Paquete encima de sus contraseñas con Passpack
26 de abril de 2007 · por David Bradley
El Kelly de Tara de passpack.com comentó recientemente respecto a nuestro contraseñas para los científicos poste. Para dibujar su atención a una novela acerqúese a almacenar sus contraseñas.
Ahora, tenemos todos estados con los dolores de almacenar y el recuperación de las contraseñas para todos esos millones de sitios de red sociales, de nuestro vario MySpace y de YouTube considera, todo de Digg a las necesidades de HotDiggedy una combinación única del username y de la contraseña.
Con nuestras contraseñas para los científicos poste, le dimos una idea en cómo crear las contraseñas fuertes, que ms Kelly ampliada amablemente encendido ofreciendo la sugerencia que más bien que utilice un solo fórmula químico que usted agrega un par de palabras, de modo que, por ejemplo su passphrase pudo convertirse en dientes de las putrefacciones C6H12O6 o algo levemente más secreta el significado de el cual solamente usted estaría enterado.
Desafortunadamente, esto todavía sale abierto de par en par del problema de cómo guardar lengüetas en todas estas contraseñas, fuerte como puede ser que sean y recuerden se asocia qué username con el cual. Hay porciones de en línea y los encargados fuera de línea de la contraseña disponibles y casi cada uno que sé como una llave del almacenaje del USB contraseña protegen dentro de cuál podrían almacenar una lista principal de sus contraseñas.
¿Pero, qué si usted se olvida de su llave del USB cuando usted están viajando, o no puede para tener acceso a un sitio de almacenaje particular debido a una incompatibilidad del browser en su biblioteca o cybercafe?
Passpack.com se parece tener la respuesta. Usted se coloca con el sitio para libre (aunque está solamente en beta, así que no confía en él el 100% justo con todo), crea un user-id, un paso de la conexión, y listo una llave del embalaje. Solamente se modifica su user-id se envía al sitio a la conexión, su contraseña para no enviarlo de nuevo a Passpack en un estado expuesto. Transferencia directa de los disparadores de la conexión entonces de su cartera cifrada de la contraseña.
Una escritura que funciona en la ventana del browswer (sin el Info enviado de nuevo a passpack de esta etapa hacia adelante) entonces utiliza su llave del embalaje para desempaquetar la caja en su ventana de browser. Esto da le y le solamente (a menos que alguien está mirando con fijeza sobre su hombro) acceso a su colección de los usernames y de las contraseñas, cada combinación asociada al URL apropiado del Web site.
Hasta ahora, tan bueno.
Intentándolo un par de épocas, él es muy fácil de instalar y uso. When you first login you see an array of black squares which are part of a unique anti-phishing mechanism associated with a phrase you get to choose that only you can ever see and that verifies that you are on the passpack system not a spoofed site. “It combines a custom Welcome message, IP recognition and hand-eye training,” Ms Kelly says.
However, I had a seriously nagging feeling that there is something missing from passpack - namely automatic login to your various websites. So, I dropped Tara at Passpack’s head office a line to see what she had to say about this fundamental issue and she came straight back to me, to tell me that this very feature - an auto-login tool - with a Smart Button - that does not rely on plugins is just about to be signed off and released (you can watc a demo here - http://passpack.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/passpack-auto-login-no-plugin-needed/). They’re also adding inline help to the application to make it easier to use. She also told me that, “We have a few small interface improvements almost ready to roll, as well as a few updates that handle some cosmetic issues in Mac Safari.”
The Smart Button is not yet implemented (it has been security validated, but needs some cosmetic fixes), so check back here again soon and I’ll update via the comments on this post so you get to hear as soon as it goes live. As it stands, Passpack just looks like a clever password storage facility with double encryption and a neat line in anti phishing bait. Once the Smart Button is enabled, however, it will steam ahead of the pack.
If you start using Passpack and then change your mind about it, you can always take your data with you. “We support complete export of your data,” Tara told me, “as well as encrypted back up copies.” The developers obviously want users to stay with them because they like the site not simply because of inertia or being locked in.
You can sign up for passpack.com here. Before you ask, no they aren’t paying me to promote the product (10% commission for a free product is $0, after all). It just seems to be a unique approach to a perennial problem that could help you.


















6 responses so far ↓
Marco Barulli // Apr 26, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Hi,
you might also be interested in trying Clipperz.
Clipperz is an online password manager with some uncommon features:
- automatic (direct) login to websites
- offline version
- …
To configure automated logins you just need to launch a bookmarklet from the page containing the login form.
And you are not limited to storing passwords, but any valuable textual information.
http://beta.clipperz.com
Please feel free to compare the security level of Clipperz with Passapack’s. (AES 256 instead of 128, SHA2-256 instead of SHA-1 or MD5, a proper PRNG, …). We are also particularly proud of the authentication process based on Stanford SRP protocol. And you need just one password (not two as in Passpack).
It’s free and completely anonymous.
The source code is freely available from Clipperz site for security review and the core crypto functions has been released under a BSD license.
Thanks,
Marco
Clipperz co-founder
David Bradley // Apr 26, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Hi Marco
Thanks for alerting us to this password manager. Is it also browser and OS independent?
Marco Barulli // Apr 26, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Clipperz runs smoothly with every OS and on Firefox, IE and Opera. Safari support coming very soon.
Thanks,
Marco
Francesco (PassPack) // Apr 27, 2007 at 1:18 am
@David
Thanks for this article. It’s nicely done.
@Marco
Let me reply to your comments on security, and if I oversimplify, please understand that I’m trying to make this post intelligible for non-crypto readers as well. So bear with me.
-1-
AES 128bit is suggested by US Federal Government for Secret documents. AES 256bit takes that further, but it is utterly useless for our scope. PassPack’s AES implementation supports 192bit and 256bit keys but we prefer to use 128bit. Why? Simple. In order to actually obtain a pure 256bit derived key, the user has to write a pass phrase of more then 50 characters. Have you ever met a user that does this? It’s pure theory.
Just to make the point. I played with the password strength tester that you recently implemented. It reaches it’s maximum strength reading at 128bit (not 256). Don’t worry, it’s not an oversight on your part, it’s just reasonable: there’s no need for more. [wink]
-2-
I agree that SHA-1, if used directly, is not so secure because the Chinese have found a way to reverse it. That’s why we don’t use SHA-1 directly, rather we combine it with xxTEA to create a hash. Here’s the formula:
SHA1Hash(xxTEAencrypt(text, key)).substring(0, 32)
That’s not reversible.
-3-
Tom Wu’s SRP technology is great, and so is PRNG, and generation of entropy is exciting, but honestly - it’s overkill.
In general, it’s important to remember that PassPack (and Clipperz) need to run in the browser. And browsers speak Javascript. And Javascript is slow. Every choice needs to be carefully weighed to find the right balance between security and speed. That doesn’t mean we choose speed over security - it means we choose balance.
Here’s an example. My PassPack account contains overs 200 entries, each with a User ID, Password, link, some tags and even notes. Yet, my 3 year old laptop can encrypt my entire pack and save it in 16 seconds (4 of which are added as “downtime” by PassPack itself to avoid stressing the browser). Clipperz employees 6 seconds to encrypt a single card. That’s a substantial difference.
-4-
One quick note on PassPack’s Packing Key - it’s what enables us to implement our anti-phishing welcome message. That’s just not possible with a single user/pass combination.
Security isn’t only about what algorithms you choose.
Ciao,
Francesco Sullo
PassPack Software Architect
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