Login Pages Have More Keys Than A Janitor

Couple of developers are typing away at opposite ends of their missile bunker / co-working space. Both get a Zoom call, and a voice on the other end starts announcing "Skybird, this is Dropkick with
a Red dash Alpha message in two parts... Break. Break. Red dash Alpha."

The two devs look at each other, then back at their screens and begin to authenticate into their OneDrive accounts. "Stand by to log in" says the first.

"Standing by" the second dev confirms.

The voice over Zoom announces "Romeo, Oscar, November, Charlie... Tango, Tango, Lima, Alpha"

Both devs start entering in their passwords. "I have a valid password" says the first dev. The second says "Stand by to two factor authenticate."

They swivel in their chairs to the big red lock-box behind them on the wall, with the words "IGNORE THIS BOX" written on it in big letters.

As the two devs open the box of obscurity, about two dozen key-fobs of various sizes, shapes, buttons, and USBs spill onto the ground.

The first dev lets out a high pitch squealing scream, while the second falls to his knees sobbing. Through the tears you can hear him say "Which on is it?! Which on!?"

Authentication is a complicated problem. Too complicated for these two developers to solve in time to patch the code on all the world destroying guided missiles, and thus starting global thermonuclear war.

Don't let this happen to you. Learn your options when it comes to security tokens. Figure out what the difference between U2F and WebAuthn is, and what does someone's dog has to do with it all.

We are here to help. Friday's STL2600 + DC314 we are going to go through the various forms of authentication mechanisms available today, how they work, and explain their differences. At least that's what we are going to try and do. Otherwise we also might just end up on the ground crying over a pile of USB keys. Find out which it's going to be.

As usual, doors add 6:00 and talk 7:00. Talk will be virtualized. We’ll stream as per usual from: https://meet.jit.si/STL2600May