I have two concerns with this thought, while at the same time intrigued
by it.
How will this prevent man in the middle attacks, either at the users
location, the server location, or even on the compromised server itself
where the attacker is just gathering data. This is the same concerns we
face now.
Second is regarding the example just made with "bickn...@foo.com" and
super...@foo.com. Does this not require the end user to have virtually
endless number of email addresses if this method would be implemented
across all authenticated websites, compounded by numerous devices
(iPads, Smartphones, personal laptop, work laptop, etc..)
Again I think this conversation is on the right track, but ultimately a
form of two factor authentication method such as pub/priv, Wikid, etc..
is needed.
On 6/20/12 6:28 PM, Leo Bicknell wrote:
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 "bickn...@foo.com" and submit it. If
I want another a quick trip to the menu creates "super...@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.
