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> This could easily become the norm, and should.

a stronger version of this IS the norm in many countries in Europe and large security conscious enterprises in the united states: an ID card issued that is also a high security module. it's better than your scheme because the ID card is also a computer that can respond to signing requests by a host computer and the private key doesn't leave the ID card, ever. governments issue and service tens to hundreds of millions of these cards a year.

A government-issued private key doesn't solve a main problem I'm concerned about. This needs to be something people can roll themselves. If you can't generate your own key, you're not secure.

You can't really "add" your key to a computer you don't trust, though. At best, it could destroy your USB device; at worst it could copy the contents out once you decrypt them.

This may be better than using one password for everything, but it's certainly not a panacea.

You could also catch BadUSB...

I think the panacea is dedicated hardware that can produce secure tokens (a signed message) without having to expose my key to the machine I plug into. But existing systems still require that level of trust; I'm doing no worse than someone with a password typing it into a possibly insecure machine.

Maybe the only answer is to air-gap the two devices and have the user input a secret code shown on the dongle. So you press the button, type the code on the website and log in that way.

Edit: Or maybe have two devices: one dumb flash storage and a device that actually computes your key. You press the "compute my key" button while the storage is connected to the keychain, then disconnect it from the keychain and connect it to the pc. Next time you connect it to the keychain, it's wiped before use and never ever read.

The device could instead have a display that displays a password, QR code, one-time-key, etc... and then you would scan it using a webcam or your phone (or type it manually).

Yeah, but that way it's displayed out in the open and you can make a mistake copying it. I think just exchanging usb flash storage sticks is preferable unless you sufficiently distrust the system you're on.

Maybe like a phone running a TOTP application?

I would have more trust in a separate device that has no networking capabilities.

What if it's in a "secure element" whose hardware and firmware make it provably incapable of divulging the private key?

I don't think that's possible... it reminds me of Apple saying that they can't decrypt your phone, but it is decrypted when you use it and many apps have permissions to transfer basically everything over the network (and Apple has root too).

>The problem is, no website or browser supports this kind of authentication

Aren't you describing Yubikeys? Which aren't widely supported, but IIRC are still supported by some websites and apps.

A Yubikey-like device is actually more secure than what the parent comment describes, because it prevents the private key from being viewed or copied by the host computer. You can think of it as a dedicated piece of hardware that runs something like ssh-agent, except over USB instead of a socket.

Though he says a lot of this is to avoid bulk cracking of your passwords. As with, say, OneLogin, your keychain provides a really easy way to bulk crack all your passwords - steal the key.

Wouldn't it be better to have your "infinity key" not reveal the secret data, using a smartcard or similar technology? That way if the computer that it's connected to is untrusted, no further damage could be done after removing the card. That + TLS client certificates stored on this card seem like it might not be the worst user experience, while still remaining reasonably secure. From my brief Googling it looks like the US military uses something like this.

Yes, RSA provides systems like this also I think. My solution is worse, but only uses commodity hardware and free software. When I can program my own smart card I will prefer that.

Firefox, which I think would be considered free software despite some of the shit they've been bundling, does client certificates, and I'd imagine one could program their own smartcard, although I don't know much about it.

The Basic Card is programmable: http://www.basiccard.com/

It's what the FSF Europe uses for their OpenPGP cards, that you get if you join their Fellowship.

EDIT: apparently, the programmable version doesn't come with RSA support :|

> We're all used to the physical metaphor of keys as security, and needing a physical key to get into things.

I was hoping this will go away in my lifetime.

> it's a little USB flash drive

Uhm, yes, but why not use something a little more convenient, like a smartwatch with NFC/wifi?

A flash drive that lives on my keychain would be much more convenient for me than a watch, which I dislike wearing.