Is this some sort of a convenience feature hidden behind a paywall to justify purchasing their subscriptions or does generating the codes actually cost money? If the latter is the case, how do applications like Aegis do it free of cost?
its best to keep passwords and totp separate
Nowadays many services just force MFA on you in some way, and stuff like SMS or email verification is shitty, insecure and inconvenient. TOTP is then the next best thing, and having it integrated with a password manager is fine as long as you are aware of the risks.
mfa is good tho. i think its almost good its forced on normies. sms/email 2fa is garbage however, and google authenticator is very bad for privacy. for most people (assuming you have a phone), is it really that much to have a separate password-locked 2fa totp app? they exist for both phone and desktop, and can be synced (although personally i cant see that being a good idea). totp is basically a hidden password hashed with the current time, so if the hidden password is leaked it can be replicated at any time. if your main computer gets compromised or keylogged, then accessing one 6-digit code is worthless unless used in the next 30s, unlike the totp secrets
I think its almost good its forced on normies
Sure, but ideally there should be an option to opt out for most things. Sometimes you get forced into it for the dumbest stuff.
And, like, don’t forget that everyone’s use case is different. For most people, Google account is really important. But I might use it as a burner account and not care about its security almost at all. Then MFA is only annoying.
is it really that much to have a separate password-locked 2fa totp app
I use PC for most of what I do (both work and leisure). There’s a major difference between having TOTP autofilled and having to find my phone, pick it up, unlock it, find the authenticator app, click/find the correct authenticator, then typing in the code.
Again, depends on the account, but for the vast majority of my accounts it’s complete overkill.
Doesn’t help that many providers don’t properly remember devices/logins. If I had to sign into a given account once a year I wouldn’t care much. But when it’s monthly or more (for many, many accounts), and half of them don’t even remember the device and ask for OTP every time, it truly is a pain.
if your main computer gets compromised or keylogged, then accessing one 6-digit code is worthless unless used in the next 30s, unlike the totp secrets
Realistically if my main computer gets compromised I’m royally fucked either way. I try to be safe in general, know what I’m doing for the most part (definitely more than your average user, though that’s probably true about literally everyone on Lemmy) and in like 20 years since I had access to a computer I never had an issue, so I’m probably doing something right (and I used to do way, way dumber stuff on much less secure systems than one has today).
But yeah, you’re right I probably shouldn’t have OTP in my password manager at least for my primary email. I’m sure I’ll get to fix that someday…
i agree with your point about different use cases.
Not sure I agree.
Yes, your password manager is a single point of failure this way. But I would argue any non-SMS based TOTP is better than none, so if a higher percentage of people use it the easy way instead of not at all I consider that a win.
After all, you would still not only need the password but also access to the manager which technically is more than one factor.
Naaah, in “Multiple factor Authentication”, the word “factor” is just to look cool… The original MfA meant “Multiple fields Authentication”. (I’ll see myself out)
i dont think i know what youre talking about?.. but factor refers to one of three types: something you know (passwords), have (totp or yubikey), or are (biometrics). having 2 passwords is almost the same as having one password, since they are the same factor. thats why having totp linked to your password manager is basically like having 2 passwords. it almost defeats the point
I made a joke, basically saying that if you use a single device, it’s “Multiple fields authentication” as opposed to “multiple factors authentication”.
ohh yeah i get it good one
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I use KeePassXC which doesn’t charge a cent for this.
Keepassxc doesn’t
It’s a convenience feature upsell, the calculations happen locally.
That’s just an excuse to charge more. TOTP is standardized in RFC 6238 and cost nothing to generate.
On top of that, it takes no more than 5 lines of Python code to generate
The “Product Led Growth” crowd doesn’t care about charging based on what things cost. They only care about what the buyer will tolerate. The “value metric” that pisses me off the most is per user pricing when the service doesn’t incur costs per user.
The “value metric” that pisses me off the most is per user pricing when the service doesn’t incur costs per user.
Even in cases where there is a cost per user (or there is at least a correlation in cost increase with number of users) the price is usually many orders of magnitude larger than the cost increase.
