Bloco acima de suas senhas com Passpack
Abril 26o, 2007 · por David Bradley
O Kelly de Tara de passpack.com comentou recentemente no nosso senhas para cientistas borne. Para extrair sua atenção a uma novela aproxime a armazenar suas senhas.
Agora, nós temos tudo sido com as dores de armazenar e recuperar senhas para todos aqueles milhões de locais de rede sociais, de nosso vário MySpace e de YouTube explica, tudo de Digg às necessidades de HotDiggedy uma combinação original do username e da senha.
Com nossas senhas para cientistas borne, nós demos-lhe uma idéia em como criar as senhas fortes, que o Kelly do ms expandiu amavelmente sobre oferecendo a sugestão que melhor que use uma única fórmula que química você adiciona um par das palavras, de modo que, por exemplo seu passphrase possa se transformar dentes ou algo dos rots C6H12O6 ligeiramente mais cryptic o meaning de que somente você estaria ciente.
Infelizmente, isto sae ainda largamente aberto do problema de como manter abas em todas estas senhas, forte como puderam ser e recordar que username é associado com que. Há uns lotes de em linha e os gerentes fora de linha da senha disponíveis e o quase todos que eu sei como uma chave do armazenamento do USB senha protegem dentro de qual poderiam armazenar uma lista mestra de suas senhas.
Mas, o que se você se esquecer de sua chave do USB quando você estão viajando, ou não pode alcançar um local de armazenamento particular por causa de um incompatibility do browser em seu biblioteca ou cybercafe?
Passpack.com parece ter a resposta. Você regista com o local para livre (embora está somente em beta, assim que não confiam nele 100% justo contudo), cría um usuário - identificação, uma passagem do início de uma sessão, e inteligente uma chave da embalagem. Somente seu usuário - a identificação é emitida ao local ao início de uma sessão, sua senha é modificada de modo que não seja emitida para trás a Passpack em um estado exposto. Download dos disparadores do início de uma sessão então de sua pasta cifrada da senha.
Um certificado que funciona na janela do browswer (com nenhum info emitido para trás ao passpack deste estágio avante) usa então sua chave da embalagem desembalar a caixa em sua janela de browser. Isto dá-o o e somente (a menos que alguém está perscrutando sobre seu ombro) acesso a sua coleção dos usernames e das senhas, cada combinação associada com o URL apropriado do Web site.
Assim distante, assim bom.
Tentando o um par das épocas, ele é muito fácil de ajustar-se acima e 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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