Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

This works the same way as any other cloud based password manager but less secure. Most work like this:

- Store a AES-256 encrypted database blob in the cloud

- Hash your master password using a slow/expensive hashing algorithm, and use the resulting hash for encryption/decryption.

- Offer 2F options to restrict who can requested the encrypted database blob/test the master password.

- Ask for the master password, try to decrypt the header of the blob, if it works return the blob.

This solution stores an AES-256 encrypted database in public, therefore cannot offer 2F, and is only protected by the quality of your private key (and I cannot even see which hashing algorithm they're using).

Someone unironically said in this thread they "never trusted LastPass" (implying this is safer) but technologically you don't specifically need to trust LastPass.

Regardless of if you're using DropBox, Google Drive, or LastPass for Cloud Storage the primitives are the same: AES-256 Encrypted Blob, Cloud Protected Storage (w/2F options), and a hashed master password.

If you want to roll your own LastPass, use KeePass and DropBox with 2F. Not this.

> Someone unironically said in this thread they "never trusted LastPass" (implying this is safer somehow?!) but technologically you don't specifically need to.

There's something to be said about perception. A big corporation making money off a centralized service that uses the money to employ people to get things right? Seems sketchy. Some people on GitHub with a Chrome extension that can read and write all data on every web page you visit and intentionally syncs your passwords with ... AES-CTR with no integrity protection??? please tell me I'm misreading this ... to some random altcoin? Sounds great, these people must have my best interests in mind, hack the planet, fight the power, &c. &c.

The question is, how do we change these perceptions?

> AES-CTR with no integrity protection???

Seems to be the case, with non-random nonces... If I read the documentation of the used library correctly, it starts the counter always with 1 by default. Game over?

Oh my gosh are they doing nonce reuse for a password manager? Amazing. Better not change your passwords ever!

And never have one of your passwords leaked.

Yes we need to change the encryption algorithm. This is just an proof-of-concept that is still being worked on.

1. Please say that before people use it. Nothing at https://github.com/BlockProject/b-lock or https://blockproject.io/ says "proof of concept" or "you shouldn't use this yet."

2. You haven't proved the concept if you're not handling your key material right - among other things, if I'm still reading right, it looks like you're using the (asymmetric) wallet private key as the (symmetric) encryption key for passwords? Is this in any way safe? (Traditionally, the overwhelming consensus of the cryptography community is no.) If you need to generate new keys and unique nonces and verify IVs, you need to figure out how and where you're storing a key before you've successfully proved the concept.

We have improved our encryption algorithm, please review it at our more recent post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17394807 reply

The largest danger is not the key getting hacked IMO, it's the service that you are backing up to going under.

If you had a yahoo email account twenty years ago, and emailed yourself a encrypted password vault, and decided to try to check that email today, how confident are you that it would be there?

What about in 10 more years?

Most services, including LastPass let you export your database. In LastPass's case you have the choice of CSV or their own format for "LastPass Pocket" (designed for USB Sticks) or any SQLite compatible tool.

Plus what happens if this Blockchain provider goes under? Unless you have the last version of the chain stored or know someone personally who does, then you're just out of luck. There's no service to even help you find peers to locate a working copy.

I feel like I sign up for websites often enough that I need to access my password vault more often than once every 20 years. When I do that, I can just store it in the most convenient service for me at the time - even sending it to my current email provider would work.

Also, storing my passwords publicly for 20-30 years is probably an antifeature: if you stored encrypted passwords with a state-of-the-art algorithm from 1998, and it were publicly accessible the whole time, how confident are you that it can't be brute-forced right now for $100 of public cloud?

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