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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

That's a desktop TOTP application. Now not only do they have to have their computer with them to log into their Google account from their phone, but they have to have 2 security keys on the account to remove their phone number from it, and all their backups are physically separated from them, so unless they bring their backup codes with them when they travel, if they lose their key, they're boned.

And all this for what real additional security?

If you want to nerd out and get your security key to do pet tricks like handling your TOTP secrets, I do not have a problem with that. But please don't tell ordinary users they're wrong when they don't do that.

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I have Yubico Authenticator installed on my phone and my desktops/laptops.

The android app is a direct fork of google authenticator and has nearly identical UX.

I tap/plug my key to either of them to get a token.

If you want to make the argument TOTP via hardware token is overkill for most users, that is totally fair. On that note though, there is no point in having hardware token via U2F.

Security is ahout the weakest links. All I am saying is anyone going through the trouble to set up U2F as this guide suggests, might as well spend the extra 10 seconds to store their TOTP secret on the key as well, vs exposing it on the phone.

I assume someone that has a hardware token is getting it for a reason: To have assurances an attacker can't log in as them without that token.

You keep saying that, and it keeps being false. The point of U2F isn't to put your secrets in super-secure hardware so you can walk around feeling like you have an HSM hanging from your keychain like a bad-ass. The point of U2F is to defeat phishing attacks, which is how people actually get compromised.

It would not be much of a stretch to say that this U2F guide was written deliberately as a corrective to this mindset.

I disagree with regards to your risk analysis.

Your cost/benefit considerations prioritize relatively miniscule security improvements without considering usability costs or diminishing returns. While we're at it, why don't we just use one-time pads? After all, those are impervious to any form of cryptanalysis.

The risk profile for most users does not require a hardware-based auth factor if it results in real world usability sacrifices that end in either 1) accidental misuse or 2) gradual disuse.

You're optimizing for someone compromising the device, great. But the point is that if that risk if on the table, all of this work is essentially meaningless anyway.

"if that risk if on the table, all of this work is essentially meaningless anyway"

I can't agree with this strongly enough. If someone's willing and able to hack your iPhone, then you need more help than a random art major writing a yubikey howto can give you.

Just an offshoot thought, but some random art major writing one of these guides giving a bird's eye overview of the entire process is something most businesses should be able to do themselves. But they don't.

I am only focusing on this bit because it is a few extra seconds of work if you are going to have a hardware token anyway. Why expose your TOTP secret if you don't have to?

I like knowing that if the phones and laptops of someone on my team were compromised, we have some damage control.

With the approach Yubico Authenticator takes an attacker with remote access to your Android Phone and a keylogger on your laptop still can't log in as you remotely.

Granted with more effort that combo can burn you in other ways, but TOTP on a hardware token still gives you some very real reduction in attack surface with no real added user burden. Why not?

Three people have answered that for you, and you keep ignoring them. We're protecting Google accounts, not TOTP secrets. We all understand that you can keep a TOTP secret more secure than a Google account. But since nobody cares about the security of a TOTP secret for a compromised Google account, I'm not sure why we're still talking about this.

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