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Comment by swombat | Hacker News Reader

Am I glad that I use LastPass and have a different, 12-character password for every service?

Why, yes, yes, I am. I've now changed my LinkedIn password, too, just in case.

What's kept me away from such solutions are these questions: How can you trust one service with all your passwords? What if their configuration has a vulnerability?

Use open-source tools such as SHA1-Pass. The passwords it generates can be recreated with openssl and any other standard crypto library.

Edit: I wrote SHA1-Pass, so I'm biased, but I know what you mean about having trust issues with closed-source password tools. That's one of the reasons I wrote it.

I use open source tools such as "pwgen", "emacs" and "gpg". Open up the encrypted file in the editor, type your pass phrase if you haven't this session, cut and paste, close file. The built-in keyboard navigability makes this faster than everything but the in-browser form filling.

You might consider renaming it. I've been looking for several minutes and can't find it via that name.

Is it this: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/natty/man1/sha1pass.1.ht... I don't see how you would use this the same way you'd use the other tools mentioned here. I can imagine a way, but it's no where near as convenient and still has it's own major usability problems.

I've always wondered this about services like lastpass.

What stops being hacked / keyloggered and them exfiltrating all your long, complex passwords?

I use 1Password, rather than lastpass. On that system, your password file is stored locally by default, so their isn't a centralized password store to attack. If you do syncing of passwords between machines, you keep an encrypted password file in your dropbox account.

Nothing, really. However, I trust the LastPass guys to keep their shit secure as much as I trust myself to keep my own system secure.

After all, if my own system is compromised, I just get a lot of hassle. If LastPass ever gets hacked and leaks their passwords, they lose their business overnight. That's pretty good motivation for them to keep on top of their stuff.

I used to use 1Passwd, which stored the passwords in a local file, and that could be said to be marginally more secure, except that it generally uses something like iCloud or Dropbox to sync the passwords, so there's still a single point of failure... The main reason I moved away from 1Password was that they gave me a shitty response when I asked them if they were going to support Chrome. I decided at that point that I didn't want to give them my money anymore, and so I didn't upgrade to 1Password 3.

The big difference between "hosted service" and "encrypted file in the cloud" is that the hosted service has, by definition, to store the key next to the lock to be practical.

The key for your encrypted file stays in your head (and/or in your wallet), so even a full-on total breach of Dropbox/iCloud, your key is safe, and 8 million rounds of 265-bit AES and a good password (my current KeePass settings) is still unbreakable[1].

1: Unless (perhaps) you have the attention of certain governments. And they always have the option of using a $5 wrench on you, anyway.

Why can't the hosted service use an "encrypted file in the cloud" as its implementation? As long as it requires client-side code to do the decryption, the key stays in your head alone.

I believe this is exactly how LastPass is implemented.

Ugh, you're right. Well, then there's no discernible difference between LastPass and KeePass with the DB on Dropbox.

As far as I know, LastPass does not "store the key next to the lock."[1] The browser extension encrypts/decrypts locally. If you use your password file through the web site you're still downloading your encrypted DB from them and encrypting/decrypting locally (whether with the extension, or I believe they also have a pure JS implementation).

[1] Or so they say. I've never MITMed their SSL, and their software is not open source AFAIK. This is not to say someone couldn't e.g. distribute a trojaned version of their browser extensions. If you poke around the developer(s) have at least revealed the encryption method for the your DB so you can verify how it is encrypted for yourself, which is a good sign if nothing else.

> except that it generally uses something like iCloud or Dropbox to sync the passwords, so there's still a single point of failure

No. This is the strength of two-factor authentication, something you know, and something you have. If someone gets your 1Password keyfile, it's useless without your decrypting password.

KeePass works well too - open source, offline solution that has an "Autotype" function. I actually only run into passwords that are a pain on mobile devices. Now that my Android phone has no keyboard but tons of power, that's becoming more and more significant.

I use keepass too. I keep my database in dropbox and use the android dropbox and keepass clients on my android. Logging into an app or website involves opening dropbox, clicking on the database[1], entering my password, choosing the site, and clicking on "copy password to clipboard." It's a few extra steps, but it's not that much of a hassle.

[1] I find this easier than opening keepass and selecting the database from dropbox for some reason that might be as simple as dropbox having an easier to spot icon.

You can also use the favorite feature on Dropbox to keep a fresh copy of the database on your phone and have KeePassDroid remember that location. Then your flow is 1) open KeePassDroid 2) enter password 3) select site 4) copy/paste

One more KeePass user here (actually KeePassX). But I'm using it only for not my own passwords, provided by others and so on.

For my personal ones I'm keeping few algorithms in my brains. I'm using resource type (website/some server/device) and name (e.g. domain/model) as variables and after few steps in my head I always have different password for each kind of service.

You know there's a KeePass app for Android right? I sync my KeePass db between Windows, Linux, and my Android phone using DropBox. Works great.

The enter (long alphanumeric and symbols) password/copy/paste/switch window was a little clunky in Android 2.2. Little better in ICS, so need to get back to using this.

I think it's a risk with a solution like this, but much less of a risk of having to remember all these passwords myself (a practice which tends to devolve to re-using passwords).

