SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The latest NIST (United States National Institute for Standards and Technology) guidelines on password policies recommend a minimum of 8 characters. Perhaps more interesting is what they recommend against. They recommend against allowing password hints, requiring the password to contain certain characters (like numeric digits or upper-case characters), using knowledge-based authentication (e.g., what is your mother's maiden name?), using SMS (Short Message Service) for two-factor authentication, or expiring passwords after some amount of time. They also provide recommendations on how password data should be stored.
[Ed. Note: Contrary to common practice, I would advocate reading the entire linked article so we can have an informed discussion on the many recommendations in the proposal. What has been your experience with password policies? Do the recommendations rectify problems you have seen? Is it reasonable to expect average users to follow the recommendations? What have they left out?]
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday August 19 2016, @08:55PM
Really looking for advice on a better two-factor. I'm already convinced it's a good thing. Currently use it on nearly everything (that has it) and have never been locked out. Also, you can do a 30+ character password and two-factor. You don't have to choose.
It isn't used for every login (typically). It's used for the first login from an unrecognized device or to do something drastic like change your email address. The idea being that a password (hash) resides on the server which can be stolen en mass. The two-factor is something the user has that cannot be stolen during a server breach. SMS is especially nice, imo, because you get a text when someone unauthorized attempts to login to one of your accounts with your correct password. A very scary event. An air-gapped dongle can't do that. You would never know that one of your passwords has been somehow stolen.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @11:41PM
OATH (which is different from OAuth) has a few algorithms that they created, TOTP and HOTP are useful for 2FA and ORCA can help prevent certain problems with its challenge-response structure.
SMS is a terrible idea for 2FA according to most experts, even when it was proposed, but caught on anyway as it is a good technique to make users give you their phone numbers. In the world of tracking people, the phone number is the most valuable, especially now with everyone having cell phones.