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Thanks for the response. The way I use passwords is way safer than Keyri, so not having the option limits those extra security conscious users (you have certainly heard of hardware OTP devices like Yubikeys). Sure, you are likely right that on-average, Keyri-like approach is more secure (just like biometrics), and that's definitely where your potential for business lies (with companies looking to increase that average).

As I said in a comment below, the fact that companies "can afford" is not the same as "it's worth it" to them, and per-seat pricing is "robbing" those customers when there is no increased value for the customer or increased cost to the provider: make a product that's valuable to be per-seat, and customers will pay for it (sure, some who can't afford it won't, but that's not lost revenue anyway)!

Finally, with OpenID, I can set up my own identity provider, or use a privacy conscious one. Unfortunately, almost no web sites accept pure OpenID (they did for a while ~10 years ago), but instead only a limited set of "large" providers. However, a company can easily decide to support arbitrary OpenID providers instead of just Google SSO or Keyri, and then users can choose how much they care about their privacy and use an appropriate provider.

In short, web sites are not implementing OpenID authentication, but instead somewhat-custom SSO through Google/Facebook that mostly uses OpenID Connect (Oauth) protocol for authorization (in a way, it could be any other protocol that preserves the security properties of OpenID Connect).




> The way I use passwords is way safer than Keyri

I don't see how that is possible.

(1) Keyri private keys cannot be stolen other than through smartphone malware, which is exceedingly rare, while password managers and older USB keys are vulnerable to desktop malware, which is much more common - both credential stealers and, in the case of older generations of Yubikeys, keyloggers. Hardware OTP devices are additionally vulnerable man-in-the-middle phishing attacks (though the HN audience is generally savvy enough to not fall for phishing) - https://github.com/kgretzky/evilginx2.

(2) As long as you rely on passwords and TOTP, you're relying on the shared secret paradigm and trusting the relying party to handle your credentials properly. If the relying party's credential store is breached and the credentials were improperly stored (common even today), your credentials (both your password and OTP secrets) can be used by a bad actor to access your account. Public key systems like Keyri and FIDO2 substantially reduce this risk.

> As I said in a comment below, the fact that companies "can afford" is not the same as "it's worth it" to them

Please see my response below regarding account sharing. In short, eliminating account sharing in order to enforce TOS is an opportunity to (a) improve security (b) improve UX in cases where provisioning multiple users access to one account is warranted.

> Finally, with OpenID, I can set up my own identity provider, or use a privacy conscious one.

As you note, the vast majority of web services don't support arbitrary identity providers or use privacy conscious ones. History has proven that people don't set up their own identity provider. Additionally, the universe of "privacy conscious" OIDC providers is limited (non-existent?).


> ... per-seat pricing is "robbing" those customers when there is no increased value for the customer or increased cost to the provider

A good example of a company doing that is Zendesk: as an engineer, I want to make a comment on a support ticket once every 3-6 months, but Zendesk would require my company to pay for another user license to do that. That's not value provided nor is there a cost for them in having another non-read-only account. They are attempting to rob their customers instead.


Eliminating account sharing does not preclude offering the ability to share seats. Zendesk could very well offer their customers a way to provision users like you a limited account or some other mechanism that allows commenting on a support ticket every now and then. For example, Netflix offers a mechanism to formally invite members of your household to your account for free, which is the scope of "account sharing" that they allow in their TOS.

Either way, it's in Zendesk's and Netflix's best interest to make sure that a given account is used only by the person they were told would use it when the account was purchased, both from a business perspective and a security perspective. How they can address the needs of their customers while enforcing their stated TOS with a mechanism like Keyri is up to them.




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