This is why I use 1password and not LastPass - the encrypted password file is stored locally - optionally in Dropbox, which is what enables moble and remote (http online through Dropbox) to work.

Works excellently!

LastPass encrypts your passwords using your master password as (at least part of) the key. This means that they do decryption of passwords client-side as well. The entire password file is not stored locally but they had an intrusion of some sort a number of months back which demonstrated that they have a pretty good system set up along with quite a bit of monitoring. Truecrypt in dropbox is obviously a good choice if you're super paranoid but after seeing LastPass respond to security really well and it having an overall pretty simple UX, I don't have any reason to not recommend it.

The LastPass UX is anything but simple

I use KeePass right now synced with Dropbox - what keeps me up at night is the fact that if the bad guys got my password file today, there could turn out to be a vulnerability in it discovered years from now that could allow them to get my password.

At least you're going to have years to go through your database and change all your passwords.

Then use 1Password - it's much nicer designed and you don't have to trust their servers too much

I'm even happier I don't have a LinkedIn account.

I've been tempted to delete mine several times recently. Looks like now is the moment.

You're free to hit "delete" on linkedin, but there's a very high likelihood that it will only mean "hide my profile". Anyone who got your user/pass would probably be able to reinstantiate your account and do anything to it they wanted.

agree; don't just delete, suicidemachine.org

I took the step of markedly decreasing the information on my current legit profile. It includes my name and general title, but no job history. Public disclosures of connections, etc., are highly limited.

Having a fictional LinkedIn account can be amusing.

I'm worried in a few years LastPass could become a target, and now instead of someone having a password that 'could' be shared among your multiple accounts, you have now given the complete keys to the city by listing all of your logons great and small in a central repository.

This central repository then becomes a very appealing target.

I say this as a LastPass user, as I think it is the best of the current offerings, but I'm uncertain how to shield this huge central list. I wish it had multiple logon PW so that you could at least segment the risk and reduce the time the high PW is used to when you really need it.

It saddens me that every, single, time this topic comes up, HackerNews, of all places, displays an immense lack of knowledge of current password storage applications, how they work and what value they bring.

I think it's really humorous that people feel safe putting an encrypted file in something like Dropbox, but don't trust LastPass (who are doing the exact same thing, everything is local, client side encryption). Especially when you're missing out on all of the benefits of browser integration.

Please, take a whole 3 minutes and do a tiny bit of research. Your future self will thank you when people like swombat and myself get to laugh at LinkedIn, change our passwords and never think about it again.

I think the difference you're missing is that LastPass offers the OnlineVault option.

I much prefer the security of being in control of my file, and having its online option controlled by someone else (Dropbox); and logging into Dropbox to then see my passwords 'online' on the go.

If Lastpass.com is compromised, the attacker can MitM compromise my credentials. If 1Password.com is compromised, that is not the case. (Yes, if Dropbox is compromised, they could capture my dropbox credentials, but it would be more difficult for them to then capture my 1password credentials)

Ref: LastPass Online Vault: http://helpdesk.lastpass.com/full.php 1Password Anywhere: http://help.agile.ws/1Password3/1passwordanywhere.html Services I use, and why: http://www.mikeschroll.com/blog/2011/12/07/services-i-use-an...

>I much prefer the security of being in control of my file, and having its online option controlled by someone else (Dropbox); and logging into Dropbox to then see my passwords 'online' on the go.

You can't even do that. You have to install a local client. Download the file, open it in your new client, edit it, manually reupload it. If you don't want to use the on-web LastPass vault, then don't, but it's still doing local decryption and you can still used the signed Chrome extensions to carry out ops if you don't trust LastPass.com proper.

>If Lastpass.com is compromised, the attacker can MitM compromise my credentials.

Which part of "local, client-side encryption" is confusing?

edit: 1PassAnywhere is the exact same thing as what LastPass is doing with it's LastPass.com-served Vault.

edit2: There's even multifactor auth available for it and the Online Vault feature.

I apologise for my immense lack of knowledge of current password storage applications (i'm not a programmer and come here for the other stuff), but what is the benefit of these services (lastpass etc)? This is a genuine question.

It seems to me that instead of having several passwords in my head (i can remember random long strings of characters pretty well, and have a heirachy of randomness/longness depending on what I care about), I only have to remember one. But if that one's compromised, aren't all the rest then available?

Reminds me of the bit in hitchhikers guide to the galaxy (life the universe and everything i think) where passwords and biometrics etc had become really difficult and secure, so a datacube thing was created to store them all. Which was then found by a character before hilarity ensued.

thanks

If someone has access to:

1. Your physical machine, or the LastPass/Dropbox server.

2. Your master password

3. (optionally) a second-factor auth source

Then yes, they have access to all your passwords. But this is vastly superior to having one password that alone compromised grants access to all of your accounts, right?

I mean, the most secure way imaginable would be perfect biometric signatures, or humans smart enough that they could perform asymmetric encryption in their heads to sign challenges in a verifiable manner. Outside of that, this is decentish.

You could use a text file in a Truecrypt volume with keys that are stored on separate jumpdrives (but what if someone compromises a machine that you plug those drives into), etc, etc.

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