I'm Tired of Logging In
Posted by Adam Wiggins on February 21, 2008 at 06:58 PM
Client certificates - it's like authorized_keys for your web browser. I've wanted this for ages. Passwords are so lame - insecure, hard to remember, just annoying all around. Even worse is the whole process of logging in; particularly on banks and other financial websites where they make you go through a multi-page wizard. Asymmetric key cryo is what it's all about.
I look forward to the day when we all keep our private keys on a usb dongle, such that we can sit down at any computer and have instant access to all of the sites and services that we use.
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check out ironkey/@thinkgeek. hardware crypto + USB dongle
Ironkey looks cool - but Windows-only at the moment, so not an option for me.
I actually picked up a little device made by Aladdin quite a few years ago. It was a $40 usb dongle which did asymmetric key crypto, though no fancy browser plugins or anything. Supposedly there were open source Linux drivers, but I could never get them to work.
Still, it's clear that this technology does exist - someone just needs to package it in a way that it can be accessible to a broad audience. If Ironkey can get Mac drivers going, they might be on the way to doing just that.
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