Keepassxc and macpass do it for free
bitwarden does it behind a convenience fee, fair enough, its a worth while service to support. If you self host, you have no such barriers.
$10/yr to support BitWarden and get a few convenience features is something I’m cool with.
If your password manager is charging for that get a new manager as almost all managers will do that for free
It’s completely open and it’s just another fee you can pay. Switch to KeePass if you want restriction-free password management.
If you like Bitwarden you might wanna search for a publicly hosted Vaultwarden instance that accepts user registrations. You’ll get Bitwarden with its full premium feature set.
Not 100% on board with that idea. There is no guarantee the server is not tampered. Unless you know and trust the host, Bitwarden premium is very affordable and Vaultwarden can be hosted even on free VPS. Or you can even use a KeePass fork (I’m not up to date as to what the best ones are) with any form of online sync.
KeePassXC (windows/macos/linux), KeePassDX (android) are what I use. I sync the databases between 4 devices with Syncthing.
Thanks for the info! I’m a happy Bitwarden subscriber, but it’s good to know.
What’s the best free VPS? I pay about $15 per year for mine… But its good enough to run woocommerce/wordpress for a small store
Well, yes, I agree on that. Just wanted to name another option in case that’s okay for the OP. I host my own instance on my private NAS and I absolutely love it. :)
If you are willing to host something yourself you might as well selfhost Nextcloud and use KeePass(XC) with it.
Please don’t use your password manager for TOTP tokens. It is called two factor authentication for a reason.
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Except Steam and banks that are stubborn and insist to use a custom implementation rather a standard one.
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The Danish ID solution actually offers the possibility to use FIDO U2F. Unfortunately the requirements were to provide the option and not how to provide it, so you have to purchase their “special” key since you can’t use your own Yubikey even though it’s the same hardware…
I feel like this needs to be pushed back on a little bit. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. Having a password manager that provides good passwords and TOTP as a second factor is way better than only using a password.
Sure, it would be nice if you had two devices. A phone password manager and a usb security key, but for many people it is inconvenient to carry a security key to plug when you need it. I’d rather that person keep a TOTP on their phone in that case rather than not use two factor due to inconvenience.
Your concern is mostly about “what if someone steals your phone or computer” then they have both factors. However, your average person isn’t getting hacked by someone they know, and random local thieves aren’t typically sophisticated enough to do more than re-sell stolen computer equipment. The average person is getting hacked by some dude in a foreign country who dumped a password database or phished a password. That person isn’t stealing your device so the fact that both factors are in the same place doesn’t really mean anything.
Also, most password managers are locked by biometrics these days. In that case, it isn’t really the app that is the second factor. It is your fingerprint or face. Someone may steal your device, but if they can’t get into the password manager that needs a password and biometrics then they don’t have anything.
You should not assume your password manager is unhackable.
That’s my main point. Perfect is an enemy of good indeed, but I feel that doing things properly the first time is a good idea in general, especially when it as easy as using a different app for your TOTP tokens. It’s a low hanging fruit really.
That’s why I had my fingertips removed and stored in a secure location. If your fingers are still attached to your body, that’s just like 1FA
Just wait until you learn that if you are going to use removed finger-tips then they don’t necessarily have to be your own…
Uhhhh … c/unethicalLPT?
The reason that 2fa exists is not to protect you if someone gets their hands on your device. It’s to protect you if your “static” credentials leaked from a providers’ database or you otherwise got phished. Using a password manager to handle mfa is totally reasonable.
It is reasonable yet subpar under a threat model where you do not trust any single provider, which is a model I find appropriate most of the time.
There are other ways your password database could leak. For example you could use a weak password, or it could leak in some way, and if you store it on a cloud service that also got compromised you’d be fucked without a compromised device.
But yeah, all these are much less likely.
If you are really worried about the password manager being an intrusion vector, secure your vault with a hardware key.
Agree. That’s another reason to always suggest KeePass!
You can be paranoid and split the two, but most people(99%) will be perfectly fine with KeePass.
I do that mainly for accounts I don’t care about but either way it does increase security as compared to just a password in many cases… I just wish that some of these services didn’t require TOTP
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It’s free on KeePass, use syncthing to have personal libre cloud.
