Comment by o8r3oFTZPE | Hacker News Reader

Comment by o8r3oFTZPE | Hacker News Reader

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Who created that "problem we are trying to solve". It wasn't the user.

If the solution to the "problem" is giving increasingly more personal information to a tech company, that's not a great solution, IMO. Arguably, from the user's perspective, it's creating a new problem.

Most users are not going to purchase YubiKeys. It's not a matter of whether I use one, what I am concerned about is what other users are being coaxed into doing.

There are many problems with "authentication methods" but the one I'm referring to is giving escalating amounts of personal information to tech companies, even if it's under the guise "for the purpose of authentication" or argued to be a fair exchange for "free services". Obviously tech companies love "authenticating" users as it signals "real" ad targets.

The "tech" industry is riddled with conflicts of interest. That is a problem they are not even attempting to solve. Perhaps regulation is going to solve it for them.

> Who created that "problem we are trying to solve". It wasn't the user.

Sure it was, if you didn't want this problem you'd be fine with remaining anonymous and receiving only services that can be granted anonymously. I understand reading Hacker News doesn't require an account, and yet you've got one and are writing replies. So yes, you created the problem.

Now, Hacker News went with 1970s "password" authentication. Maybe you're good at memorising a separate long random password for each site, and so this doesn't really leak any information it's just data. Lots of users seem to provide the names of pets, favourite sports teams, cultural icons, it's a bit of a mish-mash but certainly information of a sort.

In contrast, even though you keep insisting otherwise, Security Keys don't give "escalating amounts of personal information to tech companies" but instead no information at all, just that useful answer to the question, "Are you still you?".

I think you misunderstood. I am not insisting anything about security keys (physical tokens) requiring escalating amounts of personal information. I am referring to "two-factor authentication" as it is promoted by "tech" companies (give us your mobile number so you can use our website or "increase your security"). Call me a tinfoil hat if you like, but I am skeptical,^1 when the "solution" to "the problem of authentication" is giving ever-increasing amounts of information to Big Tech.

Regardless of intent, it seems very much in the spirit of trying to solve a complex problem by adding more complexity, a common theme I see in "tech".

There is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of "multi-factor authentication" (as I recall some customer-facing organisations were using physical tokens long before "Web 2.0") however in practice this concept is being (ab)used by web-based "tech" companies whose businesses rely on mining personal data. The fortuitous result for them being intake of more data/information relating to the lives of users, the obvious examples being email addresses and mobile phone numbers.

1. This is not an issue I came up with in a vacuum. It is shared by others. I once heard an "expert" interviewed on the subject of privacy describe exactly this issue.

> I think you misunderstood. I am not insisting anything about security keys

And yet here's a thread in which you did exactly that.

"In contrast, even though you keep insisting otherwise, Security Keys don't give "escalating amounts of personal information to tech companies" but instead no information at all, just that useful answer to the question, "Are you still you?"."

No, I am responding to the above assertion that I have insisted security keys give esacalating amounts of personal information to "tech" companies.

This is incorrect. Most users do not have physical security tokens. But "tech" companies promote authentication without using physical tokens: 2FA using a mobile number.

What I am "insisting" is that "two-factor authentication" as promoted by tech campanies ("give us your mobile number because ...") has resulted in giving increasing amounts of personal information to tech companies. It has been misused; Facebook and Twitter were both caught using phone numbers for advertising purposes. There was recently a massive leak of something like 550 million Facebook accounts, many including telephone numbers. How many of those numbers were submitted to Facebook under the belief they were needed for "authentication" and "security". I am also suggesting that this "multi-factor authentication" could potentially increase to more than two factors. Thus, users would be giving increasing amounts of personal information to "tech" companies "for the purposes of authentication". That creates additional risk and, as we have seen, the information has in fact been misused. This is not an idea I came up with; others have stated it publicly.

Whilst you're clearly much more comfortable with your "Facebook are bad" line, the problem is that this isn't the thread about how Facebook are good actually, this thread was about your completely bogus claim about Security Keys:

> This ignores the possibility that the company selling the solution could itself easily defeat the solution.

I'm sure you really are worried about how "Facebook are bad", and you feel like you need to insert that into many conversations about other things, but "Facebook are bad" is irrelevant here.

You made a bogus claim about Security Keys. These bogus claims help to validate people's feeling that they're helpless and, eh, they might as well put up with "Facebook are bad" because evidently there isn't anything they can really do about it.

So your problem is, which is more important, to take every opportunity to surface the message you care about "Facebook are bad" in contexts where it wasn't actually relevant, or to accept that hey, actually you're wrong about a lot of things, and some of those things actually reduce the threat from Facebook ? I can't help you make that choice.

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