable middle class lifestyle and devalue that 3rd risk.

Kev Quirk Jun 7

@Edent my wife and I have a family Bitwarden account, and while I’ve never considered a scenario as extreme as this, I have considered the “house burning down”. What I did was load but an additional Yubikey and loaded it onto both our BW accounts. That Yubikey lives at my mum’s house. So even in your scenario, we can still get to our vaults.

Juho Mäntysalo Jun 8

What a horror.

It should be noted that you can easily get to the same situation even if you're not THAT privacy-savvy, or if your state allows easier recovery of identity.

That so many of internet services (and even irl-ones!) don't know their customers (in effect leaving the onus of maintaining the relationship to the individual) is a problem that doesn't limit itself to catastrophes like lightning strikes. That's a lot of spoons to spend on the regular!

Juho Mäntysalo Jun 8

I'll also use the opportunity to mention that asking your mother's maiden name as a security question (even as 1/5) is inane seeing how most communities operate.

There are way too many people (and even more who can easily find out) who know the answers to questions like who's my oldest cousin, the name of my childhood pet, or which school I went to.

(Which reminds me of the discussion of Netflix not understanding why "family" doesn't mean the same as "living in the same address".)

@Edent the way I deal with it is have all my data, including my password manager, backed up to the cloud.

The credentials for the backup are stored on several devices, some are with relatives in a different country, some are always with me. All of them are encrypted with a password I remember.

Ben Nuttall Jun 8

@Edent Missing word here "it can be intercepted or the SIM can [be] swapped to one controlled by an attacker" glad your house is still standing

Terence Eden Jun 8

@bennuttall Ta! Fixed.

@Edent That‘s why I wrote https://calc.pw: To be able to (re-)generate passwords on a fresh device without needing a password database, backup or whatever. That‘s enough to get access to the password recovery tool No. 1: the primary e-mail account.

calc.pw - The Password Calculator

Secure passwords. The number of your user accounts increases daily. A separate password is required for each account. Using passwords more than once is insecure. Password databases are stored in the cloud or require complex backups. calc.pw offers an alternative: From a single master password

Terence Eden Jun 8

@yahe I'm glad your app has been audited to make sure it is 100% trustworthy.

What happens if I need to change one of my passwords? Do I have to remember how many times it has been rotated?

@Edent As it‘s open source in two different implementations and the crypto scheme is available in plain text as well, anyone‘s free to review the code or have their own implementation.

If password rotations are necessary then you‘ll need a different information for that, yes. It doesn’t have to be a counter, though.

Feel free to not like the approach.

Terence Eden Jun 8

@yahe I do not like the approach.
It doesn't deal with rotation.
What happens if a site has limitations on length or characters?
If the master password is compromised, everything is vulnerable.

I appreciate what you're trying to do - but password security is too important to leave to a hobby project.

@Edent If the master password is compromised you rotate it and with that all corresponding passwords - just as you‘d do when your password database is compromised. (Though, given the average user, loss of the password database seems more likely.)

Password limitations are a smaller issue than you seem to think.

Given how many people use KeePassXC and similar still-maintained forks of KeePass, hobby projects don’t seem to be an issue for password security per se.

David Geary Jun 9

@Edent Have you considered keeping a copy of your password manager's credentials and the corresponding 2FA secret with your wills at your local solicitors?

As a bonus, you can then let family members know it's there, so they can access your online accounts in the event that you both share the same fate as your FIDO2 key.