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Comment Implant with a 666-bit keypair (Score 1) 77

You could implant a cryptographic radio transponder with a 666-bit keypair in people's forehead or right hand. The plus side is that it'd combine the positive aspects of a "something you have" transponder with biometrics' resistance to loss or theft. The minus side is protests from Christians who think it's the mark of the Beast mentioned in the revelation to John of Patmos.

* Actual theft, not copying.

Submission + - Call Centre raided after DoS to UK phone network operators

product_bucket writes: The UK's Information Commissioner has (with help from Ofcom) raided [ico.org.uk] offices of a currently anonymous Manchester call centre after network operators complained of disruptions to their networks. Whilst making unsolicited marketing calls of any type has been illegal for some time, The action was only justified after approximately 7,000 reports of complaints were traced back to the call centre operator.

Nuisance calls in the the UK are once again on the rise [ico.org.uk] after government agencies have been at odds over who is responsible for what type of call is being made. With no less than three different organisations tasked with dealing with five [ico.org.uk] different forms of telemarketing, unscrupulous companies are making the most of this risky business opportunity.

Comment Type 4 UUIDs (Score 1) 251

The combination of time (the UUID can be time boxed), activity (a successful login nullifies the UUID), and possession (control of the account's registered email address)

My concern is how to keep someone between your server and the subscriber's MUA from compromising "possession", or how to establish "possession" the first time.

Assuming the coders didn't decide to come up with their own GUID generation algorithm that is easily reverse engineered and seeded

I just use a PRNG. If I need it as a GUID, I request 120 random bits and format them as a type 4 UUID. Is that good enough?

Comment Re:Responses (Score 1) 251

Or to put it shorter: "Passwords and password reset codes go in separate fields."

I've implemented a similar system that keeps the hashed password and the one-time-use code in separate fields of the user table. I just wondered if there was any good way to protect the "login ticket" (the mail containing the one-time-use code) from interception in the 24 hours between when it is sent and the expiration time that we store.

Comment It's to confirm control of your e-mail address (Score 1) 251

In the message the portal not only assigned my username, but it also listed a temporary password that's good for 30 days! All of this transmitted cleartext.

This use of a one-time, soon-expiring autogenerated password is common in flows that include the step "To reset your password, confirm your e-mail address" or "To opt in to e-mail notifications, confirm your e-mail address". Is there an alternative, other than to either A. mail all customers a second factor of authentication used to reset a password, or B. require all customers to subscribe to mobile phone service with unlimited texting to receive resets through SMS?

Comment Security theater questions (Score 2) 251

Send an e-mail with a verification URL

How do you encrypt this unique verification URL on its way to the subscriber to your service?

security questions

I'm sorry; I misread this as "security theater questions". See "The Curse of the Secret Question" by Bruce Schneier and "Wish-It-Was Two Factor" by Alex Papadimoulis.

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