LinkedIn password database compromised

Wed Jun 20 22:28:02 UTC 2012

In a message written on Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 03:05:17PM -0700, Aaron C. de Bruyn wrote:
> You're right.  Multiple accounts is unpossible in every way except
> prompting for usernames and passwords in the way we do it now.
> The whole ssh-having-multiple-identities thing is a concept that could
> never be applied in the browser in any sort of user-friendly way.
> </sarcasm>

Aw come on guys, that's really not hard, and code is already in the
browsers to do it.

If you have SSL client certs and go to a web site which accepts
multiple domains you get a prompt, "Would you like to use identity
A or identity B."  Power users could create more than one identity
(just like more than one SSH key).  Browsers could even generate
them behind the scenes for the user "create new account at foo.com"
tells the browser to generate "bicknell at foo.com" and submit it.  If
I want another a quick trip to the menu creates "superman at foo.com"
and saves it.  When I go to log back in the web site would say "send
me your @foo.com" signed info.

Seriously, not that hard to do and make seemless for the user; it's all
UI work, and a very small amount of protocol (HTTP header probably)
update.

In a message written on Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 02:54:10PM -0700, Matthew Kaufman wrote:
> Yes. Those users who have a single computer with a single browser. For 
> anyone with a computer *and* a smartphone, however, there's a huge 
> missing piece. And it gets exponentially worse as the number of devices 
> multiplies.

Yeah, and no one has that problem with a password.

Ok, that was overly snarky.  However people have the same issue
with passwords today.  iCloud to sync them.  Dropbox and 1Password.
GoodNet.  Syncing certs is no worse than syncing passwords.

None of you have hit on the actual down side.  You can't (easily) log in
from your friends computer, or a computer at the library due to lack of
key material.  I can think of at least four or five solutions, but
that's the only "hard" problem here.

This has always failed in the past because SSL certs have been tied to
_Identity_ (show me your drivers license to get one).  SSH keys are NOT,
you create them at will, which is why they work.  You could basically
coopt SSL client certs to do this with nearly zero code provided people
were willing to give up on the identity part of X.509, which is
basically worthless anyway.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
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